Angelina Jolie - Brief Article

IF RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN, SHE WAS MADE TO BREAK THEM

Angelina Jolie wouldn't know how to tread on the safe, middle path if you marked it for her in fluorescent road paint. Born into Industry aristocracy, she took fame in stride; in the process, she's made Hollywood bend to her will, not vice versa, winning an Oscar just as she's vamping up magazine covers and making her headlong, wherever-the-chips-may-fall love life a rich source for gossip. (You just know there are a few lovers' quarrels resulting in trashed-hotel-room stories in her future.)

Jolie may very well own the world's best-known tattoo, and then of course there are her lips--as defining a physical trait as Belle Davis' eyes or Lucille Ball's hair. And, like several stars of an earlier day (and too few of our own), she raises audience attention-spans the moment she enters a picture. That Jolie seems to be one of our most sexually incendiary actresses is inarguable. What's not as conveniently acknowledged is her bruised current of darkness, which have been easily exploited in her award-winning turns in Gia (1998) and Girl, Interrupted (1999) but a surprise when injected into the froth of comedies like Playing by Heart (1998) and Pushing Tin (1999).

From the beginning Jolie has successfully straddled the great Hollywood divide, doing time in formula blockbusterdom (Gone in 60 Seconds, for example) while lighting out for territories unknown. Her 2001 releases include her franchise-hopeful turn as video-action-minx Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, the role of a terminal femme fatale in Original Sin (based on the Cornell Woolrich novel that Truffaut adapted into Mississippi Mermaid [1969], and starred Catherine Deneuve as the vamp), and Ralph Fiennes' romantic interest in Beyond Borders, Oliver Stone's epic about relief workers. With such a varied run, it's impossible to know what the future holds--all that's clear is that Jolie is hardly content to traipse down the Julia Roberts-Meg Ryan-Sandra Bullock romantic comedy route. Otherwise, anything goes, as long as it's different from where she's been.

In that, Jolie seems to be demonstrating what in Hollywood passes for a chin-stuck-way-out machisma, which is another way of saying she will not be told which star to steer by. Who knows how long her rebellions will sustain her; movie audiences seem to prefer safer, tamer beasts, and Jolie's surfeit of attitude sometimes seems to be aimed at the very people who made her a star. Such is fame. In the meantime, the fireworks will be hot and colorful.

Michael Atkinson is a film critic for The Village Voice and mrshowbiz.com.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group