May is Kate Winslet Appreciation Month

At least it is for me.

Exhibit A: her performance in the crazy-addictive Mare of Easttown.

We all know she's adept, powerful, whip smart, astoundingly versatile and capable of staggering depths of emotion. (A Little Chaos anyone?)

But who knew this woman could be so funny?

The thing about her tour de force in Mare of Easttown is that the comedy (bone dry and tinged with darkness) comes from deep inside the character and the story. It's never imposed for its own sake. Not that she'd be capable of that.

Suddenly you find yourself laughing out loud at a thrown-away line like her desperate "Fucking turtle." Or her candidly disbelieving "Are you asking me out on a date, Zabel?" It's the agonized sarcasm. The realization that in spite of her superior abilities as an actor and as a character, she's one of us; we can still relate to and share her reaction to life as if it were happening to us, too.

In other words, she's a true hero. That's the bottom line. Vive la Winslet.