Jonathan Demme

An "A" for effort...Still, the frayed plot strands of the 2004 Manchurian Candidate make it a lame duck to Frankenheimer's first-term thriller.

What remains most striking about Philadelphia may be the...conspicuous emphasis on intense close-ups. They force an inescapable emotional intimacy in relation to issues the mainstream, at least at the time, would rather have looked away from.

That special brand of La Streep mugging—here applied to the character of a hot-mess bar-band deadbeat mom—will wear you into submission until nothing else seems to matter. Except that it should.