Knightley broke out with the sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham and that led her to be cast as the proper but excitable Elizabeth Swann. This movie was the beginning of Knightley's career as a corset queen, meaning it was the first in a long string of period films. Of course, the Pirates of the Caribbean series has been and will always be The Johnny Depp Show so it's not a good showcase for her talents. But the movie did give us the iconic line "You like pain? Try wearing a corset!" so it has that going for it.
Knightley then took on literary feminist icon Elizabeth Bennett in the latest adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel. Her performance here is powerhouse, doing a modern take on the character while remaining true to the spirit of the novel. The great thing about this performance, which led to her first and only Oscar nomination, is that Knightley brings out the aspects of Lizzie that are unlikeable or frustrating and yet she remains lovable and a heroine to root for. It's a beautiful balancing act and Knightley pulls it off, making Pride & Prejudice one of her most memorable films
Though P&P is one of my favorite Knightley films, the peak of her corset queen career is The Duchess. As the famous/infamous Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire, Knightley puts in her most powerful and expressive performance to date. Her work here is gut-wrenching; she uses her face and body language to convey a range of emotions much darker than anything she had done prior. This movie got overlooked, earning respectable but not remarkable reviews and respectable but not remarkable box office returns. That was probably due to people being tired of Knightley in period dramas (after all, she had just finished her last Pirates movie a year before this movie and that was also the longest one).
Starring the English Knightley, the Australian Sam Worthington as her husband , the American Eva Mendes and the French Guillaume Canet (aka Mr. Marion Cotillard), Last Night is a look at the two kinds of infidelity: emotional and physical. The movie isn't very good because the script doesn't accomodate for Worthington's and Mendez's limitations as actors and even Canet gets saddled with a "charming French guy out to bone your wife" part. So the movie rests on Knightley's shoulders. She gets the most complex character and offers the best performance. This movie is catnip for hardcore Knightley fans like myself not just because it takes place in the 21st century but also because she's never looked better.
A Dangerous Method was Knightley's riskiest and most shocking performance. She throws herself into her role as Sabrina Spielrein, the woman at the center of the beginning of psychoanalysis. It is an extremely physical role, with facial tics and stuttering and the like. Her performance becomes more restrained as the film goes on and the character starts to get help. But critics were so divided over it (some lauding it, others completely trashing it) that she was robbed yet again of the proper awards attention. Personally, I thought Knightley was incredibly brave and unpredictable, grounding Sabrina's hysteria and making her intelligent but confused about herself.
Other remarkable films starring Keira Knightley:
1. Anna Karenina
2. Atonement
3. Never Let Me Go
4. Bend It Like Beckham
5. Love Actually
Hope you enjoyed part 3 of my "5 Films" series. Look out for part 4 with my main man Mr. Channing Tatum. Leave your comments below!
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