Emmy FYC: Eliza Scanlen in "Sharp Objects"
Friday, June 21, 2019 at 11:39PM
Team Experience is sharing Emmy FYCs as the television Academy finishes their voting in the next few days. Here's Ginny O'Keefe
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
“Don’t tell Mama.” Three words that left me gasping and slack-jawed all through the credits of the final episode of the hauntingly beautiful and addictive HBO miniseries “Sharp Objects”. Now I, along with everyone else who watched this Jean-Marc Vallée gem, ranted and raved about Amy Adam’s broken and scarred performance as Camille Preaker (I think its her best performance to date). And of course, shook my head in incredulity and awe at Patricia Clarkson’s callous and melodramatic Adora Crellin. But one performer who perfectly balanced being the star of the show and not drawing too much attention to herself was the crafty newbie Eliza Scanlen. Her performance as the psycho-in-plain-sight, Amma Crellin, was one of the breakouts of 2018, and just like the show it cut deep. Unlike Emmy sure things Adams and Clarkson, she lacks star power to stir talk of a nomination, but it's an honor she needs and deserves. It all comes down to her twisted performance, which doesn’t lack for power.
Every time Scanlen came on screen I would get severe anxiety (I hadn't read the book that the show is based on)...
She expertly walks the rope between being a psychologically tortured teenager and murderous snake in the Missouri grass. What was so great about Scanlen’s performance as Amma was just how believable it was. She could look like a prim and proper American Girl Doll in one scene, doing what her Mama says, to a ruthless hard-partying mean girl and she makes both personas fit the character like a glove. Sickly sweet in one scene, and then poison in the next.
“I’m incorrigible too. Only she doesn’t know it”, Amma brags to her big sister Camille about how she can put up a front to fool their overbearing mother.
Scanlen makes Amma more than just a disturbed teenager who kills. She makes the audience see nearly every emotion pass on her face and every thought go through her messed up mind. Amma hurts and she kills because she is made to think that she has to in order to be loved. She has a mother who makes her feel like the best little girl in the world, while also nurturing her with anti-freeze. It’s two wild contradictions that make Amma’s motivations fascinating. And when she feels that the love may be slipping away and shared with someone else, she eliminates competition. Scanlen reveals Amma's calculations, but doesn't make her a cold person. When a fight breaks out at her mother’s home amongst the townspeople, Amma runs into the woods so the focus is back to her and her rescue. When her friend Ann gets too fond of Adora, Ann shows up dead without her teeth. You see her confused and hurt when Adora starts to care for a sick Camille, the same loving way she does for Amma. 'But what about me? I’m sick too! I’m your little girl! Pay attention to me or else you won’t like what happens!' Scanlen’s face and timing say it all throughout the whole season, she’s like a homicidal Tinkerbell. She needs attention or she’ll kill. And Amma even says it herself...
I get funny ideas sometimes…I know I’m a little off.”
The best part of Scanlen’s performance and what makes it the sickest part of Amma’s character is how she dangles the fact that she is the killer throughout the whole season, but she’s smart enough to know that no one will think that she did it. She enjoys the incompetence of the local police department and even rubs Camille’s face in it, “You could kill me right here, and you know what? Dickie Boy still couldn’t figure it out.” Scanlen knows how to play good girl with a secret, and she plays the game very well. It was a perfectly fitting and delicious twist that she was the killer all along. What's more it's a twist she earned and having the last words of the series come from Scanlen’s scared little girl voice made it so much juicier. The icing on Scanlen’s performance were the final shots of her in a white dress (Persephone come to Earth). Her Amma is a complicated and messed up gift with a pretty bow to hide all the evil and pain inside; that’s why her performance both fascinates and slices deep. So give her the nomination, or else Amma will kill again!
Amy Adams, Eliza Scanlen, Emmy, FYC, HBO, Patty Clarkson, Sharp Objects, TV
Reader Comments (6)
Terrific performance in a difficult role.
Ginny -- love your description of this performance. I hadn't thought to put it in those word but I too felt very strong sense of anxiety in her every scene. That's on the actress and what a breakout turn.
She was so terrific in that role. I had read the book and di not remember how it ended. I hope she gets nomad.
I'm guessing Sharp Objects has largely faded in many of the voters minds, but Scanlen deserves just as much recognition as Adams and Clarkson. It's a helluva performance.
Her creepiness is borderline sing-song. She's one of the reasons I thought the series was much better than the book. Can't wait to see what she does with Beth in Little Women.
You summed it up well - she did bring so much anxiety with her in every scene. And the way she was like a cat playing with the mouse with Amy...it was impressive to see considering Amy's own gravitas and experience.
I suspect once she came into audition it was like a lightning bolt and no one else could play the part.