Julianne Moore in Children of Men

What's that sound?

Oh, it's another actress hitting her head against the glass ceiling people in Hollywood says doesn't exist.

For all the self-righteous noise Hollywood makes about being liberal and progressively-minded, it's still a white, male-dominated industry. Oh, you don't believe me? Well, take a look at the bruises Julianne Moore's picked up during her career. Bonk.

Julianne is a very talented actress and a very beautiful woman. So, unfortunately, what usually happens is that most of the guys in Hollywood making movies won't take her seriously. After all, what beautiful women usually do in movies is take off their clothes, go out with ugly guys old enough to be their fathers, or become lunch meat for serial killers.

Julianne has either been miscast (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Hannibal), or stuck playing another variation of her sad, fragile, and sexually-frustrated housewife/single mom character (The Hours, The End of The Affair, FarFrom Heaven, Boogie Nights, Magnolia). And no, it's not entirely her fault.

Nicholson, DeNiro, and Pacino, for example, haven't played characters other than themselves for years, but whenever they feel like being actors again, the roles will be waiting for them. It's called having a choice. Meanwhile, because of the table scraps Hollywood feeds them, too many actresses are starving to death.

Still, let's not forget that when she's not doing junk, Julianne Moore is a formidable actress. In Children of Men, Julianne has a role that is commensurate with her talent.

It's 2027, the Earth is a toxic, foul-smelling garbage can and most of the people trapped inside it have guns and are goddamned crazy. Oh, and nobody has given birth to a child in eighteen years. Theo (Clive Owen) is an ex-activist who's now a bitter, gin-soaked bureaucrat and all he wants to do with the rest of his life is, as the Pink Floyd song put it, get "comfortably numb". But his ex-wife Julian, a guerrilla soldier hunted by the government, unexpectedly reappears and wants Theo to join her on a deadly and mysterious mission.

Julian, as played by Julianne Moore, is a very important plot construct because she has to convince us that this cynical drunkard would be willing to risk his life. Theo's decision has to be logical. In a bad movie, a bad script would compel him do it just to move the narrative along. If it doesn't make sense, it feels emotionally off-key to the audience and the film won't work. Does Theo tell Julian to "Bugger Off"? No. Amazingly, besides getting Theo to agree, I was ready to pack my own suitcase and join them because Julianne made me believe in Julian. Yeah, she's that good.

A less-talented actress could have easily turned Julian into a dull, placidly-smiling and romanticized saint who walked on water or a shrill, bromide-spouting G.I. Jane, but no, Julianne doesn't do that. Instead, Julianne invests her character with compassion, wit, strength, mischief, poignancy and wisdom. This is a mature and heartbreaking performance that only a woman could deliver, not a little girl.

In less than fifteen minutes of time on screen, Julianne gives us a lifetime. It's breathtaking.

Boom!

Huh? Oh, remember that glass ceiling I wrote about earlier?

Julianne just smashed a hole in it.

And she's laughing.