Pour en revenir au petit débat à propos du talent comparé de Mischa 2002 (Once and Again) vs Mischa 2005 (The OC), un petit avis intéressant :
People love to chide Mischa Barton for her acting style, often described as "blank." I say, however-- Al Pacino yells. Johnny Depp quirks. Meryl Streep sighs. If Mischa wants to make her thesbianic mark through the smoldering use of her amazing cheekbones and lack of expression, I'm willing to give her some room. For me the more pressing issue concerning Mischa is why she seems to only have on-screen chemistry with girls.
I first became interested in Mischa when she appeared in 2001 as Katie Singer on the unfairly canceled Once and Again. Katie was that breed of popular high schooler who, while able to navigate whichever social group she desired, always seemed to hover above everyone who wanted to be near her. This wasn't because the character was written or portrayed as a snob, but, as it became clear, because she suspected that she didn't necessarily fit in among her classmates, that she found it difficult to connect. At the time I didn't know that Mischa had once had a British accent, so I found her clipped speech to be incredibly endearing, as it was the lingual equivalent of Katie's romantic gestures. Finding herself attracted to Evan Rachel Wood's character, Jessie Sammler, Katie made awkward stabs at brushing Jessie's arm, inviting her to hang out, and then, ultimately, kissing her and professing love in Jessie's attic.
Katie and Jessie were one of the cutest television couples I've ever seen in my illustrious TV watching career. The depiction of their coming together was a double whammy, since not only was it first love, which is nearly always rewarding on well-written hour-long dramas on television, but it was troubled love. Both Katie and Jessie were rocked by what was happening to them, and this gave their relationship a coming-of-age urgency that gradually heightened the stakes for each girl from week to week. Katie and Jessie wanted to be with each other so badly, and yet they didn't exactly know how they could exist in the relationship, and they weren't sure about the lengths to which the other was willing to go. Because of these performances, I thought both girls were going to be big stars.
When Mischa showed up as Marissa on The O.C., I watched the first episode with the expectation that she'd carry the same fresh and fumbling romanticism over to the show with her, but as she and Benjamin McKenzie (Ryan) stood at the bottom of their driveways and met not-so-cute, I saw that perhaps lightning doesn't strike twice within one actress. I watched the same thing happen when the producers brought in D.J. the gardener this year- an actor who, I suspect, was supposed to represent something carnal, but instead was an immediately apparent doof from his first appearance. As I watched Marissa fail to have chemistry with a single love interest on the show, I wondered how I could have been so wrong about her potential in the days of Once and Again, when she seemed so unbearably realistic and unsure of herself , despite her obvious beauty. I wondered if it was all the Marc Jacobs sundresses and velvet floppy-bow berets that The O.C. was throwing on Mischa, making her into a stiff mannequin that appeared ten years her senior. On Once and Again Mischa was down-to-earth in knit shirts, pony tails and jeans, and I questioned whether or not wardrobe could have such an impact on her acting.
But now that the character of Alex has entered the picture, and, seeing the long-awaited sparkage between them, I joyfully thought to myself, "Marissa's a new girl!" Except then I realized that Marissa's not a new girl at all- she's still quintessentially Mischa, with her draggy pauses between greeting and resulting dialogue ("Heyyyyyyy") and her eyes that dart all over the place as she speaks. But whereas normally these behaviors are taken as indicators of Mischa's blase acting style, i.e. her lack of effort and uninvolvement in scenes, when Mischa is around a girl, I posit, these behaviors suddenly become poignant. For once she has reason to act so dodgy and unwilling to extend herself, because in both the Katie and Alex relationships, she has portrayed a girl who's surprised to find herself attracted to a girl, and the personal shock of the situation takes a normally confident character and makes her into a sweet, nervous teenager. In other words, the Alex relationship finally brings Marissa down to the age range she's supposed to be playing. I know that viewers criticized Mischa's closed-mouth technique during last Thursday's first kiss, but instead of prudishness, I saw a portrayal of tentativeness, of a character who's acting on a romantic impulse that she never predicted for herself, and who's so enthralled with the moment that all she can do is bask in it and press back hard with her lips- and, of course, those amazing cheekbones become highlighted by the intensity of the pressing.
I imagine that the writers and producers were attempting to tease out this quality in Mischa in that original pairing with the character of Ryan, but finding yourself attracted to someone from Chino is not quite the same as finding yourself attracted to someone that you never considered you would be. I mean, please, Chino's not that gigantic of a romantic obstacle. From the get go it was obvious that Ryan had middle-class makeover potential and, with the added benefit of his well-flaunted fisticuffs and leather bracelet, we all knew he'd win over the Newport Harbor cool kid population in no time. Although D.J. the gardener, on the other hand, wasn't about to win over anyone with his complete lack of background, character, or ties to the grand narrative, he wasn't a risk for Marissa either. Race and class issues were never fully examined (the same could be said for the relationship with Ryan re: class), and we all knew D.J. was out when Marissa leaned against his chest atop the lifeguard station, and looked as if she might comfortably fall asleep. Mischa only succeeds as a romantic actress when the stakes are high enough, apparently, and from what I've seen of her work so far, lesbian relationships have been the only ones that have managed to wring a likable vulnerability from her television persona.
C'est marrant non ? 
