HOLLYWOOD - The word layoff has an entirely different meaning for a Hollywood movie star than, say, a fired GM worker, but both involve career idleness, apprehension and questions: Is Julia Roberts' new movie, "Duplicity," a thriller or a comedy? More intriguingly, can it restore the woman who was or perhaps is the queen of the screen to the luster she once enjoyed as the $20 million-a-picture heavyweight box-office champion and mistress of all she surveys?
It would be nice to think Roberts didn't care about fame. And maybe she doesn't. In Hollywood - the concept, not the location - months can be lifetimes, years can be eons. Having carried three children since she last had to carry a picture ("Mona Lisa Smile" in 2003), Roberts has delivered vocal performances in the animated "Charlotte's Web" and "The Ant Bully" and reprised a relatively minor role, as Tess Ocean in "Ocean's Twelve." She also has managed to star in a Broadway play, "Three Days of Rain," which was hit by a critical Katrina and floated away after 70 performances. And she has been a member of forgettable ensemble casts in "Closer" (2004) and last year's German-made "Fireflies in the Garden" (which opens here in June, maybe, having already opened and closed all over the world).
For an actress who has never really been required to act, the one recent bright spot was " Charlie Wilson's War," a commercially mishandled gem. Roberts gave a spot-on performance as a Republican crypto-fascist Texas socialite who worked toward saving Afghanistan from the Russians, when not bedding Tom Hanks' congressman, Charlie Wilson. It certainly wasn't "Sleeping With the Enemy." But the movie did less business than a Taliban liquor store.
All of which leads to two conclusions: Julia Roberts has been doing what she wants. And Julia Roberts is a gamble. This is not something anyone ever thought they'd be saying - not anyone cinema-conscious from 1988 ("Mystic Pizza") through, say, 2000 ("Erin Brockovich"). But the romantic-heist movie "Duplicity" - in which she and "Closer" co-star Clive Owen play ex-spies who may or may not be in love - has thus far been kept under wraps by its studio, which doesn't seem quite sure what it is. It opens Friday.
Comments :
Post a Comment