Julianne Moore as Clarice Starling in Hannibal

She left a bad taste in my mouth.

Worse. She's creepier than the tranny.

I thought she did pretty well. No matter what, people were probably always going to compare her unfavorably to Jodie's Oscar-winning performance.

She was all wrong for the part. Terrible.

R4, who else besides Jodie or Julianne would have been good for the role?

This movie would have been a perfect choice for the completely forgettable movie sequels thread. I totally forgot about it, (and I kind of liked it).

R5 Hmmmm.. I'm drawing a blank. Foster was pitch perfect but Moore felt off. Maybe Diane Lane, but that's a big maybe.

R5, nobody but Jodie would have worked in a film version. She, like Anthony Hopkins, became iconic in Silence of the Lambs and thus were too associated with their characters.

Oh, cmon! Helen Hunt !!!!

Never a good idea to introduce a new actress when an iconic, Oscar winning actress is already heavily associated with a character.

She’s not Clarice!

Mindy Cohn could have drawn out the comic aspects of Starling's character that Foster let unexplored.

*left*

R12, hilarous!

I think Siobhan Finneran could do it now.

Carol Channing would’ve been a bold choice.

I wasn't really impressed with Jodie in that movie (or the film in general, except for Hopkins, the lurid subject matter and the moody lighting). I was distracted by her hair color, her generic 'Suthun' accent and that weird stuff she does with her mouth. She has a rather unexpressive face. Like a fashion model, she can do: 1) serious; and 2) happy.

[quote]Carol Channing would’ve been a bold choice.

Colon? When did I eat colon?

Terrible. Julianne can usually do no wrong but it wasn't her fault. It was a really stupid choice, though. She didn't even dye her hair!

Nobody but Jodi should have been hired. I understand why she didn't. It was not well done but entertaining enough if you wipe your mind free of SOTL.

Shelley Hack, Rose!

Julianne did fine, and even managed to make me forget about Jodie a bit during the movie.

But to be honest, Hannibal is a movie that truly should have never been made. And it must have been hard for Julianne, because she was not only playing a character but had the added layer of, in a weird sort of way, playing Jodie Foster playing a character.

How much did Julianne get paid for this?

I never liked Jodie in the part, either: much too plain and plodding. Clarice was supposed to be striking and assertive, which is why the men she worked with hated her. At the time the film came out, I pictured Julia Roberts in the role. (Like her or don't like her, Julia was lovely as a young woman, and the attitude and Southern accent would have come naturally to her.)

Julianne as the older Clarice was okay. Certainly no worse than Jodie.

The book shit all over the SOTL legacy

Jodie was divine as Clarice.

Julia Roberts would have, at some point, let out that hyena laugh and ruined the film.

R24 Yeah, that ending made no sense. Sure he had her hypnotized for a while, but then they ran off together to Buenos Aires and were opera buffs. Totally out of character for Clarice. I guess he wanted a shock ending. The movie version was more faithful to the Clarice character (setting aside Julianne Moore's performance).

The book left it open whether or not she was aware of what she was doing when they were in Argentina. It really shit on the movie version of SOTL. I refuse to believe that it happened.

Didn't Jodie turn it down because of the book's ending? She felt it betrayed the character (it did), but why wouldn't she sign on for the movie that stays truer to the character? It definitely put Moore in a tight spot. Perhaps if they'd recast Hopkins as well, it wouldn't have been as jarring, but they just didn't have that same chemistry.

[Quote]She falls in love with Lecter and becomes a cannibal

What? I never heard about this. This is ridiculous. The movie Clarice respected Lecter, but also dispiced him and would never fall in love with that guy or kill people with him. What a shit ending. It's not shocking, it's just ridiculous.

She got at taste for it after she consumed Krendler's brains. She also breastfed Hannibal in the book.

Yeah, Hannibal looks like an interesting psychodrama until about two thirds through, when you realize where they're going with it, and then you just want to fucking barf.

The book ending was ludicrous. But they did hint she was hypnotized.

Jodie probably should have done it but either way, the movie was nowhere near the quality of SOTL. Only she had the chemistry with AH but I don't think either could have saved the film.

Clarice will be a TV show in the fall about her post-SOTL career. It could be super fascinating or super bad. Being network TV, probably super bad.

the sequel was a let down, no good.

[quote]What? I never heard about this. This is ridiculous. The movie Clarice respected Lecter, but also dispiced him and would never fall in love with that guy or kill people with him. What a shit ending. It's not shocking, it's just ridiculous.

Not the movie.

The BOOK, shit for brains R29.

The reworking of the story in the NBC series Hannibal was way better. Too bad it got cancelled prematurely.

She was terrible. Julianne Moore is only ever great when she has a great director and great material. But her in a piece of shit and she matches it step by step. Hannibal is a classic example.

Olivia Newton John should’ve been in both.

Madonna for sure.

Umm, hello--Vivian Vance would've made the perfect Clarice.

I like that for the series they turned Clarice into Will Graham.

[Quote]Not the movie. The BOOK, shit for brains [R29].

Jesus, we have all seen the movie and were obviously talking about the book. What kind of fuck tard are you?

Janet Jackson, obviously. She did coffee enemas in the late 90s, ya know.

I liked Julianne better. Seriously.

You didn't read the book, R42.

[quote]Only she had the chemistry with AH but I don't think either could have saved the film.

I’m surprised Hopkins agreed to do the sequel without Foster.

Worse. She’s a boring actress and her southern accent was terrible.

When I saw the opening scene, the shootout with that black female junkie / drug warlord who is hiv-positive and had needles in her hair. I was like WTF?

Is it me or did Julianne Moore say "Dr. Lecter" like over a hundred times in the film?

She was fine. No more, no less.

This was the kind of job you just did to grab the paycheck, and GET OUT.

Julianne was good in Far From Heaven. She did well playing a '50s housewife with a gay, cock-crazy closeted husband.

Harris wrote the ending of [bold]Hannibal[/bold] as a litmus test for fans of the books vs. fans of the movie. Fans of the books should have been on board with the ending that had Clarice and Lecter as a couple in exile; it was the logical, Lecterian progression and ending of their story. He was attracted to her both because she was capable of being coerced but her integrity and intelligence would make the coercion a massive challenge. She resisted as far as she could but relented only when subjected to physical, psychological, AND emotional coercion. Both actresses were good and would have been great if either were recruited to film both movies; its the discrepancy between their approaches that we notice. I was fine with Moore as an older and more jaded/frustrated Clarice who had none of Foster's earnestness and I loved Foster as the eager, solemn, college-aged recruit.

R44 What is wrong with you, seriously? I guess there always has to be a contrarian.

The TV series Hannibal was hard for me to get into at first. It was a little out there but I caught the last season and it was phenomenal. Fingers crossed Clarice is a great show. Someone said they were trying to get the 4th season to be the about SOTL and were trying to get the rights to the Clarice character.

Julianne just was not good in the movie. She was not Clarice. And the chemistry thing is the key as well. Julianne had none of it with AH. Jodie had it in spades but Silence was that lightening in a bottle and no amount of chemistry was going to make Hannibal work.

R51 I get that but the logical conclusion would be for him to hypnotize her and for her to end up killing him. He would have never killed her and for her to turn around, become the predator to his prey, for HIM to allow HER to kill him because he would never kill her would have been the ultimate conclusion. Sorry for the long sentence.

She was not terrible, but as mentioned, it is the contrast between the two that makes it worse. Also, she is absent for the greater (in both senses) part of the movie (in Italy).

I remember reading at the time that Foster dropped out over money, not the script.

R55 I don't think so. Or that was not the impression everybody had. It was widely thought (perhaps incorrectly) she was not happy about the direction of the character, the script or story. She wisely (though sadly) declined to participate.

What has she said since?

I didn't realize she did not have many actual scenes with each other. Most of the time they were talking into a camera.

Clarice/Hannibal relationship had so much potential (not romantic). One of the most interesting relationships of all time.

Why does she keep doing shitty remakes when the original is the best?

Bravo R51

Completely agree about the progressions off the character.

R32, there was no hinting. The book was clear Lecter kept her doped up at first. That combined with his psychological insights into her kept her under his control and after a while he didn't need the drugs anymore.

R59 I think it was hinted that, while she was off the drugs at the end, she was still under his control psychologically. She was not in her right mind at any point during their time at the end.

I liked Jodie in Silence better because she was really dykey.

R53 isn't that kinda how the movie ended? Hannibal was unable to harm Clarice so sacraficed his own hand instead?

I think the movie would have been lesser no matter what. Julianne was fine. The movie was entertaining but too campy.

R29, "dispice"? Oh, dear.

Julianne Moore? Seriously?

Hannibal was okay as a run of the mill potboiler type movie, but it didn't have the dark, bleak quality of SOTL that made that film stand out.

R68 Agreed. Much of that had to do with the fact that Demme and his cinematographer didn't direct Hannibal. Ridley Scott does fine with building dread in a space ship but couldn't capture the utter darkness of Lecter's human soul. That said, the dinner scene with Lecter, Clarice, and Paul made me laugh out loud, something I never did watching SOTL.

Julianne Moore was too soft for the role, they needed to cast someone steelier. She just seemed more like an upper middle class suburban Frau who had been taken care of her whole life, not poor white trash who had to claw and work her way out of poverty.

The fetish scene of Lecter dressing an unconscious Starling in designer clothing with lingering shots of the labels of the clothing really pissed me off. The sequel is light and fluffy and flaccidly fetishistic. The first film approached complicated themes in a constrained format that made you think more deeply about people and what motivates us. In that first film, Lecter went into what makes people tick with Starling when she trying to figure out who Buffalo Bill is.

I'll eat your clam with some pinto beans and a nice light beer-slslsllslslslsslsl

It should be clear to anyone with a brain, the only correct choice for the sequel was the incomparable Sarah Paulson.

I hated the movie. It felt unnecessary. And the book was such a rape of a character you really liked and I'm guessing Jodie felt the same way and that's why she said 'fuck this mess.' Performance-wise, I didn't feel like Julianne Moore did nothing but make me remember how good Jodie was.

Maybe the book ending was to set up another sequel--how Clarice escaped Lecter's clutches? It seemed pretty unnecessary IMO.

R73 It could have gone that way. But it is far too late now. Probably for the best. There is no way Clarice from SOTL would not win in the end against Lecter. He saw something special in her. He knew if anybody would bring him to his end, it would be her.

R69- THAT WAS PATHETIC; And Julianne was very good friends with Tom Ford- and guess what label they showed- Gucci.

The movie gets credit just for Mason Verger's hideous appearance which has a become a famous meme over the years.

SOTL was my pick for movies with the perfect cast. I think Julianne tried her best, but she wasn’t Clarice. Just hearing her voice on the Lecter tapes - trying to act like Clarice - was painful.

It didn’t help that Demme’s film had a vibe that Ridley didn’t recreate.

I get that they had to cut a lot from the book to keep the movie under 2 hours, but they should've included Mason Verger's lesbo sister, Margot. I'm glad she was a featured character in the series.

I agree- the movie just didn't have a vibe to it. It was very flat.

I couldn't believe that HL would choose those chunky clunky shoes for an evening outfit.

SotL was well cast, r77. I just wish Demme hadn't revised Jack Crawford's character so much. In the book and in [italic]Manhunter[/italic], Crawford was a brilliant pain the ass. He was so driven that one doctor advised he have his blood pressure checked. In Demme's version, he was a big, understanding daddy figure. Scott Glenn is certainly capable of playing a part like that.

I agree R81 about Scott Glenn. He was so laid back that you couldn’t hold his scheming against him. He seemed too trustworthy.

Every time I see him in a movie, I think of my grandmother once saying that he was “so ugly he was good looking.” Makes me smile...

SOTL is high camp masquerading as a horror movie. At the time I loved it but with every repeated viewing, it became more ridiculous. Actually, Brian de Palma would've been the perfect choice for the director An unpopular opinion, but, these days, I prefer "Manhunter" to it.

R83 I think some of the high camp makes the movie even more- unsettling in a way. It kept me on edge. And it was well done high camp. Brilliantly done. Most straights don't even realize the campy parts because they are unsettled.

It was a highly entertaining movie. There really isn't a boring part. It flows so nicely.

Worse. She had no chemistry with Hopkins.

I've always felts Julianne to be an overrated actress. She's done so many shitty films that it's hard to remember the really good ones she's appeared in. She's not like Streep or Lange or even Foster or - I can't believe I'm saying this - Diane Keaton, who I can quickly remember their finest performances.

I wonder how the film would have worked if they had Pfeiffer who was considered for SOTL.

I never liked Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. For one thing, she wasn't good looking enough. Starling, although her appearance was not described in any detail in the novel, is nonetheless portrayed as an absolute babe. "Glorious" is a word the creepy Dr. Chilton uses to describe her. In the novel, although inexperienced (she's a trainee), she handles herself very well with Lector. She has an educational background that includes psychology and work in mental facilities; she's tough and knowledgeable. As Jodie Foster played her she's ill at ease and appears to be absolutely terrified of Lector. His presence is totally unnerving to her. I thought Jodie Foster's performance was totally overpraised and overrated. She played Starling ALL wrong.

She should have flashed Hannibal her ginger growler, that would have hit him harder than the taser gun.

I liked Hannibal overall. I even tracked it down in the streams. Many of my friends did not.

But GOD ! Yes, the bag and shoes reference was too tongue in cheek