Sienna Miller is the best thing about Horizon

Kevin Costner sank a coin of your own money in his projected four-part western epic Horizon; the first installment, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, it is now circulating in theaters, as Costner always intended; he sincerely believes in the big screen experience. This first Horizon the entrance is a little sleepy, although beautiful. Costner, who also co-wrote the script (with Jon Baird and Mark Kasdan), may not have the best handle on this sprawling story populated by a giant and somewhat confusing roster of characters. But her judgment is correct in at least one area: Sienna Miller plays Frances Kittredge, a pioneer wife who survives an Apache attack on the homestead she set up with her husband and two children. And if this first chapter of Horizon often drags its boot heels in the dust and comes to life every minute Miller is on screen.

Miller has worked in film and TV for 25 years; practically everyone knows her name. And yet, she’s a secret weapon, an actress you can count on to give an amazing performance almost every time – and proof, though it’s sad that we need it, that women need to work twice as hard as men to counter Hollywood’s pernicious double standard. .

When Miller — who was born in New York but grew up in London — was first making his mark in film, giving lit-from-within supporting performances in films like the 2004 film Alfie remake (appearing with Jude Law, who would become her boyfriend) and, from that same year, the crime thriller Layer cake (with Daniel Craig), she was praised as the next It Girl, the blonde ingénue most likely to become a huge star. She Got Her Chance in 2006 by George Hickenlooper Factory Girl, an astute and sympathetic look at the life of socialite Edie Sedgwick, who captivated Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan, although she was betrayed by the former and, it seems, too much of a rocket for the latter. As Sedgwick, Miller is sensational, moving through subtle gradations of fragility and effervescence; at times, she has the tremulous vulnerability of a young Natalie Wood. It’s the kind of performance that she could have, should have won awards for. At the very least, it could have made her a bigger star.

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But the film stumbled. Before its release, there were rewrite and reshoot reports; was considered “problematic”, an adjective that has always been considered, often unfairly, synonymous with “bad”. The film was picked up for distribution by the Weinstein Co., and now-disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein instigated the changes that were made to the film. (Miller said she never had to push him away – it seemed like having Law as her boyfriendan actor whom Weinstein viewed as valuable property, protected her from his predatory advances.) The film was largely attacked by criticsand quickly disappeared from cinemas.

The biggest problem for Miller was that, especially in the British tabloids, she had already attracted the kind of attention, including undue scrutiny of her personal life, that had nothing to do with her gifts as an artist. In the years leading up Factory Girl, she had, like Guardian I placed it in 2005, “was traded like pork belly in the celebrity market.” By that time, Miller had already given acclaimed performances in the West End: when Helen McCrory fell ill during the 2005 season As you like, Miller, who played Celia, is said to have perfectly stepped into the role of Rosalind at the last minute. Also during this race, news broke that Law was cheating on Miller with his children’s nanny. It was a scandal that seemed to affect her more than the guy who actually cheated on her. (Law publicly apologized to Millerbut the damage was done.)

Worse still, just weeks after Law’s deception was exposed, British tabloid The Sun obtained information, through illicit means, that Miller was pregnant – she was 23 years old and only 12 weeks pregnant at the time and had barely discussed the matter, even with family and friends. O SunJong-un’s manipulations, along with any personal trauma the cheating scandal has caused, were devastating for Miller, and she sued the newspaper. At the end of 2021, She reached an agreement with the Sun– pursuing him to the end could have bankrupted her. She received an undisclosed sum and one of the conditions of the agreement was that there would be no admission of illegal activity or wiretapping on the site. Sunis part. Miller was, however, allowed to read a statement in court, during which she stated that the newspaper’s actions “almost ruined my life. I certainly saw how they ruined other people’s lives.”

It’s impossible to imagine a male public figure’s life being shaken in exactly the same way; men don’t get pregnant and there is simply no comparable violation of privacy. And although Miller sometimes brought trouble upon herself – e.g. making a joke for Rolling Stone about the monotony of the city of Pittsburgh, where she spent time filming the 2008 film The mysteries of Pittsburgh—The rejoinder published in Pittsburgh City Newspaper came graced with the headline “Who the hell does this bitch Sienna Miller think she is?” When it’s time to put a woman in her place, why no use language that identifies you as despicable, ugly and/or sexually promiscuous?

Miller was subjected to levels of scrutiny and judgment that no man would ever have to endure. But even if she hasn’t, for whatever reason, had exactly the career she deserves, no one needs to feel sorry for her. In terms of purchasing power, she may not be a Nicole Kidman, a Sandra Bullock, a Scarlett Johansson. But she has undoubtedly built something equally valuable, and perhaps more: a summary of performances in smaller films – as well as small performances in big films – that blossom and expand before her eyes. Miller is never an actor who looks at me. She’s something even rarer: an actress you’re always happy to see. And how do you measure the value of that?

Miller’s list of credits is so long that even those who consider themselves fans probably won’t have seen it all. She makes the most of every minute on screen. In Clint Eastwood American sniper, she plays Taya, the wife of Bradley Cooper’s real-life Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, a woman who watches her husband, after serving four tours in Iraq, walk away from her. If the film was largely a vehicle for Cooper, Miller, accepting the challenge of playing a woman – a widow – she knew in real life, is the film’s silent center. “I need you to be human again,” she begs her husband, who has returned from battle only physically. Miller’s Taya is querulous, probing, but also resolute, willing to face the reality that life with a perpetual ghost is no life at all.

Miller is equally brilliant in James Gray Lost City of Z, where she plays the wife, a different kind of lost man, an explorer (played by Charlie Hunnam) obsessed with finding a mythical city in the Amazon. Miller’s Nina Fawcett is an early 20th century woman with a refined fortitude, a woman who loves her husband with an almost mystical selflessness. The performance comes down to one of Miller’s most elusive qualities. Early in her career, with her charming vintage-boho wardrobe and freewheeling openness in interviews, Miller gave the impression of being a “fun girl,” a rock star girlfriend, even if she wasn’t dating any literal rock stars. . It’s ironic, then—or maybe it’s just the reality of how young actresses’ careers are made or broken—that as an artist, Miller always seems to be drawing on vast, self-replenishing reserves of mystery. No matter how many interviews you read, she is essentially unknowable, as if she is harboring pieces of a secret self, only to be revealed, in countless ways, in her performances.

She’s also been fantastic in films that few people bother to see, like James Toback in 2017. An imperfect murder (originally titled The private life of a modern woman). Miller plays Vera Lockman, an unemployed actress who is trying to be a writer – and who, in addition to dealing with this career change and several family problems (her grandfather, played by Charles Grodin, suffers from Alzheimer’s), must also dispose of a corpse. Miller’s performance is wonderful: Vera’s insecurities, her submerged hopes, become real to us – she captures the texture of what it’s like to have to think for yourself, only to feel the ground slipping beneath you. In the early days of Hollywood’s #MeToo reckoning, Toback faced multiple accusations of inappropriate and manipulative behavior. But no matter how distasteful you may find him and his actions, it’s important to note that when a filmmaker falls down, we often inadvertently punish women as well. Once again, Miller’s thunder was stolen, through no fault of her own, by one man’s bad behavior.

Horizon it could be a way to right some of these cosmic wrongs. Even though Costner’s first film was wildly spacious, like Frances Kittredge, everything Miller does is compact, powerful, moving, but at the same time infused with air and light. His character can be positioned as the innocent white woman who must be protected at all costs from Native Americans – in the future Horizon installments, Costner can introduce more nuances in terms of his side of the story, although in Chapter 1 those subtleties have yet to emerge. But this deficiency has nothing to do with Miller. If she isn’t the absolute star of Horizon– that would probably be Costner, who appears on horseback in the last third of the film – she’s by far the best thing about it.

In an early scene, when Frances is called to protect her teenage daughter during the attack, she has to think fast and act even faster; Miller somehow transforms Frances’ brainwaves into a presence you can feel. Later in the film, Frances will begin a cautious romance with a US Cavalry officer played by Sam Worthington. He is slow to take the first step; She has to take charge. Miller has a great voice, like vanilla mixed with bourbon. But if he’s seductive, he’s also infinitely trustworthy. Frances, like so many pioneer wives, suffered and endured great loss; she is tough. But Miller doesn’t play her as a martyr or as a figure pieced together from other film portrayals of similar characters. Instead, Frances is a new invention, riding the breeze from the past to the present. We’ve seen her type before. But we never saw her. And every time she appears, in almost every project, that’s what Miller does: she challenges us to really see, which is a world apart from just giving us something to look at.