Happy Birthday Samantha Morton

Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002) has a scene where Tom Cruise's character has brought Agatha (Samantha Morton) with him to see the proprieter of a futuristic virtual reality entertainment place and when he finds the guy, the guy takes a look at Agatha, stares in disbelief, crosses himself, and kneels in her presence. He recognizes Agatha as one of the 3 PreCogs (precognitives) who serve as the bedrock of the Department of Pre-Crime, who use the PreCogs' visions of future murders to prevent them from happening. The film goes to great lengths to repeat that Agatha is the most powerful of the three, the most gifted, so it is understandable if people of the future would look upon her as a sacred deity. You look at Samantha Morton, head shaved, still not acclimated to being yanked out of her Matrix-like pod, cowering against Cruise's character, those big soulful eyes darting every which way, and it's like she is absorbing all things at once like some sort of superconsciousness. There's something mystical about Samantha Morton that just puts her on a higher level than most other actresses of her generation. She has a numinous alien presence that lends well to playing naïfs, such as Hattie in Sweet and Lowdown (1999) but was also employed for her spooky portrayal of Myra Hindley in HBO's Longford (2006).


It wasn't until I watched Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar (2002) that it really hit me how singular a personality she has, a weird aura. I've heard people dismiss Morvern Callar as morbid navel-gazing, but if a character is compelling, I'm willing to watch them.

Morvern Callar, set in Scotland, begins with as grim an opening scene as I've ever witnessed. Morvern (Samantha Morton) is lying on the hardwood floor of her flat. A few feet away is her boyfriend's dead body. He has killed himself. On the computer is a note he left while she was asleep: "It just seemed like the right thing to do."

If the dead body had been the boyfriend of any other female character, this scene would have been nothing special, but because the body is the boyfriend of Morvern, Lynne Ramsay gets to explore the alien reaction of one of the strangest characters in recent memory. Any other girl would have done one of two things: 1)panicked and begun sobbing hysterically or 2) numbly stared at the aftermath in disbelief. Both would dash from the apartment sooner or later to get away from the dead body. What at first appears to be the second reaction reveals itself to be not numbness or disbelief, but a sort of eerie curiosity - she strokes the fresh corpse's back, lies next to it, the red glow of the Christmas tree lights flashing in the dark room. She then methodically opens her presents - her boyfriend has gotten her a cool jacket, and a custom mix tape of songs. She listens to the music on her Walkman while smoking a cigarette. She reads the rest of the suicide note on the computer, where he leaves instructions for her to send a manuscript of his novel to a Book Publisher whose mailing address he has provided. She deletes his name as the author and replaces it with her own. She has done all of this with the dead body lying on the floor. I imagine some people would find this young woman to be a sick individual they'd have no desire to spend time with. This might be sick behavior, but I was fascinated by her reaction, or lack thereof. Morvern may very well be insane, but it is a very quiet insane - she has a preternaturally calm demeanor, and it is especially puzzling in the face of such a cruel tragedy. Other than her boyfriend, Morvern has no one but her good friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott), who works as a supermarket clerk with her. But even Lanna doesn't know what kind of oddness Morvern is capable of - the girl is in her own timezone.

Samantha Morton is the only person who could've played this role. I spent a lot of time wondering what her character Hattie (who is mute) was thinking in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999). What goes on in this strange creature's head? There is something inscrutable about her lovely face; it's a poker face. That's why she was perfect to play Myra Hindley in Longford where the whole driving force of the movie was whether or not she was telling the truth about not being complicit in the Moors Murders with her serial killer boyfriend, Ian Brady. She can seem so innocent, but the next instant, one can see the glassy-eyed malevolence of a shark. She is awe-inspiring, and holds a mystery that more revered actresses like Cate Blanchett cannot match. And besides her tremendous work in Longford, Jesus' Son (1999), and Sweet and Lowdown, it is of my opinion that the crowning achievement of her 18 year acting career is her confounding performance in Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar. Check it out.