The Invisible Counterpoint

"[T]he lumbering, gentle Oher", "in a cautious and economical performance", "is the only one who automatically sits down at the table to eat, presumably out of simple good manners, but also out of some idea of what Thanksgiving should be, drawn less from his own experience than from Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom From Want.'" ( Zacharek, "Oscars 2010: In defense of Sandra Bullock" ) + "'Crazy Heart' is exceptionally modest in both its ambitions and its scope." "[P]laying their characters' cautious affection [. . .]" "Gyllenhaal is an understated, guileless actress -- she always lets the role come to her instead of going after it with gusto. Her speaking manner is casual, and as an actress she's often soft-spoken in a way that hints at deep personal shyness." "a strange and slightly awkward sentence that doesn't even have the shelter and the protection of a song around it." ( Zac...

But plumbing the appeal of Dwayne Johnson the actor requires setting the size of the package aside for a moment, the better to zero in on subtleties: The expressiveness of those unnaturally mobile eyebrows or the way, either in character or during the course of an on-camera interview, he almost seems to blush when he makes a self-deprecating joke, as if he were wary of calling too much attention to himself. Johnson is so good-natured that even when he's not wearing a smile, his facial muscles carry the ghost of one. Maybe that's part of his charm as a performer: For such a big lug of a guy, his star quality is of the quiet sort. [. . .] But they haven't tarnished Johnson either. Just as his body has been trained and disciplined to sustain all sorts of physical abuse in the ring (he retired from pro wrestling in 2004), so is Johnson, as an actor, fully willing to endure all kinds of humiliation, ribbing and teasing emasculation — and always with a smile. (Stephanie Zacharek,...