Small Roles - Big Actors | Patricia Clarkson

High Art

Choosing Patricia Clarkson for this article wasn’t hard. The hard part was finding the right performance to share. She has spent the last twenty-five-plus years turning in one fantastic performance after another.

Whether you know her from The Green Mile, where she played Tom Hanks’ empathetic wife, or her role in Far From Heaven opposite Julianne Moore, she has never disappointed.

In 2003, the year my first film, The Cooler, was in dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival, Patricia Clarkson acted in no less than four of the other films shown there, three of which were in dramatic competition. Pieces of April by Peter Hedges, The Station Agent by Tom McCarthy, and All the Real Girls by David Gordon Green.

However, my introduction to Patricia Clarkson came in the form of Greta, the drug-addled German actress who played Ally Sheedy’s lover in Lisa Cholodenko’s brilliant drama High Art.

The film itself is an unapologetic tale of love, loss, addiction, and identity. It never takes the easy road and delivers real emotional power.

So, why Greta? Why this marble-mouthed addict who is barely conscious throughout the entire film? Because despite her character’s inability to connect to reality, she connects with us, forming a cautionary tale, not just of addiction, but of life choices, regrets, and the delusions she forms to bridge the gap.

Rather than show one scene, I have put together a montage of scenes that show how subtle her performance is throughout.