“Silkwood” (1983)
Considering its based-on-a-true-story provenance and the perfectly A-list (for the time) cast—Streep is supported by Cher and Kurt Russell—there should by rights be a sense of worthiness to “Silkwood.” After all, these are movie stars at the height of their glamor playing blue-collar nuclear power plant workers whose rights and then very lives are put at risk by The Man. But the performances, which are all excellent, especially Cher as the best friend and Streep’s gently offbeat portrayal of Karen Silkwood, along with sensitive direction from Mike Nichols (from a Nora Ephron script), transform the film from a standard workers’ rights/whistleblower narrative into a character portrait nonpareil. Indomitable though her spirit may be, Streep’s Silkwood is also occasionally clumsy, sexy, irritating and selfish. She has an affair, she runs late, she chews gum, she gets things wrong —she’s a person, never just a symbol. It’s perhaps the best iteration ever of one of Streep’s great skills: when she tamps down that glossy, patrician, fine-boned beauty and burrows into a de-glammed role, she inhabits it in such a wholehearted way that we realize there’s no such thing as an “ordinary” person.
“Out Of Africa” (1985)
Epic romance doesn’t get much more epic (or overblown, if we’re being less charitable) than in this story of Danish Baroness Karen Blixen (Streep) and her affair with big-game hunter Denys Hatton (Robert Redford) in Kenya. In all honesty, Sydney Pollack‘s “Out of Africa” is too long for the frail dimensions of the story, and seems to somehow get slower on every viewing. But as something of a controversial Best Picture winner, with lacklustre direction and eye-rolling dialogue, it’s rescued, however, by John Barry‘s translucent score,David Watkin’s cinematography (thanks in full to the enchanting beauty of the African plains), and, of course, Meryl Streep’s stoic and robust portrayal. She plays an aristocratic woman desperately trying to remain in her element while battling the rampant misogyny and colonial racism of the time, and with another spot-on accent and all the exterior aloofness befitting a Scandinavian baroness, Streep etches yet another essential character into her canon that is both stunning and the very portrait of poise (Pollack initially thought she wasn’t “sexy” enough for the part, which is absurd). At the end, when she reads that letter and can’t let go of the dirt, well, even the film’s harshest critics can be forgiven for turning tearful.
“Ironweed” (1987)
Héctor Babenco‘s rendition of William Kennedy‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Ironweed” is bourbon-soaked theatricality with plenty of sorrow and not a whole lot of plot. This makes for a tough viewing experience, and were it not for two acting titans in the lead role, we’re pretty sure the whole thing would’ve collapsed. Jack Nicholson and Streep reunite on screen (they’ve done the much lighter “Heartburn” the year before) as two homeless drunks who exist in a vacuum of bitterness and despair; Nicholson’s Francis haunted by his troubled past, and Streep’s Helen resentful at herself and the people who’ve mistreated her. We don’t know much about Helen, in fact, which makes Streep’s utterly mesmerizing performance all the more memorable. By submerging every inch of herself into this cracked shell of a woman (her gait, her bone-tired 1930s accent, etc.), she breathes life into a lifeless character. You could almost feel the entire weight of the Great Depression on her face as she sings “He’s Me Pal,” and the way she refuses Nicholson’s sandwich or prays to St. Joseph in the church tells you everything about Helen’s disoriented pride and shattered spirit. In “Ironweed,” Streep (together with Nicholson, who is just as fantastic) does that thing she does and makes you forget the screen every time she’s on it.
“A Cry In The Dark” (1988)
Streep built something of a reputation with a handful of critics for being too cold and technical an actor, and her turn as Lindy Chamberlain (alongside her Karen Blixen in “Out of Africa”) is one that surely stoked those fires the most. Bugger those critics, though. In “A Cry In The Dark,” the devastating true story of a woman who loses her baby to a dingo in the Australian outback only to be demonized by an entire nation and accused of murder, Streep delivers yet another one of her subtly seismic performances. Not only does she get that Australian accent down so pat that you find yourself re-checking her bio just to guarantee her birthplace, but the way she balances her grief at the loss of a child, her disappointment in her husband (a super-solid Sam Neill), and the interior vitriol bubbling as a consequence of the harassment she experiences, is nothing short of masterful. It’s impossible not to be hypnotized by her Lindy even when she’s in the background of that courtroom, and when she finally takes that climactic stand (“It’s been going on for two years..”) you can hear a needle drop, right before it punctures the heart. A rivetingly dramatic performance that should be studied in every drama class.
“Postcards From The Edge” (1990)
The 90s was something of a tumultuous decade for Streep as she transitioned away from the serious dramas and romances that became synonymous with her name in the 80s into lighter territory. While she did receive a Globe nomination for her farcical performance in the 1989’s “She-Devil,” it was really “Postcards From The Edge” the year after that sealed the deal on her surprisingly well-honed comedic chops. The combination of the professional familiarity she’d built up with her friend Mike Nichols (this was their third film together), her first-hand experience of being an actress in Hollywood, and working opposite the legendary Shirley MacLaine, paved the way for Streep to deliver one of the funniest turns of her career. She nails the insecurities, paranoia, and racked-up tension that befit a drug-addled starlet like Suzanne Vale (based on Carrie Fisher‘s quasi-autobiographical novel), and watching her square-off against MacLaine is an infinitely entertaining series of ding-dongs. She laughs, she cries, she cracks wise, she screws up and she even sings; her country number over the end credits being the final proof that Streep’s bow has all the strings.
