(Lady in the Lake) Filmmakers love showing Natalie Portman’s face in mirrors, and it’s easy to see why. If I were a director and had access to someone as beautiful as Natalie Portman, I’d feature her face as much as possible.
But sometimes, like Perseus using his shield to avoid looking directly at Medusa, it can be better to see such a striking person in a reflection. Looking at someone through a mirror can reveal more than looking at them directly.
Mirror Moments: Natalie Portman’s Reflections on Performance in Lady in the Lake
In Episode 3 of Lady in the Lake, Natalie Portman’s character, Maddie Morgenstern Schwartz, has a steamy scene with her lover, Baltimore police officer Ferdie Black, in front of a mirror. This scene is striking because mirrors often feature prominently in Portman’s roles. In her most memorable performances, like as a stripper in Closer, a dancer in Black Swan, or a rock star in Vox Lux, mirrors show her reflecting on her own role and identity. In May December, she uses a mirror to try on Julianne Moore’s look, and in Black Swan, her mirror image reveals her inner self. Mirrors are where she explores the difference between her real self and the persona she presents.
Maddie Morgenstern Schwartz, one of the main characters in Lady in the Lake alongside Moses Ingram’s Cleo Johnson, has been performing her whole life, even though she isn’t in the entertainment industry. She has hidden years of frustration and unfulfilled dreams of becoming a writer while playing the role of a homemaker for a man who, while reliable, isn’t very exciting. She’s also kept her troubled past with the wealthy Durst family a secret, and has been pretending her husband Milton is the father of her son Seth, when in reality, the boy’s father is someone she didn’t even record in her diary.
In Episode 3, when Briana Belser and creator/director Alma Har’el stage a steamy sex scene between Maddie and Ferdie in front of a mirror, they’re making several points. One is that Natalie Portman is very attractive. Har’el has a talent for making her cast look great, including actors like Y’lan Noel and Jennifer Mogbock.
But it’s not just about Portman’s looks. The mirror scene is significant because it shows how Maddie prepares for Ferdie’s arrival. She waits for him in her slip, aware that he will find her like this and that she’s about to put on a sexual performance. The mirror serves as a place where she practices and performs this role, not just for Ferdie but also for herself.
Mirror Reflections: Maddie’s Revealing Sex Scene Highlights Her Transformation in Lady in the Lake
The sex itself plays out in front of the mirror too, as she knew it would, as she wanted it to. When was the last time you think Maddie and Milton had sex with the lights on, much less in front of a reflective surface capable of showing her her own pleasure in real time? Her tousled hair, her undulating body, his hand over her open mouth: She gets to watch it too, not just the audience. She gets to enjoy a look at the woman she’s become since she threw away the life she’d known.
And after it’s all over — the rehearsal, the performance, the grand finale — the mirror is still there. It shows her herself as she is now: a beautiful middle-aged woman, estranged from her family, excited about a new life, in a cheap and tiny apartment, flush with the terrific sex she just had with a man who even now is leaving to get back on patrol, not to mention his side of the racial divide. She can see all the flaws and virtues, pros and cons, beauty and ugliness of her situation in a glance into that glass. So can we.
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