A Look at Michelle Monaghan’s Career So Far

Michelle Monaghan is one of my favourite actresses of recent years. She is obviously a very beautiful woman but she also has the acting abilities to match, yet not many people would know who you meant if you mentioned her name. I consider her to be a much underrated and outrageously underused actress.

Michelle, as so many film stars do, began her career with a few small roles on television, most notable in Young Americans and Law and Order. She had small roles in the films Perfume and Unfaithful but her big break came in 2002 when she starred in the hit television series Boston Public.

Boston Public set up Michelle Monaghan’s return to the big screen. She starred in It Runs in the Family (2003), Winter Solstice (2004) and had a small part in spy thriller The Bourne Supremacy (2004). Although she filmed scenes for Constantine and Syriana, they did not make the final cut unfortunately. In 2005 Monaghan appeared in North Country and Mr & Mrs Smith.

2005 also brought us Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which is one of my favourite films. Not only does it feature one of my favourite actors in Robert Downey Jnr. it also features Michelle Monaghan. Here, Monaghan plays an aspiring actress caught up in a murder investigation and she brings the character to life with a sort of alluring innocence and cute humour. This performance gained Monaghan recognition as she was nominated for both a Saturn Award and Satellite Award for her performance.

After appearing in Mission Impossible III, Monaghan made another film that I really enjoy and consider to be one of the best written pieces of drama I have had the pleasure of viewing; the film I am talking about is Gone Baby Gone. Monaghan plays the female protagonist, Angie Gennaro opposite Casey Affleck as the two private detectives investigate the case of a missing child. Monaghan received plenty of acclaim for her performance.

She returned to comedy in The Heartbreak Kid opposite Ben Stiller before making Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey. Her role in the drama Trucker won her an SDFCS Award for Best Actress and she then went on to star in Eagle Eye and had a part in Due Date, reuniting her with Robert Downey Jnr.

It seems like Michelle Monaghan has a taste for action films as she starred in Source Code, which I thought was a clever, very interesting film and again, she put in a fantastic performance. And before having a miniscule cameo in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Monaghan made Machine Gun Preacher with Gerard Butler.

Looking over Michelle Monaghan’s career and at her upcoming projects it becomes clear that she is a very talented actress with a wide range of skills; be it comedy, drama, action or thriller you can guarantee that she will deliver a great performance. In my mind it is saddening that not enough people know about this woman. Monaghan has great acting ability and a couple of her films are among my favourites. I hope she can carry on at such a high standard and I recommend anyone to watch some of her films. It is impossible not to fall in love with this woman.

Freedom Writers Passes With Flying Colours

Freedom Writers is a film that I have wanted to see since its release back in 2007 and last night was the night that I finally got round to it. So after waiting four years to watch this film, would it really be as good as I hoped? The answer, in short, is yes.

The story centres around Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank), an inexperienced teacher thrown in at the deep end when she joins Woodrow Wilson High School teaching Freshman and Sophomore years. Erin’s class is full of people of different backgrounds and ethnicities, nearly all of them in gangs and most of them knowing someone who has been a killed through gang violence. When first joining the class, Erin Gruwell is hated by all of the students, predominantly just for being white, but as the film goes on her character grows and she earns the respect of her students. The students learn what it is to be believed in, to have hope in life, and to know how important life is.

Freedom Writers is a truly heart warming story and at the centre of it all is Erin Gruwell, played excellently by the near perfect Hilary Swank. Erin sees the best in everyone, even her students that the rest of the teachers have already given up hope on, but she knows that she can succeed where the system has failed using her unorthodox methods.

The brilliant Hilary Swank is supported by a large group of younger actors and actresses. April Hernandez stands out in particular as Eva Benitez. Her father is in prison because of gang crime and she now finds herself in the centre of a court case where she must decide between gang identification or her new found friends. When Andre’s (Mario) brother is sent down for fifteen years to life he also finds himself being tempted back into the life he led before he knew Ms Gruwell. It is a shame that a lot of these young actors haven’t done a lot of work since Freedom Writers as this film is evidence that they can act!

There are a couple of things about the movie that start to get annoying after a while. There are hundreds (this might be an exaggeration) of shots of moody looking teenagers staring at someone in a rival gang all the way through the film and we also get plenty of shots outside the school where we are shown all the different groups again and again. We get it okay, the kids are in gangs!

The story holds its own all the way through, the characters and their backgrounds are believable and it is touching to see what a connection this young, inexperienced teacher had with a bunch of no hope students and how she impacted on their lives. I would definitely recommend this to anyone, whatever your taste in films, this is a must see!

Freedom Writers: 8/10