dead eyes are his reward

Spiderman 2 is yet more proof that Kirsten Dunst is an acting sensation. Really. Does she create a complex and accurate simulation of internalised psychology? No. Does she go crazy with a wide regimen of excellently macho method acting mannerisms, developed specially for the role after much research — surely the marker of “great acting”? Uh, no. Does she make you identify with her character? Often not. In fact, her technique is fairly one-note: she delivers a killer look. And that look is so multipurpose, so welcome to an influx of determinations, that if used with great timing, it will be enough to carry her entire career.

The key is that her eyes go dead. Whenever any of her characters has a meaningful moment with another, watch the muscles above her cheeks slacken and her lids grow heavy as the irises seem to glaze over. Expressionless. It’s killer. On the most important level, Dunst has grasped that great acting isn’t about the supposed presence of emotion, and that often, it’s about the absence of that which we think signifies emotion. In Interview With The Vampire she sucks her first blood, gives us that look, and whispers, “I want some more”. There, it’s chilling. When she’s in a cafe with Peter Parker and her eyes go dead, it’s an engulfing void that says “I am your whole world”. In Bring It On, her cheerleading masterpiece, the dead look most often signifies bratty outrage.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s “authentic” (and thus somehow “convincing”) or not. What matters is that it creates the right effect. And that will always flatten that army of character-acting pretenders like the melismaphilic, over-emoting Mariah Careys they so resemble.