She’s still pretty good now – but to see Olsen’s real dramatic scams, you need to turn to Facebook’s “Sorry For Your Loss”.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
A young widow, played by “Avengers: Endgame” star Elizabeth Olsen, struggles to make sense of her world after her partner’s sudden and premature loss. She finds herself desolate, struggling to make sense of a future that now looks impossibly bleak, and tries – sometimes through destructive behavior that hurts herself, as well as everyone around her – to reconcile not only the sadness of losing her husband, but also destroying her hopes and dreams. In the process, Olsen uses all the tools in his acting toolbox, finding new ways to arouse empathy in viewers, always finding new levels in his sadness and anger, but also protecting the little moments of joy and hope that arise, spontaneously, while she tries to untie her pain without undoing her soul.
For all the similarities that can be drawn between the above description and Olsen’s dynamite performance at Disney +’s “WandaVision” center, it is actually a little-seen program on Facebook Watch that demonstrates the breadth of Olsen’s reach, the drama of two seasons of 2018 “Sorry for your loss. “
Peak TV is a double-edged sword, in which the sheer number of content providers means there is more room for stories to be told. Small stories, in particular, prospered with the expansion of streaming TV, providing calmer narratives, previously meant to be told only through independent films – if that – the opportunity to explore their subjects with more time and depth.
The downside, of course, is that while Peak TV allows exponentially more stories to be told, it also means that there is more competition for viewers than ever and that series on less established networks and streamers can easily be overlooked due to sheer lack of exposure. .
This is certainly not an issue for “WandaVision”. The first TV project from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that comes close to capturing the large-scale narrative and impressive production values of its film franchise appears to be delighting Marvel fans and enjoining them en masse for the series in a way that previous TV ventures, including ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD” and Netflix’s “Iron Fist”, never did.
Elizabeth Olsen on “WandaVision”
Courtesy of Disney +
Throughout “WandaVision”, which ends on March 5 with the end, the audience raved about Olsen’s performance, peaking with the eighth episode, in which the series finally allowed titleholder Wanda Maximoff to process part of the pain for the loss of her partner, Visão, which she has been postponing since the beginning of the show. For fans who only know Olsen for her work as the Scarlet Witch within the MCU, this is one of the first opportunities to experience the actress’s true range of skills and they are impressed, to say the least.
But for fans who have been eyeing the actress since her 2011 performance in Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, this new appreciation for Olsen’s abilities is not a surprise, but an inevitability.
Which means that if you think Olsen’s acting skills in “WandaVision” deserve Emmy’s attention, you haven’t seen anything yet. The truth is that while Olsen is doing a great job on the Disney + series, his performance can really be shown by supporting actress Kathryn Hahn’s work as Agatha Harkness, recently revealed to be an evil genius who manipulates the world of Wanda.
To see Olsen’s real dramatic strokes, you need to go back to “Sorry For Your Loss”.
In the two-season series created by Kit Steinkellner and often directed by screenwriter and independent director James Ponsoldt, Olsen plays Leigh, a young aforementioned widow who is dealing with life after her husband’s mysterious death. Throughout the 20 episodes, we see Leigh and her friends and family – featuring notable performances by Jovan Adepo, Kelly Marie Tran and Janet McTeer – as they learn to move on and try to prevent the tragedy from further breaking their lives.
The entire series lives and dies with Olsen’s performance. Grief doesn’t make sense at the best of times, as our minds struggle to make sense of the loss and in “Sorry For Your Loss” the matter is further complicated by the story of Leigh’s husband’s depression and the hazy circumstances surrounding his death than suggest that perhaps they were not accidental.
Elizabeth Olsen on “WandaVision”
Courtesy of Disney +
Olsen slides seamlessly between emotions, from anger to denial, frustration and more. Much of her pain is transmitted only by her eyes and sometimes she appears as a zombie, just a flash of life in her eyes, like a candle intimidated by the wind.
As much as I hate to recommend someone to visit Facebook, “Sorry For Your Loss” is worth the trip, only for Olsen.
Which is not to say that the actress is not doing an incredible job on “WandaVision”. If nothing else, his great dramatic work is underpinned by remarkable comic work, as we have rarely seen from Olsen. She has no right to be so convincing when she puts on shoes stolen from the classic sitcom luminary lockers, channeling her best Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore and, hell, Jane Kaczmarek.
To that end, Olsen definitely belongs in the Emmy conversation, not only to make up for lost time in relation to his work on “Sorry For Your Loss”, but to pay tribute to his work on “WandaVision” which shows his tremendous dramatic talent and, even more impressive, presents it as a true comic delight.
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