Year in Review. Each afternoon, a new wrap up list. Today Steven with our first wine soaked entry...
A lot of us were taken by surprise by the results of the election, and now we find ourselves living in a post “11/8” world. Since that day, how many of you have spent a quiet evening at home pondering the winding road ahead with a giant glass of red wine for company? I know I have. If you answered yes, you're not alone in this and you have fine actressy counterparts. Some of 2016’s best narrative moments have played out just this way. Our screens, large and small, have been filled with fierce femmes sipping some wine, reflecting on life, death, pain, joy…you know, existence.
Join us in tipping a glass to some of the best of those scenes (possible spoilers ahead)...
Certain Women
Kelly Reichardt’s latest explores how we experience and set aside our pain. After annoying exchanges with her husband and daughter, Gina (Michelle Williams), walks away from a friendly gathering with a plastic cup full of wine. She hangs back, lights a cigarette, and reflects. There are no words needed for the audience to absorb her frustration and dissatisfaction. She clings to that plastic cup, and we see the ghosts of what could have been sweep across her face. With each sip, she swallows down another worry, the wine drowning her most nagging anxieties.
Girl on the Train
Setting up the film’s climax, Rebecca Ferguson’s Anna discovers incriminating evidence that suggests her husband may not be the upstanding man she thought she knew. When she hears him walk in the door, she quickly covers up her discovery by pouring herself a (large) glass of wine. It’s not the best scene (or movie) on this list, but it’s hilarious in the way it trades on the stereotype of the stay-at-home wife/mother who self-medicates by drinking. In that moment, Anna reveals to the audience just how afraid she is of her husband, as she risks triggering his suspicion that she may be an alcoholic (like his first wife), rather than confront him about her discovery.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (Finale)
One major change I noticed the show’s evolution from network television to streaming, was a significant increase and spotlight on drinking in the beloved series new episodes. To be fair, the Gilmores come from sturdy drinking stock, and the show never shied away from depicting alcohol (there’s no show about WASPs is the WASPs aren’t swigging their feelings). But Lorelai and Rory are amateurs compared to Queen Emily Gilmore. Kelly Bishop has always been able to command a scene, but especially so with a drink in hand. One of the series’ most affecting scenes comes in the final moments of the finale. Emily has gone through a major life transition after the death of her husband Richard. As the show closes, Emily takes a seats in her lush Nantucket lawn, enjoying the night air with a hefty glass of red wine. It’s the stillest, most serene we’ve ever seen her. As she sips her wine, she smiles, and breathes in, savoring this new life. Previously we’ve seen Emily, spitting and seething with anger, shaking cocktail glasses at her chosen victims. But here she’s seems calm and nourished. She’s at peace. She’s happy.
The Fall, Season 3 (Finale)
Sometimes, when you think of or see someone at home drinking alone, it elicits a judgmental reaction...oh they’re drinking alone, because they don’t have anyone in their life to drink with. And, to an extent, that’s true for Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson. She’s a tough as nails inspector, who has as little time for anyone else’s bullshit as the great Emily Gilmore. But unlike that timeless, uplifting parting shot of Emily, the third season of The Fall ends with Stella Gibson exhausted, bent, and broken. She’s returned home for the first time in months after the her Belfast Strangler case takes a tragic turn. She’s in mourning. She stares at her glass of wine, looking for the answers she thought she had. But the best she can hope for is that the wine, even for a moment, can take away the bit of this disappointment and blur the memory of a terrible day.
Aquarius
Has there been any scene this year as joyous as Clara (Sonia Braga) cutting loose in her apartment? In an effort to block out the noise of a party in the apartment above her’s, Clara pops open a bottle of wine, puts on a record, and lets down her hair. She means business. The potent, lustful combination of wine and jazz takes control of her body. She dances and pours, dances and pours. She loses all sense of abandon and even calls in a male escort to join her debauchery. She’s wine emboldens and lifts her. Up until this moment, we’ve seen her tireless spirit tested by outside forces just waiting to take her down. But here her steely exterior gives way to a gleeful, exuberant woman, the wine reviving a the sense of exhilaration that comes when you remember just how lucky you are to be alive.
Jackie
A distraught Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) decides to indulge herself in a retrospective fashion show, modeling some of her most memorable looks while packing for her move out of the White House. Jackie proves herself a champion drinker, sipping, chugging, and guzzling wine, bourbon, and anything else she can get her hands on. And why not? It would have been such a hassle to pack all those bottles.
And a special shout out to two more of 2016’s champion drinkers...
Amy Adams in Nocturnal Animals
I can only remember a few scenes where Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) doesn’t have a drink in hand. She makes reading look like a fraternity-level drinking game. But, nothing quite matches the hours she spends drinking, forlornly, in the film’s final scene. At first it seemed unrealistic that she would sit alone all that time and not pretend to be occupied with her phone (like any real human), but perhaps she drank herself into such a stupor that the screen was too dizzying to look at? Props to her for managing to look that poised with that high a BAC.
Melanie Lynskey in The Intervention
Who hasn’t imbibed a little (a lot?) when preparing for an awkward conversation with a loved one? Throughout the aptly named The Intervention, Melanie Lynskey’s Annie drinks her weight in wine (at least). As the film progresses, we learn more about Annie’s history with alcohol and learn she drinks as a way to cope with a life she no longer wants to live.
Cheers to you, readers! We'd love to hear about your favorite drinking scenes this year - fun, serious, or anywhere in between. Who is your favorite lady lush?