In The Good Lie and especially in Wild , the 38-year-old actress has finally rekindled the spark that launched her career.
Reese Witherspoon in Wild
Fox Searchlight
TORONTO — It is no simple task to shake off the squeaky-clean title of America's Sweetheart, but Reese Witherspoon appears to have finally done it. All she had to do was get her hands dirty.
Two upcoming films featuring the 38-year-old actress recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival — Wild and The Good Lie — and in both, Witherspoon plays characters who are a far cry from the high-achieving women she built her career playing in films like Election, Legally Blonde, and Sweet Home Alabama.
Those kinds of characters — buoyant, sharp, tough, and not to be underestimated — became Witherspoon's movie star brand, up to and including her Oscar-winning role of June Carter Cash in 2005's Walk the Line. In that film, Joaquin Phoenix played the deeply flawed Johnny Cash, a talented musician saddled with demons and prone to self-destructive behavior. Witherspoon's June, while not nearly perfect, was his savior, the far calmer port in their stormy relationship. Her big night at the Academy Awards was a crowning point in Witherspoon's career, officially canonizing her as one of Hollywood's biggest and brightest A-list stars. But Witherspoon was still also seen as Hollywood's most prominent A student, studious and responsible — and not particularly vulnerable.
Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line
20th Century Fox
And like so many other Best Actress winners before and since, the heat of that spotlight wilted Witherspoon's career just as it was hitting full bloom. She took on "prestige" movies like Rendition and Water for Elephants that failed to capture the live-wire spark that had endeared Witherspoon to audiences in the first place. When she tried to swing back to a commercial Hollywood picture, with 2012's action-comedy This Means War, her role was so soufflé light that any number of other actresses could have played it (and made the same shallow impression).
With The Good Lie and especially Wild, Witherspoon has finally found roles that capture her flinty intelligence and resolve, but — thankfully, refreshingly — also allow her guard to drop, and for a more richly complex actress to emerge.
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