The Best and Worst of Laura Dern

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “Little Women” star Laura Dern.

Films starring Laura Dern that I've seen:
Smooth Talk 
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
Little Fockers
The Fault in Our Stars
When The Game Stands Tall
Wild 
99 Homes
The Founder
Wilson
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Cold Pursuit
JT Leroy
Marriage Story

Best Performance: Marriage Story (2019)
While Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannsson may be the captains of this impeccable ship, Dern's part in helping Marriage Story achieve elite acting ensemble status can't be slept on. Her delivery of the God/Mary Magdalene monologue in the final act alone should be enough to put her at the forefront of the Best Supporting Actress conversation, but it also helps that she plays an all time ruthless lawyer that will happily put anybody that has the misfortune of squaring off against her in a courtroom into a body bag.    

Worst Performance: When the Game Stands Tall (2014)
As the wife of the head coach (Jim Caviezel) this football drama centers around, Dern is handed a disappointingly minor role in a mediocre movie that would've greatly benefited from prominently featuring a commanding screen presence.

Best Film: Jurassic Park (1993)
26 years after its release, Jurassic Park remains the epitome of blockbuster entertainment. The ensemble cast (Sam Neil, Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L.Jackson, Wayne Knight, the late Richard Attenborough) all nail their roles, Spielberg's tense, epic direction makes every huge dinosaur setpiece riveting and perhaps most impressively, the visual effects have held up remarkably well. It's a damn shame that none of the sequels have managed to be even half as well-crafted or fun as this.  

Worst Film: Little Fockers (2010)
I'm among the pretty small group of people that found Meet the Fockers to be a worthwhile sequel to Meet the Parents. While it didn't match the near non-stop hilarity of its predecessor, the oil-and-water dynamic between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro was still very effective and the casting of Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand as Stiller's eccentric hippie parents couldn't have been any better. Let's just say that enthusiasm died out with the following installment. Little Fockers proved to be a completely forgettable affair that failed to recapture the delightfully uncomfortable situational humor of the prior films or bring anything new to the table to compensate for the absence of the formula that drove the past successes.

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. In two weeks, the next victim of my praise and ire will be “Underwater” star John Gallagher Jr.