film of the decade Inland Empire

...is also Laura Dern's bravura role. As her character falls down the rabbit hole she switches with razor-sharp precision from Hollywood princess to Southern belle to downtrodden housewife to battered street prostitute, inhabiting each one with absolute clarity and truth. A marathon brutal monologue, delivered to a silent, sweaty bald man in glasses in a seedy back room, is so shockingly intense and real that you feel you are living it with her. It must be the most remarkable performance by an American actress in the last decade, and it was almost completely ignored...

INLAND EMPIRE, a round-table Alternate Take