Top 5 Actresses of 2022 (So Far)

Having already talked about my favourite performances by the boys more than half-way through the year, let's now move to the women. We've had a lot of bang-on performances by actresses this year, from Zoe Kravitz's thrilling enigma in Kimi to the sensuous urban coolness of Deepika Padukone in Gehraiyaan. 

However, it is only my decision to water it all down to top five that results in the ignoring of a number of significant performances by women this year. 

5. Julianne Moore (When You Finish Saving the World) 

In Jesse Eisenberg's brilliant comedy about a narcissistic pair of mother and son who are desperately obsessed at finding affection elsewhere, the narcissistic mom Evelyn is played by Julianne Moore. A social worker running a shelter home, Evelyn is a sensitive woman who can at times be too consumed by the nature of her work to truly understand her son and his passion. 

While opinions about the sting of drama and comedy informing Moore's performance here can be divisive, I enjoyed it. However, the reason why her performance immensely works is the moving and cohesively real manner in which she brings out the communication and generation gap with her son (played by Finn Wolfhard). 

4. Alia Bhatt (Gangubai Kathiawadi)

Biopics are such an oft-repeated trope in Bollywood now that if Sanjay Leela Bhansali, one of the best mainstream directors in Hindi cinema, would have chosen to direct one, it would only have been differently done. And so, Gangubai Kathiawadi emerges. While it follows a rather generic structure, it works because it is done in a clear-eyed Bhansali way- visually opulent and with poetic dialogues recited with intelligence from another universe. 

It is highly doubtful if all this would have worked as well without Alia Bhatt spearheading the film. As the betrayed, wounded, bad-ass yet highly compassionate sex worker turned social figure, she is a figurine of emotional tragedy and communal intimacy. And all of this, she conveys with a grandstanding precision, full of campiness yet also with a lot of heart. Bhatt is the most convincing Indian female star of our times and this is a fact we can easily embrace without much of the nepotism debate. 

3. Emma Thompson (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) 

Sophie Hyde made one of the most distinguished relationship comedies of all time here, a two-hander embracing the importance of sexual pleasure irrespective of age barriers. It also establishes the need for communication and confidence in one's own body. In the film, we see a middle-aged schoolteacher navigating the troubles of finding excellent sexual activity somewhere in between the death of her husband and inevitable passing. 

This one woman is played by the ever-dependable Dame Emma Thompson with astounding sincerity. She injects such a sense of love and longing to her character that despite talking a lot, she can convey herself really well by the aid of her eyes and hands- and in a single scene, her entire naked body. Her silver hair and wrinkled face will be of immense help to middle-aged and lonely women wanting to embrace their desires, their pleasures and their independence without a sense of fetishization. This is an empathetic performance and a rather important one. 

2. Anamaria Vartolomei (Happening) 

In Audrey Diwan's equal parts heartwarming and life-affirming adaptation of its namesake novel written by Annie Ernaux, Anamaria, who is a rising talent of French cinema of recent times, plays the young and enigmatic Annie whose life as a brilliant young woman is shattered by her dilemma of abortion, a set of weeks which defines her coming-of-age in more ways than one. 

Her acting in the film is so full of conviction and conscience that one is bound to say that one generic thing which obviously applies to all great performances of modern cinema- she sinks into the character. Through every unsure movement, she gets consumed into the thinking woman that Annie is, and blends herself into the sheer skin of her. She ensures to give her complete commitment to the sophistication of her character. 

1. Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Of course, the Daniels succeeded in crafting the most peculiar comedy of the year and the most successful, persuasive mainstream film of the year (and perhaps years), innumerable aspects of which got infinitely discussed through the halfway point. However, it is hard to imagine the film with a man as a a protagonist, that too played by an actor like Jackie Chang. 

And that is because the film's charm, poignancy and magic are carried through by the flawlessness of Evelyn Wang, a woman 'so bad at everything that she is capable of anything', a Chinese middle-aged mother working in America who is intent on being a toxic parent she actually cannot be. And it's harder to imagine this character being played by any Asian-American actor other than the sprawling, masterful Michelle Yeoh. EEAAO is not exactly my favourite film of the year but Yeoh has to be my favourite performer.