Melanie Griffith makes sexual confidence look easy and male embarrassment funny. We like her best when a film lets her be more than the woman causing trouble, as Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild does.
Fi1m perspective
In Something Wild (1986), Melanie Griffith’s Audrey Hankel is comfortable with the attraction that leaves Jeff Daniels’s Charles Driggs wondering how much to show. Her ease gives his hesitation its comic rhythm, without making him look foolish for wanting her. We laughed at his attempts to seem relaxed beside her, then felt unexpectedly fond of him, because Daniels makes the embarrassment small enough to recognise. Griffith helps by never needing to force the contrast between them.
The early parts included Night Moves (1975), followed by greater attention with Body Double (1984). Something Wild gave her recklessness and comic timing room to develop, before Working Girl (1988) brought her mainstream breakthrough as ambitious secretary Tess McGill. The vulnerability she brings to that part matters as much as the confidence: it makes a woman intent on getting ahead easier to care about.
Demme is the crucial collaborator here, because he stays interested in Audrey after establishing what she does to Charles. Ray Liotta’s threatening Ray Sinclair draws sharper reactions from both leads without taking the film away from them. Griffith keeps Audrey from becoming simply the woman who gives Charles permission to enjoy himself; she holds our attention in her own right. The weakness is the script’s retreat towards familiar trouble, leaving Griffith and Daniels doing more interesting work than the plot.
The limits become clearer in the later work: Griffith’s accents and vocal delivery drew criticism in Shining Through (1992) and A Stranger Among Us (1992). Her distinctive, girlish voice is not equally persuasive in every part, and a delivery that sounds worked at can make a character harder to believe. Later supporting work includes Charlotte Haze in Adrian Lyne’s Lolita (1997). Start with Something Wild, and allow for the plot becoming more predictable than either of its leads.
Biography
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She was born on 9 August 1957 in Manhattan, New York City, to actress Tippi Hedren and advertising executive Peter Griffith. She graduated from the Hollywood Professional School at the age of 16 and made her feature film debut in Night Moves (1975).
Griffith rose to prominence with her performance in Body Double (1984). She played Audrey Hankel in Something Wild (1986) and Tess McGill in Working Girl (1988), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Her other credits include Buffalo Girls (1995), RKO 281 (1999), Lolita (1997) and The Disaster Artist (2017). She has received additional Golden Globe nominations and a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.
