Diane Venora

In Heat (1995), Diane Venora's Justine makes the unhappiness at home part of what we are watching for. Opposite Al Pacino, she gives those scenes enough emotional weight to compete with the cop-and-robber pursuit. We felt for Justine because Venora gives her unhappiness an urgency that survives the distractions of the crime story. Michael Mann gives his supporting company time, and Venora justifies it: the scenes away from the central rivalry have something at stake.

Her film career began with Wolfen (1981), before Bird (1988) brought wider recognition for her Chan Parker. By Heat, she was working in the supporting parts that provide the clearest evidence of her strengths in the films we have reviewed. Her Shakespearean stage background also found a film role in Gloria Capulet in Romeo + Juliet (1996). That experience helps explain her readiness to give a character considerable emotional force, even when the story has more business elsewhere.

In Heat, that force also has help from Elliot Goldenthal's music, which keeps sadness and unease present in the quieter passages. Venora belongs to an ensemble with Val Kilmer, Amy Brenneman and Ashley Judd whose characters reward the film's patience. The loneliness comes through because Mann spends time with these people, instead of merely telling us that the central men have complicated lives. He does sometimes let his characters explain themselves too much. Venora's value is clearest when the emotional pressure is sufficient without further explanation.

The Insider (1999) is a useful caution about the same approach. Liane Wigand's domestic scenes can become repetitive, slowing a gripping account of a tobacco whistle-blower's struggle to be heard. The film occasionally labours what we already understand, and there is only so much an actor can add by playing the strain once more. We would like to see more parts that give Venora something beyond another troubled household to contend with. Start with Heat, where the time given to her pays off.