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In reviewing the films I have enjoyed this year as a woman and the women I have observed in film, I’m happy to discover that writing about “women in film” is as awkward as it should be, and the notion of “celebrating” it is appropriately passé. Instead of chick flicks that happily slammed the door in men’s faces — Thelma & Louise (1991), Boys on the Side (1995) or Beautiful Creatures (2000) — recent films seem to reach for that delicate balance of estrogen and testosterone.
In Bandits, Cate Blanchett brings to life Kate Woods, an unhappy housewife who practically begs two bank robbers (Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Willis) to take her hostage. The men represent opposite ends of the criminal spectrum — brains and brawn — respectively. She wants the best of both men, cannot decide between them and, in a quiet but assertive way, she refuses to choose. The fact that Blanchett carves out a solid standing ground beside a true man’s man like Willis points to the growing understanding that good films appeal to both sexes.
While Blanchett’s unpredictability makes Bandits more compelling, Kate Beckinsale’s wishy-washy performance in the New York romance Serendipity presents a completely predictable form of indecision that does nothing for me. As Sarah, Beckinsale’s scatterbrained faith in fateful accidents is like those new flavored waters — slightly sweet, but lacking. I suppose it wouldn’t be a romantic-comedy without a fate-driven plot, but Beckinsale’s timid performance makes her little more than another Hollywood doll waiting for the world to make her decisions for her.
It seems this year someone sent out a Hollywood-wide memo that films with heavyweight themes would do well at the box office. A few directors must have taken the order too literally: Obesity was big this year.
In this noblest of efforts, we have America’s sweetheart, Julia Roberts, donning a fat suit in America’s Sweethearts. Julia catches the movie star’s (John Cusack) eye when she loses 60 pounds. After their first lovers’ quarrel, Julia drowns her sorrows in a breakfast larger than my Thanksgiving dinner.
But Gwyneth Paltrow takes the cake. Her fat suit transforms her size-two figure into a 300-pound woman in Shallow Hal. Restaurant chairs collapse under her artificial weight. While America’s Sweethearts and Shallow Hal both pretend to delve into inner beauty, their charades are really just not-so-clever guises for cheap fat jokes. While Paltrow might gain something from wearing the weight, her pounds don’t add up to any extra weight in a Farrelly brothers’ movie, where the last thing we want is a lesson in sensitivity.
The real congratulations must go to Renée Zellweger for actually gaining the weight for her realistically average-size woman in Bridget Jones’ Diary. Zellweger’s performance is one that can resonate with real women the world over. She shares, without exploiting, the secrets of single life, like wearing the granny-stomach-sucking-in underwear to increase her chances of … OK, getting action on the first date. So she’s not the most virtuous of female role models; I love her all the more for it. Finally, Zellweger proves she has more to offer than telling Tom Cruise: “You had me at hello.”
The manliest female performance of the year was Angelina Jolie as the super-sleek, super-curvy action heroine, Lara Croft, in Tomb Raider. Jolie’s black leather leotard and almost-orgasmic fighting grunts were probably as big a turn-off for me as they were a turn-on to teen-age boys. I found Tomb Raider about as entertaining as watching my brother play video games.
I prefer a heroine whose strength is evidenced in her mental and verbal resolve. In director Allison Anders’ little-seen melodrama, Things Behind the Sun, Kim Dickens’ performance as a Rock singer/songwriter searching for something lost as a result of a childhood rape could only be described as powerful innocence. Besides the Sonic Youth soundtrack, Dickens’ performance is the real reason to see the film. My only complaint was that director Allison Anders’ film had a bit of a made-for-TV feel. Guess that’s why it went from Sundance to Showtime.
Audrey Tautou’s fresh performance in Amélie embodied yet another facet of innocence. Tautou’s scheming sweetness breathed life into the colorful Paris presented in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s feast of magical realism. She actually creates a loveable do-gooder who resolves to make the lives of the people around her better.
If Amélie was my favorite daydream of a movie, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive was my favorite nightmare. It’s amazing to see the process of Naomi Watts coming into her character, Betty, throughout the film. She manages to gradually transform herself from naive Hollywood hopeful to femme fatale. At first, the audience is sure they have her pinned. By the end, only the actress and her character completely understand Betty’s identity.
By and large, Hollywood has yet to completely shed the sexual-sidekick categories of female roles (see Halle Berry in Swordfish or Penélope Cruz in Blow), and this year’s preoccupation with fat remains a mystery.
Still, movies are starting to develop (or reveal) an authentic women’s culture, and like Ally McBeal‘s unisex restrooms, it’s a trend that just makes sense. Hollywood is slowly opening up to the secrets behind the lives of women.
Coming Soon: A blockbuster movie that allows women to laugh about the ridiculous culture of womanhood and provide men with an inside glimpse of the things women do to impress them, the things they do to spite them and the things they do that have absolutely nothing to do with men. ©
This article appears in Dec 19-25, 2001.