Testing The Limits

“Where’d You Go, Bernadette” and “Good Boys.”

- Anthony Lane

In 2005, the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role—what a mouthful—went to Cate Blanchett, for playing Katharine Hepburn in “The Aviator,” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, as Howard Hughes. “Aren’t we a fine pair of misfits?” Hepburn asks him, more amused than rattled by his wealth, and casually trouncing him at golf. What defeats Hughes is not her short game so much as the fade of her long and lofted vowels. As you’d expect, these are feigned to perfection by Blanchett, though the film doesn’t allow her portrayal of Hepburn to be much more than a star turn, and we are left wondering: Could Blanchett conjure up the spirit of her predecessor— that earthy air, both queenly and puckish—without recourse to impersonation?