Call it a double comeback! We’ve seen great films from Atom Egoyan and Amanda Seyfried before. But the last decade has been rough going, filled with mostly misses, or generic supporting performances. Seven Veils is the best either has done in years, hopefully bringing about a double Renaissance of quality films for the world to enjoy.
Mirroring the actresses real public life, Seyfried plays Jeanine, a generational opera composer with a world renowned father. The big opera in town brings Jeanine in to direct her father’s masterwork, Johann Strauss’s Salome. Besides the wrangling Jeanine has to do with props artist Clea (Rebecca Liddiard), and lead singers Johann (Michael Kupfer-Radecky) and Ambur (Ambur Braid), Jeanine also has to walk the opera board’s line of recreating her father’s work while also putting her own little stamp on the play.
Egoyan and Seyfried worked together on Chloe 13ish years ago; that movie laid the ground work for their trusted partnership which pays dividends for both. While Seyfried can focus on the acting, Egoyan can do the “story within a story” idea and infuse it with his deliberate, dreamlike essence. The production design and lighting stand out: Egoyan’s use of shading and non symmetrical stage design bathe the story with that off kilter feeling all Egoyan’s great films have. And even though you feel like you’re inside someone’s thoughts, Egoyan’s storytelling leaves just enough clues to keep you invested as he hammers home the emotional beats he wants to get to. Not all the beats work and the pacing could pick up just a little, but like The Sweet Hereafter or Exotica, Seven Veils’s emotional journey will find itself staying with you after the movie is over, pondering what type of magic trick Atom Egoyan pulled off.
Much of that magic is due to Amanda Seyfried. Despite being in the public eye for a long time, Seyfried has been content in the last decade to take smaller, meaningful roles to rebuild those acting muscles she exerted in the late 2000s. Seven Veils only works if Seyfried nails Jeanine, inside and out, which she does. You can feel the duality of the character all the time, saying one thing outwardly, but clearly emoting something else as she says it. We’re aways away from ditzy Mean Girls Karen; Seyfried captures the day to day, moment to moment, emotional complications of being an adult, and how to cope with each feeling, good or bad, and grow as a result of it. It’s quiet but messy stuff, that makes for a great leading lady performance I’ve been waiting from Amanda Seyfried for a long time and so happy I finally got to see.
The seven veils have been lifted Hollywood! Atom Egoyan and Amanda Seyfried are back, and hopefully here to stay. Since this pairing works, let’s just keep giving them little projects here and there to wow maybe the Academy crowd someday. Or give them a Madame Web reboot. That would be either a masterpiece or epic disaster: I’m here for the sweet hereafter of either!