It almost seemed to me like a light bulb went on over Elijah Wood's head--all of a sudden it was like "Oh! Yeah! That's Frodo!" His vulnerability and the fact that he was so open to Gollum's little poisons read so well in Elijah's performance; even though it deviated from the books, I could completely believe it. There was less of the big-eyed lost-little-lamb aura around him, and more desperation and hopelessness. I found some of the Frodo/Sam/Gollum scenes excruciating to watch, not because they were bad, but because I could empathize so entirely with the pain that I could see the characters going through. When Frodo sent Sam away, with fairly subtle facial and vocal expressions Elijah managed to convey that though Frodo had succumbed to Gollum's suggestion, there was still a part of him that was struggling against it.<P>I think my favorite Frodo scene from the Return of the King, and perhaps the whole trilogy, was the scene at Mt. Doom. While Frodo is holding the Ring over the Cracks of Doom, the tension and mental agony that he is going through is so visible on his face, and then the moment of decision has just enough cold, out-of-character calculation to let us know that Frodo isn't really working on his own will. And when he said, after the Ring was destroyed, "I'm glad you're with me, Sam Gamgee, here at the end of all things," I started to cry, because there was this resignation and sense of a peace almost forgotten in his voice.<P>As may be obvious, I thought Elijah did a remarkable job; Return of the King showed off his best acting of the trilogy, in my opinion.
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"Oh, my god! I care so little, I almost passed out!" --Dr. Cox, "Scrubs"
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