Tis the season for the Oscars…falala lala lala lala. Netflix has been trying to step up their game, offsetting their normal piles of pandering crap with some genuine Oscar contenders, you know, the serious dramas with serious acting and all that.
Ms. Berry wants an Oscar. She already has one and (almost unbelievably) to this day and age remains the only black actress to win one for a main role. Now she wants another. Mind you, I’m not sure she was all that deserving of one for Monster’s Ball – but everyone was just too dazzled by her going so makeup free and rough they gave it to her anyway. For this one, she just might actually deserve the golden man. Not that it’s an especially good movie – Bruised is one of those athlete redemption stories that hits every cliché it can find – but Berry’s commitment to her material is most impressive. It stands to mention, I’m not a huge fan of hers, I never found her especially talented or as attractive as everyone seems to think she is, she’s likely my least favorite Berry, way below blue-, straw-, etc. so this is an unbiased as it gets. But credit where credit due, she not only starred in this movie, she directed it, directed herself doing some pretty crazy sh*t. On top of it, she’s in crazy good shape. Let’s face it, the woman’s 55. That’s insane, that’s some vampire-like age-defying magic. Even without makeup, even covered in bruises, she still can easily pass for someone a decade younger. I presumed she played someone a decade younger based on her character, who has a 6-year-old. Granted, in real life Berry has a kid about that age, but that’s some celebrity nonsense. Real life people don’t have babies at that age. None that I know of. The kid is sort of a catalyst for Berry’s character. Up till now she was getting by with cleaning houses and drinking, after ungracefully bowing out during a fighting tournament. But now she’s suddenly a mom and she’s gotta step up her game, so she decides to train to get back into fighting, gets herself a new coach and goes at it, full throttle. You know exactly how the story is going to play out and it’s been done before in a number of movies, arguably superior movies. So the main thing to watch here is Berry and, boy, does she go for it. It’s like she has an Oscar checklist on her and is determined to hit every line… Deglamorization -check Alcoholism – check No makeup, rough appearance – check Stunning physical transformation – check Viscerally realistic sex scenes – check Lesbianism – check Brutal realistic violence – check Child abuse – check Panic attacks – check And on and on it goes… So yeah, someone give Ms. Berry an Oscar, she finally earned it. Did I love the movie? No, not really, Did I love Berry’s character? No, not really. In fact, she’s positively sh*tty to her lesbian lover (25 year her junior Sheila Atim, way to buck the system that normally skews such age difference only for men), practically using her for her own purposes. She’s also volatile in a way that may not be great for a new mother, however cute the kid is. But, all that aside, this movie was just too bruising of an experience to not be properly rewarded.
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