Luisa Contini literally does *nothing* but complain throughout the entire goddamn movie, yet Cotillard transforms Luisa's whining into nothing short of angelic martyrdom. Her desperate devotion to a husband whom she alternately hates and worships; her exquisite anguish at being torn between supporting the Guido Show and finding her own self-assertion is continually expressed by little more than a glance or a embrace.
Well, what kind of a role does that sound like, really? Kay Corleone! A tool used by her doting/patronizing husband, an underwritten role which critics called a little more than useless. A role that, as gallantly as Diane Keaton tries to play her, is so annoying we couldn't care less what happened to her. What if Marion Cotillard, with her unmatched empathy and grace, had been there forty years earlier? *Sigh*. Of course, there's the problem of Marion being French, since I always thought the point of Kay being an all-American WASP was to show Michael's conflict between his inescapable Mafia roots and his (failed) attempts to assimilate into the "legitimate" American life.
Nevertheless! If I were any good at graphics I would try to Photoshop Marion Cotillard into a Godfather frame, but as it is, you'll just have to settle for this:
"Oh, Michael. Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion. Something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of your sons into this world! It was a son, Michael! A son! And I had it killed because this, must all end!"
Can't you TOTALLY see Marion doing that? I can. The look of pain in her large, miraculously expressive eyes, as Marion's hissy French accent trembles with barely contained anger and scorn, something similar, I imagine, to her electrifying interrogation scene in Public Enemies. My, I think that sounds perfect.
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