Madonna is at her most appealing as an alert, funny ensemble player. We are less persuaded when she has to sustain a leading role through forceful delivery, though her quieter moments suggest she has more to offer.
Fi1m perspective
In A League of Their Own (1992), Madonna makes Mae Mordabito someone we would like the film to spend more time with. Her alertness makes a supporting character worth following, even when the story has other business to attend to. We were cheered by Mae’s humour and Rosie O’Donnell’s blunt Doris Murphy, and wanted more of their company. Tom Hanks’s coach, Jimmy Dugan, gets more attention than he needs when these two are available.
Her first major screen role was Susan in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), a part close to her emerging pop persona. She later played Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy (1990), opposite Warren Beatty, who also directed. The title part in Evita (1996) placed singing at the centre of her performance, giving her a substantial musical lead after the supporting work of the early 1990s.
The limits are harder to overlook in Guy Ritchie’s Swept Away (2002), where she plays the socialite Amber Leighton. Amber’s imperiousness is established so firmly that Madonna’s abrasive delivery soon becomes repetitive. There is scarcely room for an embarrassed pause or an unexpected response; we keep being told how unpleasant she is. Ritchie’s romantic comedy does little to help, and Madonna and Adriano Giannini cannot make the antagonists interesting together. Yet she becomes more convincing when she quietens down, allowing a vulnerability that the bickering usually shuts out.
The poorly received leads in The Next Best Thing (2000) and Swept Away were followed by increasingly infrequent film roles. It would be easy to let the latter settle the question of her acting, but Mae is a good reason not to. Our reservation is about how insistently she can state a character, especially when the writing has already done the job. Give her someone worth exchanging a joke with and there is more to watch. Start with A League of Their Own; there are worse complaints than wishing a supporting player had been given more to do.
Biography
Madonna, born Madonna Louise Ciccone on 16 August 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, is an American actress. She appeared in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) as Susan, Dick Tracy (1990) as Breathless Mahoney, Shadows and Fog (1991) as Marie, A League of Their Own (1992) as Mae Mordabito, Four Rooms (1995) as Elspeth and Evita (1996) as Eva Perón.
For her performance in Evita, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. She has also appeared in Die Another Day (2002) and provided the voice of Princess Selenia in Arthur and the Invisibles (2006).
