Horror Actressing: Rebecca Ferguson in "Doctor Sleep"
Monday, December 2, 2019 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
(As the year marches towards its conclusion we're using our weekly "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series to take a look at the best of what the genre's given us in the past 12 months, actress-wise. Here's our latest fave 0f 2019.) It's an exciting time to watch Rebecca Ferguson on-screen -- you still get the feeling of discovery every time she shows up, like we haven't got an inkling still of what she's capable of tapping into. She's reminding me of Andrea Riseborough in that way...
It took me several years to even get a handle on Andrea's face, so shape-shifty was she from role to role, and like that Ferguson has revealed herself to be a generously capable chameleon.
Watching her kick-ass in that chartreuse gown in Mission Impossible Rogue Nation three years back did it occur to me that Ferguson would have a "Rose the Hat" in her? Not a lick. And yet there she was, rocking a silly-arse hat and yet somehow being far and away the best thing going on in the Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, utterly horrifying in ways that crawl in and nestle deep, some specks of adorable little boy dripping from her fangs. Her Rose the Hat is alluring and repulsive, brutal and unsettlingly erotic -- a whole bunch of wrong things roiling up inside of one slinky cow-girl silhouette.
Mike Flanagan's movie relies a lot (i.e. too much) on the whizz-bang mechanics of high-budget horror moviemaking, CG jewelry boxes and obsessively detailed replicas of the Overlook sets, when all the film really needs to do is aim itself squarely at Ferguson's face -- the delight she shakes with when Rose does horrible things; the shudders she undergoes, full bodied, when frustrations take hold. These are the shards of nightmare stuff, assembled piece by piece by Ferguson into something sharp to slice up the audience with, and she leaves many a mark.
Reader Comments (4)
I also really liked Ferguson in Doctor Sleep (a movie that was so going well until the final onslaught of way too many references to Kubrick's 1980 film - a shame b/c everything was going so well before). She's easily the best villainess of the year. Hats off to her!
(You see what I did there)
I keep waiting for her and Risenborough to both break through. Riseborough has been in an Oscar film (Birdman) and lifted her character into Shakespearean tragedy levels in Oblivion. If The Red Tent was released like The Irishman Ferguson would have gotten Oscar buzz. That was such a "wow look at who this is" performance. When I heard she had been cast in Girl on the Train I truly thought she scored Blunt's role.
Rebecca Ferguson looked like she was having a blast as a very VERY bad creature. The death sequence of one child is one of the most gruesome I have seen in a while. Really enjoyed this movie, and it's marriage of the novel and the 1980 movie. Much better than the book!
Underrated film and performance. All around.