The most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world.
|
 |
 
|
Jeff Daniels never delivers
| cowgod | 06/17/25 |
Poast new message in this thread
Date: June 17th, 2025 10:44 PM Author: cowgod (cowgod) The Purple Rose of Cairo. A dual role. A gift. A test. Daniels fails twice.
As the screen idol, he’s supposed to be magic. He’s mayonnaise. No charm, no danger, no allure; just a dull man blinking at the lights.
As the actor, he should be sharp. Cynical. Real. He plays it like the same man with a new tie.
Mia Farrow acts circles around him. The fantasy doesn’t shimmer. The heartbreak doesn’t land. He drags the whole film down like ballast in a hot air balloon.
It could’ve been iconic. Instead, it’s Jeff Daniels.
A Man in Full. He is meant to carry the role. He is meant to be the role. Instead he folds under it. The show moves around him like a body dragging a dead limb. He plays Charlie Croker like a man doing impressions of power. You do not believe he built an empire. You do not believe he fucked women or fought men. You do not believe he ever told another man what to do and had it stick. His face is puffy. His voice, too gentle. His eyes, empty. You watch and wait for something to happen behind them. Nothing comes.
The Newsroom. Sorkin gave him lines to deliver like thunderclaps. But Daniels always mumbles the lightning. He tries to play righteous anger and lands on constipation. The big speech—America is not the greatest country in the world anymore—was meant to rattle bones. It landed like a TED Talk with a bad mic. He fumbles gravitas. He wears it like a child in his father's suit. He does not own the room. He haunts it.
Terms of Endearment. Lithgow is there for five minutes and makes you feel more than Daniels does in the entire film. Lithgow is trembling, alive. Daniels is reading stage directions in his head.
Dumb and Dumber was his high point, and that says it all. He had something there: timing, desperation, a body willing to be humiliated. But it wasn’t craft. It was a fall. And even then, Carrey carried the weight. Daniels just screamed and shit his pants.
You can’t build a film around him. You can’t build a character on him. He is soft clay that won’t hold a shape. There are no stakes in his eyes. No history in his voice. No steel in his gut. He plays strong men, noble men, complicated men—but you do not feel them. He is never the knife. He is never the hand that holds it. He is the drawer it sits in. Forgotten.
|