Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Sometimes things just take time

I like when the unlikely character makes it.

A few years ago, I was watching Paris Je T'aime for the second time - having fallen asleep midway the last time it came on TV (not the film's fault, I was exhausted). I'm glad I stayed awake through to the end because the final story '14e Arrondissement' by Alexander Payne reached right inside me and made me cry. 


This was the genius of Margo Martindale - whose name, I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until last evening when the 2011 Emmys were broadcast in India. It was a great evening for unlikely characters. Peter Dinklage won. The funny women of American TV gathered en masse on stage and suddenly I had a glimpse of what the world might look like one day when more women were at the top of not just their game but THE game.

Miss Martindale is as far from the LA cookie-cutter star as your imagination can take you. She fumbles, bumbles, sobs most unprettily, does not have great posture or body, is not a 22-year-old 60 year old and she has never, until very recently, been recognized for her powerful talent.

Then this happens to her:


And in her acceptance speech I find the faith I sometimes struggle to have in my own life: "Sometimes things just take time..."

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