Discuss: Performer of the Decade?

Like many critics I'm working on my list of the best films of the decade. I have been doing lots of shuffling around, swapping some of the films in the top 20 with films in the top ten, just to see how they look. But something occurred to me. A lot of the films had one thing in common: Scarlett Johansson. What does that mean? Does it mean that she's the greatest actor of the decade? Or is she just lucky? I'm not sure what to make of it. I have never interviewed her (I was once all set for a phone interview for Girl with a Pearl Earring that was canceled) so I can't claim to know what she's like in real life. Frankly, she's not the greatest actor in the world; in bad movies she can seem awkward, fumbling with troublesome dialogue. But there's definitely something about her, and it goes beyond her blonde-haired, full-lipped, smoky-voiced, voluptuous beauty. I might make an argument for her as "performer" of the decade.

Let's look at her first great film of the decade, Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (2001). She plays Rebecca, the best friend of Enid (Thora Birch). They have just graduated high school, and face a long, boring summer. They have long-standing plans to get jobs and rent an apartment together. Rebecca holds to her end of the bargain, but Enid becomes sidetracked with a summer class and a friendship with a nerdy record collector (Steve Buscemi). When they are together, Rebecca and Enid have a funny, dark, cynical rapport. Rebecca is good at keeping up with her friend, but there's the tiniest hint that she's getting tired of it, that she wants to move on. Johansson was only 16 here, and two years younger than Birch, but she seems much older and perhaps wearier.

She shows an "old soul" in that film. But, oddly, later the same year, she appeared in her second great film of the decade, Joel and Ethan Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). She had a small part, as a Lolita-like teen who comes onto Billy Bob Thorton's sullen barber. The role doesn't have the same kind of depth, but she makes it conceivable that her character, Birdy, would be interested in the older man. That theme carried over to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), where her tender, tentative friendship with Bill Murray has already become the stuff that classics are made of. Murray won all the accolades, but Johansson was a key factor in the chemistry.

Just a few months later, Johansson had a lead role in Peter Webber's gorgeous, gilded Girl with a Pearl Earring. I had assumed that she was a girl of her time, and could really only be effective in modern-day films, but here she was playing a nervous, mousy little maid in the 17th century, using her round face for looks of uncertainty, and capturing the attention of a famous artist in the process. The movie was sincere and so was Johansson, and it was a winner. Unfortunately, she was becoming a star, and a series of mediocre films followed, though some critics make a case for Paul Weitz's In Good Company (2004). I don't. Happily, Woody Allen discovered her at this time, and called her into service as his next muse. Their first film together, Match Point (2005), was universally hailed as a superb comeback for Allen, with a much darker, more bracing (and British) sensibility. In it, Johansson was sexy and memorable, but also a key part of an ensemble cast, and not particularly better or worse than anyone else.

Her second collaboration with Allen in 2006, Scoop, was a funny, if minor effort (viciously panned by most critics), but her other films that year were very interesting. I got myself into a bit of trouble with my rave review of Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006); everyone thought I was nuts, including author James Ellroy. But that's because everyone was looking at the film on a purely narrative level, as a mystery with a setup and a payoff. I was looking at it as an experimental film, a personal exploration by Brian De Palma of his own tortured soul. And on that level, the film has some astonishing moments in it. I suspect that De Palma was probably more haunted by Hilary Swank than he was by Johansson, but she's an important part of the whole, twisted picture. Her final picture that year was Christopher Nolan's brilliant, haunting The Prestige; her part was decidedly secondary compared to the main thrust of it, but once again, she was an important part of the film's success.

Finally, last year, there was her third film for Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I named as the best film of 2008 and Allen's true comeback. It was the first film in years where we saw a more relaxed Allen, one who had come to accept the inevitability of life's disappointments, and had found a kind of peace in that. The film follows several young people as they make their way through the world, discovering things that the older generation already knew were there. Yet the older generation can do absolutely nothing to influence or direct the younger one; each generation must find out for itself. In this great film as well as in some of the other, more recent ones, Johansson simply made herself available to a great director and an ensemble cast, remaining open to interpretation and suggestion with her usual allure.

Her worst movies brought out the other side of the coin, including Michael Bay's The Island (2005) and this year's He's Just Not That Into You. She also recorded a couple of CDs, which didn't exactly make the critics applaud. But despite all that, through a combination of push and pull, Johansson has made herself performer of the decade. Not even George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Matt Damon has made as many great films. What do you think, dear readers? Does Scarlett make the cut? Or do you have someone else in mind?