It’s not often that lists of actresses I love merge with those I find stupendously sexy. There has only been one woman who has commanded both my love and my lust equally since I was 13 — Gillian Anderson. Till last Friday, when I watched Atomic Blonde. Charlize Theron, the woman I fell in love with after her turn as Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, made me fall in lust with her with this film.
I have never seen a woman do ice and fire quite so effectively. If she is dead cold during her debriefing with the MI6 and the CIA, then she is just as fierce when she is fighting her way through a stairwell full of KGB guards. I used to be in awe of Scarlett Johansson’s action sequences as the Black Widow but after seeing Theron punching, kicking, stomping, stabbing in Atomic Blonde, those seem like fluff. Because this feels real.
It isn’t easy to watch a woman getting punched brutally, but here it is hardly disturbing because you forget that her gender has any place in her role as a spy. This woman gets hurt, no wonder it is nerve-wracking to watch, but she can give back better than she gets.
She might be clinical about her work, but she is vulnerable to emotion too, not that she lets it get in the way.
And let’s not even start talking about the way she looks! From the time she sits up in the ice bath, bruised black and blue, to that white coat, boots and glares that she wears to her debriefing, to the slinky, glittery dress she wears to the bar where she meets Sofia Boutella’s character, to the white coat and skirt she wears while she fights her way out of an apartment. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Oh, and let’s not forget those high-heeled shoes she wears whether she is fighting or “making contact” (sexy times with Boutella).
If Imperator Furiosa is who I want to be inside, then Lorraine Broughton is who I want to be on the outside.
And from now every action movie that is headlined by a woman will, at least by me, be compared to what Charlize Theron did in Atomic Blonde. In Broughton’s word: “Let’s cut the crap, shall we?”
Chandreyee Chatterjee
Whether she’s shooting her female French love interest coy looks through her perfectly stylised bangs, or there’s blood dripping from her mouth after she’s just been in a punch-up with the KGB, in Charlize Theron’s new movie, Atomic Blonde, you can’t help but find yourself simultaneously crushing on her and wanting to be her. Here are just some of the reasons why the effortlessly cool Charlize Theron is so awesome.
The award-winning actor has previously walked out on interviewers who have asked her inane questions, preferring to be asked about what she’s reading or her political views, rather than being interrogated about how she lost weight or dealt with going ‘ugly’ for a role. Theron’s no-nonsense attitude to the press is only one way in which she challenges the way women in Hollywood get treated. In a battle to close the film industry pay-gap that was made uncomfortably public after the Sony Hacking scandal, Theron demanded that she be paid the same as her male co-star, Chris Hemsworth, for her work on the Snow White and the Huntsman prequel, The Huntsman.
Theron is clearly no stranger to winning fights like these in spite of the odds. She continues to come out on top in Atomic Blonde no matter how many punches and kicks get thrown at her. As her character, Lorraine Broughton, Theron proves that Blonde can give Bond a run for his money any day, demonstrating that not only can women be kick-ass secret agents, but they can also kick ass in six-inch heels. As herself, Theron stands up for what she believes in; she’s not afraid to call out people when she doesn’t agree with the way they treat her. She is a go-getter, a glass ceiling breaker, a champion of equality — what’s not to love?
Bethany Kirkbride
(Bethany is a student of University of Oxford and is interning with t2)
