Melina Mercouri ... beautiful or ... ?

I am having the same experience as you while watching this film. It is distracting.

In one scene she appears strikingly beautiful, and in the next she looks very manly. And yes, her deep froggy voice is not at all sexy.

I typically don't comment on an actor's looks - like you I feel that's being superficial. But in this film you are supposed to believe that a much younger man is falling in love with this Greek goddess... and I am having a tough time buying it.

I think she did a great job though..She is having a breakdown and looking Haggard is a part of it. Plus she is much older than Alexis, and she should feel guilty about what she did to poor Thanos

To me I think she is one of the most attractive woman I have ever seen in cinema. Her voice grew on me. Alex was right when he said she wasn't pretty but had a unique face. Her beauty reminds me of Jeanne Moreau. Not the Hollywood starlet type but an attractive still.

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I have the same problem with Mercouri. She is attractive, but I wouldn't call her beautiful. As I was watching Phaedra last night, I tried to figure out what it is about her face that I find distracting, and I came to the conclusion that it is those dark patches under her eyes. It is not just a haggard look that she puts on for this particularly troubled character, as one other poster commented. Her "tired eyes" are a distinctive part of her appearance in all of her films. This quality of her eyes is the same feature that I have also always found in Jeanne Mireau, an actress that agentbach interestingly also compares to Mercouri in the post above. Same with Bette Davis's eyes. Mercouri and Mireau are both fascinating actresses whose faces simply don't match the Natalie Wood/Grace Kelly/Faye Dunaway standard of beauty that dominated Hollywood when these actresses were at the peak of their careers.