Kate Winslet is an actress who has already enjoyed a career that has spanned over twenty years, seen her tackle some great roles, and become one of the greatest actresses of her generation.
Kate Winslet In A Little Chaos
While Winslet has mixed and matched her roles and characters during her career, she has taken on a large number of period dramas - and has always found success in this genre.
She returned to the big screen earlier this year with A Little Chaos, which is released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 24th August. To celebrate the release of her latest film, we take a look back at some of her greatest period dramas.
- Revolutionary Road
Winslet reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio back in 2009 when they starred in Revolutionary Road - their second film project together and their first since they were catapulted to fame in Titanic a decade earlier.
Revolutionary Road saw the pair team up with director Sam Mendes for the first time as they brought the critically acclaimed novel by Richard Yates. The duo took on the lead roles of Frank and April Wheeler, who in 1955 find themselves in the seventh year of their marriage, and in a life that appears seemingly perfect but is in fact deeply unfulfilling after descending into jealousy and the desire to have their own independence.
It was great to see Kate and Leo sharing the big screen once again and they both deliver powerful and emotional central performances. Revolutionary Road is an intense portrait of a crumbling marriage and how love, marriages, desires, and dreams change over time.
While Revolutionary Road is a movie that explores some big themes and ideas, Mendes has delivered a movie that is incredibly personal and intimate as well as unflinching.
Winslet and DiCaprio really get under the skin of these central characters and it is their central performances that truly elevate this film. The pair capture some raw and emotional moments that are fantastic to watch.
Winslet went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama for her terrific central performance.
- Finding Neverland
Hard to believe but Finding Neverland is a movie that has already celebrated its tenth anniversary - it really was released back in 2004. It doesn't seem five minutes since I was sitting down in the cinema to enjoy this adaptation of the Allan Knee play.
Directed by Marc Forster, Finding Neverland follows J.M. Barrie and his friendship with the Davies family, who would inspire him to go on and write his greatest novel, Peter Pan.
The movie saw Winslet team up with Johnny Depp for the first time as she starred as Sylvia Davis - mother of four young boys who befriend Barrie (Depp) - in what was one of the best film dramas to hit the big screen that year.
From start to finish, Finding Neverland is a heartfelt and touching moment about childhood, innocence and holding on to that belief in something greater that you cannot touch or see.
Depp and Winslet have a terrific chemistry; Barrie is a man with a large heart and a touch of innocence while Sylvia lives in the real world of having to bring up four boys after the death of her husband. Winslet's performance in particular is effortless and the final scenes really well break your heart and bring a tear to your eye.
- The Reader
It was the beginning of 2009 when The Reader finally hit the big screen in the UK and was to be the role that FINALLY saw Winslet get her hands on a Best Actress Oscar. This was the fourth time that she has been nominated for Best Actress and the sixth time she had been nominated overall: she also had two nods for Best Supporting Actress.
The Read was a big screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink and saw Winslet team up with director Stephen Daldry for the first time - this was Daldry's first film since The Hours back in 2002.
The movie begins in post-war Germany. Teenager Michael Berg (David Kross) is taken ill and helped home by Hanna (Winslet), a stranger twice his age. Recovering from scarlet fever, he seeks out Hanna to thank her, and they begin a passionate affair. But suddenly, she vanishes.
Eight years later, while Michael (now played by Ralph Fiennes) is a law student watching the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to see Hanna again - this time in the dock. As Hanna's past is slowly revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives forever.
The Reader is one of the most interesting Holocaust movies of recent years as it explored the idea of Germany's post-wat guilt and the impact that the Holocaust has had on the generations that followed.
At the centre is a stunning performance from Winslet as a woman who is trying to lead a quiet and inconspicuous life after being an SS death camp guard. It is this quiet and devastating performance that anchors this movie and makes it the truly intriguing watch that it is.
- Quills
Winslet starred alongside Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine back in 2001 when Quills hi the big screen. The movie was based on the play by Doug Wright - Wright had also penned the screenplay - and saw Philip Kaufman in the director's chair.
Quills is based inside the wall of an insane asylum where
infamous writer the Marquis de Sade (Rush) is being held for his scandalous and pornographic works. He manages to befriend the young Abbé de Coulmier (Phoenix), who runs the asylum, along with beautiful laundress named Madeline (Winslet).
Secretly continuing to write his provocative books, Madeline assists by smuggling the manuscripts out of the asylum to be published. However, when they are discovered, the ramifications are severe, and stretch far beyond the walls of the asylum...
Quills is a movie that explores sexual fantasy and eroticism as well as poking at the sexual taboos. Rush really is on top form as the Marquis de Sade, while Winslet and Phoenix are superb supporting stars that carry the film's love story.
It's a movie that's packed full of great performances, visually stunning and - at times - laugh out loud funny as Kaufman injects humour and a lot of wit into the film.
- Titanic
Kate Winslet was no stranger to the big screen when she took on the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic 1998, but it was the role that turned her and Leonardo DiCaprio into global superstars.
Written and directed by James Cameron, the movie followed
the ill-fated love affair between young aristocrat Rose DeWitt Bukater and penniless artist Jack Dawson, as they both embark on RMS Titanic's maiden voyage.
Titanic was met with critical acclaim and huge box office success as it became the first movie to gross over $1 billion worldwide. The move would remain the highest grossing film of all time until Cameron returned with Avatar in 2009.
Since the initial release of Titanic, we have seen it re-released into cinemas and now it is one of two films that has grossed over $2 billion - the other being Avatar.
The movie was nominated for a whipping fourteen Oscars - winning eleven, including Best Picture. Winslet picked up her first Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance and the second Oscar nod of her acting career.
- Sense & Sensibility
Sense & Sensibility is one of my favourite period movies as director Ang Lee and writer Emma Thompson brought a fresh and new interpretation of the Jane Austen novel to the big screen - it was released in the UK at the beginning of 1996.
Hard to believe, but this movie will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year and was one of the films that really helped to put Winslet on the acting map as she took on the role of Marianne Dashwood, alongside Thompson, Gemma Jones, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman.
The movie follows Elinor & Marianne Dashwood and their mother as they struggle financially after the death of their father. Follow them as the sisters try to get their lives back on track and navigate their way through life and love.
Sense & Sensibility is a fresh, witty, and funny adaptation of a great novel - Thompson went on to win an Oscar for her work on the screenplay - that is lifted even further by great direction and some wonderful central performances.
Thompson and Winslet are perfect as the titular opposite Dashwood sisters and it is the central relationship that really is the heart and soul of this film. Winslet's performance made many sit up and take notice of this young actress and she went on to pick up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination - the first Oscar nod of her career.
- A Little Chaos
This wonderfully romantic period drama focuses on brilliantly talented landscape gardener Madame Sabine De Barra (Winslet) who finds herself an unlikely candidate for landscape architect of the still-to-be-completed Palace of Versailles.
Thrown into the bewildering world of the court of King Louis XIV (Alan Rickman), she finds she has little time for the classical, ordered designs of her employer, the famous architect Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts). However, as she works on her creation, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to him, while attempting to negotiate the perilous rivalries and intricate etiquette of the court.
Winslet in the central role of a strong and independent woman is a major strength of this film. Winslet turns in another good performance in the central role and plays Sabine with such honesty and emotion. The actress slowly peels the layers of this character back to reveal a lost and broken mother who is looking for forgiveness.
A Little Chaos is not a movie that re-defines the period drama, but it is a movie that you can kick back and enjoy, as there is some great talent on show.
A Little Chaos is available on digital platforms from 10th August, 2015, and on Blu-ray and DVD from 24th August, 2015, courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
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