Thoughts after The Tourist

One has to feel sorry for Angelina Jolie, as perverse as that seems. I saw The Tourist and that was all I could think of: "oh, the poor girl." Her profound inability to convey a real flesh-and-blood human character onscreen anymore*, is, I believe, purely a result of the massive media attention piled upon her over the years. The relentless scrutiny, the impossible expectations, the pressure to be a SUPERSTAR, a LARGER-THAN-LIFE CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD SCREEN GODDESS, etc. Oh she's so beautiful. Oh she's so sexy. Oh she's so cool. How can anyone act with all that weight on her shoulders? Dutifully she carries out all the poses - the seductive tilt of the head, the swaying hips, the pouty mouth, a checklist of movie-star-ness. She delivers all her lines like they're smouldering snappy comic-book zingers ("Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot"-style). But her self-consciousness seeps into every moment, stiffening her up into a cardboard cut-out of an individual. There isn't just no chemistry emanating from her, there's no life, only dry, empty air. Society's made a real woman into an illusive idea and she's disappeared. It's sad. As a fellow Gemini my sympathy goes out to her. Oh the Gemini actresses: Angelina, Nicole, Natalie - there's something quite brittle about them, isn't there?

*I need to watch Girl, Interrupted again to verify my theory but I do recall her once being electrifying and vital and all that jazz she won the Oscar for.