I must show my hand from the off. I think Meryl is THE best (English speaking) film Actor (of either sex) that ever lived. I mention ”English speaking” because there may be some Actor from Russia, India,  China, Japan or wherever who is better than Meryl but I will probably not spot them as I find sub-titles a bit of a chore and can only speak rudimentary, schoolboy French and German. There are a few actors  coming in a close second; Charles Laughton, Tony Hopkins, Jack, Marlon and Burt(could be a bit wooden sometimes but very good mostly) and a few sneaking up on the inside; R De Niro,Gwyneth Paltrow,  Paul Newman, Kevin Spacey,Katherine Hepburn, Al Pacino and Spencer Tracy (I have to put Spencer in because so many people think he is “up there”, but, although I can admire his “craft”, he never really moved me … dunno why). Some of the above are “Method” actors, and I suspect Meryl has had a good crack at Stanislavski but with her … It doesn’t seem to show and … I’m not a huge fan of method acting anyway(when it shows in the performance). We know she can do accents; “The French lieutenant’s woman”, “Sophie’s choice”(What an awful choice poor Sophie was given) and “The Bridges of Maddison County” but it is her ability to “be”(Woops … this is method acting) whomever she is playing that is so amazing. She is not only an awesome(overused word in film reviews, similar overused words in reviews are “Ensemble”, “Charismatic” and “seamless”) actress, she has a strange beauty and amazing translucent(OW-Overused word) skin. I think that in real life she is very normal and is a Wife, Mother, friend and all round good egg and a bit of a laff,  but once she hears “action”, she becomes THAT person in the film.  She has played many normal / average people in “Kramer vs Kramer” ( I hated her in that for walking out on her little boy … It’s a guy thing… it’s OK, my mum didn’t), “The river wild” (awful film but she was good), “Plenty”(Quite a good film but no cigar) and she was very good in “Holocaust”(TV thing … I have the box series on video but I can’t be arsed to watch it again). I also imagine that, in truth,  every other actress hates her because she is so <industrial language> good and can play absolutely anything and anyone. I am not a student of method acting but I guess that part of being a great method actor is … it shouldn’t show on screen. It doesn’t with Meryl because with her,  it really  is … uhm … seamless (sorry). She was back to her best fairly recently as the awful, wonderfully horrible big cheese in “The devil wears Prada”. A tip to any aspiring actor would be to go and watch her in “The Bridges of Maddison County” then give up and practice Law or anything but acting because, unless you are rather dim, you have seen one of the great film performances and you will NEVER be that good but … This is just my opinion.