Jennifer Lawrence is everywhere. It’s not just your imagination. Open any door at the cineplex, and you will see that beautifully sculpted face perfectly framed by those blonde, brunette, or ginger tresses over the statuesque figure poured into spandex, an untucked blouse and black pants, or blue body paint. She’s Joy Mangano. She’s Katniss Everdeen. She’s Mystique.
Turn on the television. She’s on the red carpet. She’s doing the buddy routine with Amy Schumer. She’s accepting another award. She’s acknowledging another nomination. She’s sassing a reporter. She’s charming an interviewer. She’s confessing to getting high before the Oscars to Andy Cohen. She’s giving false hope to Seth Meyers. She’s being funnier than Jimmy Fallon.
Jennifer Lawrence is 25 years old. She already has four Academy Award nominations and one win with the possibility of a Best Actress Oscar pending. And she has yet to find the role that showcases all of her talent. To date, we have probably seen less half of of the range in which she’s capable of playing at the highest level of the profession.
And, so far, she’s bullet proof. Bad films don’t bring her down. Take the latest, and mercifully, the last, Hunger Games aka The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. The movie is lousy, and JLaw can’t save it. She’s outacted by a cat in one particularly awful scene. The cat escaped with its dignity; Lawrence not so much. Before the Mockingjay disasters (Part 1 was forgettable as well), there was Serena, her first absolute bomb as a headliner. How bad? A $30 million budget and a reunion with Bradley Cooper resulted in a box office take of less than $200,000. The technical term for such a result is, “Ouch.”
Yet, the joylessness of Katniss Everdeen turned to pure Joy with JLaw’s latest. Joy is a heavy handed fairy tale, a Cinderella story for single moms everywhere. A plucky, put-upon woman juggling two kids, her divorced parents and her ex-husband all living under the same roof, invents the Miracle Mop, wows QVC audiences everywhere, and even runs into Bradley Cooper a few times. The film is good, not great. JLaw is great, but a touch below greatest in measuring her against the competition for this year’s top prize.
For now, she’ll have to settle for continuing her reign as the coolest kid in the class. Jennifer Lawrence combines the beauty of the head cheerleader with the smart ass spunk of the tomboy in the tree house. She’s charming, she’s funny, she’s smart. She’ll pull a prank on you and then tell the world about it. If you ever have the fortune to see her in person, you will be witness to the power of a true star. Her charisma fills a room.
And all she needs to do is to find material that lets this public persona shine in a starring role. She has wisely chosen to retire from the superhero genre after X-Men:Apocalypse. Maybe she and ASchu can turn their schtick into a script or David O. Russell can do her a good turn the next time around and write a part for her like he did for Clooney in Three Kings.
We’ll wait.
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