Michelle Pfeiffer: <i>Dark Shadows</i>

Michelle Pfeiffer: Dark Shadows

Revisiting and celebrating the work of Michelle Pfeiffer, the best actress of my lifetime.

Dark Shadows (2012) reunited Michelle Pfeiffer with Tim Burton twenty years after their first collaboration in Batman Returns (1992). That film features one of Pfeiffer's most ferocious performance, as Catwoman. She has a smaller role in Dark Shadows, but still turns in an exquisite performance for Burton once again.

As reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Pfeiffer presides over the Collinwood estate with a reserved grace and steely determination. When the Collins' immortal descendant Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) returns, she reluctantly welcomes the vampire back to his ancestral home. Elizabeth can be stern, but she loves her kin, and is as fiercely protective as any mother. She strives to ensure that the Collins family does what it's always done: endure.

In a movie filled with memorable, scenery-chewing performances from Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia and Eva Green as Angelique, Pfeiffer is understated and subtle, both beautifully melancholic and deliciously droll. The patented Pfeiffer eye roll is used to glorious effect, along with her unique ability to deliver lines that positively drip with sarcasm. In the final act, she's also a sight to behold: Pfeiffer, as a smoking hot, shotgun-toting mama bear, out to protect her cubs from the evil Angelique.

Dark Shadows was released during an interesting, often overlooked period of Pfeiffer's career, sandwiched between two separate, four-year breaks from acting. This 2007–2013 stretch is worthy of rediscovery, as Pfeiffer delivered one confident, nuanced performance after another in films like I Could Never Be Your Woman, Hairspray, Cheri, Dark Shadows, and People Like Us.

While Dark Shadows may seem like a minor work in Pfeiffer's filmography, it's a good example of her strong, mostly under-the-radar work during the early years of the millennium. Beyond that, she's simply delightful in the film, plus she looks absolutely fabulous in Elizabeth's period costuming and gloriously cascading blonde locks.

Despite that exquisite, sun-kissed California beauty, Pfeiffer has always had a wonderfully dark edge to her. Burton's films offer a perfect vehicle for her to express that side of her personality. Dark Shadows may be the lesser of the two films she's done with the director—and, really no collaboration between the two could ever equal the scorching intensity of Batman Return's Catwoman—but there's still plenty to enjoy and appreciate about Pfeiffer's subtly memorable work as Elizabeth.

Comments

Paul SJune 21, 2018 at 7:09 AM
Your passion for Pfeiffer is as inspiring as it's entertaining. May you always provide some Michelle related items to keep a smile on my pface.
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