Vera Farmiga had breakthrough roles in Dummy and Down to the Bone (which won her an acting prize at Sundance) but so far I've only seen her in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate.
She's just signed on for two high profile projects. A "female lead" in Martin Scorsese's The Departed and a role in Anthony Minghella's contemporary drama Breaking and Entering (also starring Jude Law).
Both films are worth anticipating but The Departed, with a cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Ray Winstone and Anthony Anderson, could be particularly good. It's a remake of Chinese crime drama Infernal Affairs, a strong genre film that, in the hands of Scorsese, can easily be transformed into an equally strong genre film or, hopefully, a true American crime epic.
Infernal Affairs had only marginal roles for its female characters so there's potential for the remake to strengthen (but not necessarily enlarge) those parts. Where I think the remake could truly make its mark though is in the casting of Nicholson and Winstone, whose performances in the mentor roles could prove to be powerful improvements over the original film.
Of course if all goes right The Departed will really be a showcase for DiCaprio and Damon, but there's less room for improvement there considering the already fine performances of Andy Lau and Tony Leung in the original film.
In any case this project appears to be shaping up as an excellent marriage of filmmaker, material and actors. Too bad it's not scheduled for release until 2006.
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