Horror Actressing: Gwyneth Paltrow in "Se7en"
Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
The glimmers of hope that shine through the dank squalor of David Fincher's serial-killer masterpiece Se7en, which is turning 25 today, are so few and far between that we find ourselves clinging to them like life-rafts bobbing down a turbulent sewage drain. One of the library's security guards says, "We got culture coming out of our ass," and then they do, as the gentle strings of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air Suite No. 3 In D Major" fill the golden-hued dungeon where Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) does his dark research. Similarly Brad Pitt's Detective Mills finds some peace at home playing with his beautiful lively puppies, all locked into a small room lined with newspapers where the dogs do their own important business. Happiness looks like it smells bad!
This nameless city is torrential rain and moldy wallpaper most of the time -- when it's not simply carved-up bodies rising to the surface -- and so Gwyneth Paltrow, ever-chic and resolutely blonde as sunshine, she stands out the first second we see her, coming as she does nuzzled up against Brad Pitt's wall of themselves golden abs. Now this, this right here... is the magazine ad picture of desirable domesticity -- the dream that four years later in Fight Club Fincher would satirize so memorably... although it didn't take him that long, given our postcard pretty couple's fate right here. Like Psycho's shower and the beach in Jaws nobody would ever quite look at a cardboard box the same way again post-Se7en.
We see far less of Tracy, Paltrow's character, in the film than I recalled, and my recollection must have faltered precisely because Paltrow manages to make such an impression in her two big scenes -- early in the film she invites Somerset over for a home-cooked dinner at their mid-unpacking apartment (do note how it's filled with, gasp, cardboard boxes). And not long after Tracy calls Somerset up out of the blue for advice, and the two have a cup of coffee at a greasy spoon straight out of central casting. Every space in this city as Fincher paints it is a familiar set gone to seed, just more of it, as if these places have been automaton running since the 1920s, the dishes and dinge piling higher by the day... whatever a day means in this world with no sun. There's no exit from this grinding, awful machinery.
The contrast between Tracy as we see her in that dinner scene and when we see her next, at that diner, is at first stark. The majority of Se7en is supposed to take place over the span of a single week -- "Seven days, Seven sins," you can practically hear the mad-faced carnival barker barking -- and yet between these two moments, seemingly only a couple of days apart, she's half dissolved before our eyes. On a first viewing you get the sense that it's the city's rattling her, with the subway trains literally rattling their walls every twenty minutes, but on multiple views you can see Paltrow connecting the dots between these two different faces from the start and it seems to be of her person, not just this place.
Tracy is already lost in her thoughts the minute we meet her, missing half of Somerset's houseguest questions, off cued. And across that dinner scene we can see the woman's focus pull tighter, calmer, as she realizes under that gruff exterior Somerset is actually a decent and good man. A man she can talk to and trust. Tracy has her own world of secrets piling up, just off camera -- Paltrow makes her relief in the presence of decency so colossal and hungry that we can't help but take notice. This is a drowning woman in desperate need of a drink. She latches on to Somerset like salt-less gallons in the sea.
Of course in the grand tradition of these movies the forgotten wife must play our tragedy, and Tracy must become the devastating consequences of this place and her husband's blind decisions -- she is another victim, more golden gasoline for a man's righteous vengeance. And yet Paltrow's performance, small as it is, always digs around for me into some deeper spaces -- in her limited screen-time Paltrow somehow manages to make the chess-move horror of Tracy's end entirely about Tracy. We never even see the infamous head in the box and yet in the face of these men's clever and horrible games with one another, so loud against the finally summoned orange-toxic sunlight, I forever feel the devastating weight of all that's missing with Tracy, the person not the pawn, suddenly tipped over on the board.
Reader Comments (15)
I quite like this performance... I equate it very similarly to Charlize Theron in THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.
Tracy, Marge Sherwood, Kitty Dean: Paltrow was always outstanding in the margins. Time has proven her to be a better supporting actress than leading lady.
Gwyneth really did all of us dirty when she stopped caring about acting. As a result of her career decisions/abandonment people have now seriously disregarded her quite obvious gifts. Loved her in this movie (and in many others).
She's very good here, and like others, I deeply miss paltrow on screen. She was highly entertaining during the first season of The Politician, but she really should be on our screens more in better roles.
She is great in this. She comes across as so warm and emotionally present that it makes the final twist all the more horrifying.
As much as the win is derided, she was absolutely exquisite in Shakespeare in Love, both as Viola AND Juliet. Pitch-perfect
She's always been so lovely at playing tender and hopelessness (as in Se7en), or even frailty, and though I think she works playing with other keys and tones, it's in that shine that blooms out of her when she's calibrating her role to be more sensitive and introspective, and earnest, where her talent really bursts through.
She's also great in Sliding Doors, which I often find to be very underrated!
There are times where Gwyneth Paltrow does showcase her worth as an actress but at times can be full of herself. This is an example of her being this amazing actress while I do enjoy watching her in the MCU despite my personal feelings for her as a person.
I always felt such sadness and her in Seven but her Pitt seemed so comfy and at ease I bought them as together straight awaythe funny banter about the noise felt real but I thought she was an afterthought to make us sympathise with Pitt at the end,it was so cruel to kill her yet that's why it's a classic,she may have had scenes end up on the cutting room floor.
Nat's is correct she has been so good in so many things from Malice in 93 as a fed up student to to her 2 best roles in Proof and Sylvia,many today just know her as Goop.
Gwyneth Paltrow , I have and always will stand for her; She became an easy target for obvious reasons nonetheless people tend to overlook what a gifted actress she is, I am really happy she's an Oscar winner , love her carrer from 1996 to 2008 she really delivered a couple of Oscar worthy turns ( The Royal Tenenbaums, Proof, Two Lovers ) she's worked with very interesting directors and I love how she always brings something unique and luminous to otherwise thankless roles ( Se7en, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Iron Man).
She was always a good actress... a bit of a shame that she lost interest in acting and also that her silly business and public persona have made people largely forget her talent.
Having said that, at least she does seem to have a sense of humour. She definitely won me over with her Se7en-themed Halloween costume: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba1wvKjHI-8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Thank you so much for this post JA, it brought a spark of joy to my morning when I saw the headline. SE7EN is one of the few movies that I rate as "close to perfect", but the bigger excitement is that I have always graded this performance as Paltrow's best, and it was good to see another rooting for it. Seriously, the cafe scene between Freeman and Paltrow for me rates as one of the best two-player scenes of movies released in my lifetime, up there with Pacino and de Niro in HEAT and Eisenberg and Mara in THE SOICAL NETWORK. The acting isn't flashy, but it is so goddamn perfect.
This is a wonderful performance. You all know I think she was better than Blanchett in that year and she DESERVED her Oscar, but she's even better in Seven and Hard Eight.
Gwyneht Paltrow didn´t deserve the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (Fernanda Montenegro should have won for Central Station).
But she was adorable in Emma, and excellent in Sliding Doors and Two Lovers!
When will she come back in good projects?
I love Paltrow, I miss her, I think she's fab in Shakespeare in Love and I never had any problems with her Oscar winning (Ok, the notorious Harvey campaigned hard but the other companies weren't all indies and besides Academy members had watched the other nominees and so they could have made freely other choices if they had wanted). Se7en was the first time I saw her in a film (except her "blink and miss" appereance in HOOK) since I had escaped JEFFERSON IN PARIS and I would have watched FLESH & BONES several years later.
I'm glad her work in Fincher's film is so appreciated, of course I totally agree, I just wanna add that in this movie I found Freeman's perf I ansolutely prefer
Freeman and Paltrow should have gotten Oscar nominations for Seven.