60 Kick-Ass Female Film Characters – Part III

They take a beating and a fall to fend for your family and friends. As care-givers, as sisters, daughters, mothers, they open the eyes of children, buttons or not. Unable to fulfill relationships, they can break a boy’s heart, or corrupt and manipulate them. They can also apply bloody, violent force against their opposers – both calculated and by instinct. Let’s go.

Amy Dunne – – – Gone Girl (2014)

“I’m so much happier now that I’m dead.” The minute we hear these lines coming from Nick Dune’s missing, perhaps dead wife, the entirely of David Fincher’s thriller/drama/pitch-black satire on how media sensationalizes tragedy, changes. We not only hear how she put the events in motion, we also hear her reasoning for it, as well as, perhaps, an insight into the plight of women and feminism in the form of an archetype, the “Cool Girl”. The story transforms into a battle of wills between two people who have gone from an idealized vision of a happy and content marriage, to an ugly, rotting corpse of what’s really left between them.

Pike’s Dune isn’t likable. She’s a calculating, near-sociopathic bitch who takes the term, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and gives it a disturbing and shocking new meaning. And that’s the point, in a nutshell: Gillian Flynn, the film’s screenwriter and author of the book of the same name, wrote this character as all great writers do: as people. Sometimes they can be great, and other times they can be like Amy Dune: bad to the bone. – – – Jonathan Holmes

Summer Finn – – – (500) Days of Summer (2009)

Summer’s kick-ass credentials arise from her refusal to shake off her principles and slight stubbornness by conforming to societal expectations of relationships, and isn’t the faintest bit interested in settling down as the ‘girlfriend’ of a ‘boyfriend’ – she doesn’t do labels because she has reservations about love and relationships. Neither oblivious nor smug about her allure to men, Summer simply gets on with her life each day at a time.

She’s a refreshing character because her life doesn’t revolve around her sexuality and appearance; they’re a part of the package but aren’t the essential components. Plus, her catalogue of indie attributes was the motivation for a new wave of kitsch hipsters across the land: she loves The Smiths, she quoted Belle & Sebastian in her high school yearbook and she likes day trips to IKEA. – – – Rhiannon Topham

Coraline Jones – – – Coraline (2009)

An animated youngling but no less deserving than any other fleshy submission, Coraline trespasses fiercely into heroic territory by giving the middle finger to an artificially galvanised happiness in favour of her dry reality and all that it entails; the good, the bad, even the unfathomably ugly. How many of us wouldn’t be tempted to just allow our awareness to freefall into the fabricated euphoria of the rabbit hole, letting go of the dull and the bitter once and for all? How many wouldn’t grab the chance to make everything permanently… perfect

And this is exactly where this little azure-haired 11-year-old fighter towers over you and me – by proving that when we catch ourselves envying the greenness of the grass on the other side of the fence, all we have to do is to just lovingly garden our own freaking foliage to blinding, emerald brilliance. Really, it’s that simple. Well, that, and to avoid sewing buttons into our eye sockets but, you know, I’d like to think that’s kind of a given. – – – The Greek

Dame Marjorie “Maude” Chardin – – – Harold and Maude (1971)

When asked to write about a kick-ass female character, why did I choose Maude – an 80 year old lady? Maude is one of the most life-affirming characters there is. The film introduces us to the surprisingly energetic woman, who despite her age is trying new things to life to the fullest. In the film she acts as a symbol of adventure, showing Harold who at so young has already become bored.

Maude is at a point in her life where she doesn’t care what others think of her, and believes in the philosophy of “you are as young as you feel.” Against all conventions, she is not your usual old lady. That is why, she is a kick-ass female character. – – – Thomas Pollock

Pina – – – Roma città aperta (1945)

Roberto Rossellini’s Roma, Citta Aperta (Open City) is known for two things: kicking-off the groundbreaking Italian Neorealist Movement that changed international cinema forever and, second, launching international recognition of “la Lupa”, Anna Magnani, who Rossellini called “the greatest acting genius since Eleanora Duse” and who already had a well-established acting career domestically.

In the film, Pina (Magnani) is caught between occupying fascists and Nazis and resistance fighters in WWII Rome while trying to maintain a normal semblance of life, including marrying her fiancé by whom she is already pregnant. Yet all attempts at normalcy are constantly challenged, even threatened.

Pina tries to maneuver her way through the entangled web of informants and betrayals to save a simple family life, and it’s Magnani’s fiery presence on the side of human decency that anchors the film’s moral core as she takes on everyone from friends and family to the clergy to the oppressors themselves. Anna Magnani was “salt of the earth” – powerful, unglamorous and in a class of her own. – – – Steve Schweighofer

Mallory Kane – – – Haywire (2011)

Steven Soderbergh at his slick, throw-away best, with Gina Carano, a martial arts fighter and apparent stunt woman, is Mallory Kane, an ex-marine and rather lethal operative, who is meant to be assassinated. Oh if only it were that easy you silly bad guys. No, Channing Tatum, she is not getting in the car with you. Throw coffee in Mallory’s face, then you deserve to have your arm snapped. No, Michael Fassbender, playing this treacherous charade is one thing, but attempting to beat Mallory in a fight is a fatal mistake.

Even in that tight evening dress she will get the better of you – sleep now you foolish man, here’s a cushion – Bang! And Antonio Banderes sums up the danger she can cause should you cross her with both his facial expression and words when she finds him in the film’s final moment: “shit.”. – – – Robin Write