I understand the deserved praise for Matt Damon, Jude Law, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, and Cate Blanchett. But I didn't think that I'd get so hooked on Gwyneth Paltrow's performance.
SPOILERS
It was so interesting to see her character have affection for Tom and gradually start to pay attention to his strangeness. The part where Tom surprises her in the garden and she screams in terror for a moment. It was amazing seeing her start to realize, mostly through facial expressions, how Tom was manipulating certain situations, but also still in the dark, thinking Dickie is alive and avoiding her. The scene where she confronts 'Dickie'/Tom through the doorway, and starts sobbing about her broken heart and confusion, it was real.
When she finally puts two and two together about the murders, about Tom's leeching and ease of jumping from one plot to another, when she finds Dickie's rings, the terrified acting and crying were all real. When she bumps into the door and jumps from fear, the tension was palpable.
And in her final scene, which is really what I can't get out of my head, when she knows that Tom is just moving on to leech Peter, when she goes full throttle on her anger and runs back to the dock to attack him, she screams "I know it was you! I know you killed him! I know you killed Dickie!! I know it was you!!" and she just devolves into sobbing as they pull her back onto the boat. Wow. The rage, the hysteria, the fight to not be gaslit, the sadness and despair, it's all there in her performance, in her voice and wails. I felt for Marge in that moment. I wanted her to rip Tom's eyes out, but of course I also wanted Tom to succeed and continue.
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This movie was amazing, this part was also fairly small, but Paltrow brought it to the table. The rest was all so beautiful and well done. I'm gay and I'm so surprised I had never watched this as Matt Damon and Jude Law are in their prime. But really the performances, setting and cinematography make this movie top quality. It was a certain era in Hollywood for sure.