REVIEW: A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

From my review for Intelligent Life:—

'Finally, there is his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain), a beautiful gorgon in figure-hugging Armani and long ruby nails with which she ticks off points in the air, itching to call in her mafioso brothers and father to sort things out. “You’re not going to like it when I get involved,” she purrs,   like Jersey shore’s answer to Lucrezia Borgia.  The performance could easily have curled into camp and Chastain knows it: she nails things down tight, controlling carefully an accent it must have been tempting to let run loose, wielding her heavy lipstick and false eyelashes with the same fierce control she prods at her calculator with a pencil while doing the firm’s accounts. It’s fast turning into Chastain’s métier, after making her film debut for Pacino in his version of Wilde’s Salome: women who have tamed the  tigress of their own sexuality to make it do their bidding — lion and tamer in one.'