Two fantastic early roles.
We know your watching time is limited. And the amount of things available to watch … is not. Looking for a movie? Nearly any movie ever made? It's probably streaming somewhere. That's a lot of movies. |
Below, we're suggesting two of them, the latest of our weekly double-feature recommendations. We think the movies will pair well — with each other and with you. |
Your weekly double feature: Laura Dern |
 | | Laura Dern, left, and Mary Kay Place in the 1996 movie "Citizen Ruth."Kimberly Wright/Miramax Films |
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'Smooth Talk' and 'Citizen Ruth' |
In the earliest roles of her career, Laura Dern was frequently cast as an archetypal innocent, a California blonde with blue eyes and the widest smile in Hollywood, suggestive of an openness both inviting and vulnerable. Dern later weaponized those qualities for superb performances in works like "Enlightened" and "Marriage Story," but her accessibility has always had the effect of putting the audience in her corner. |
In "Smooth Talk" (1985), Dern plays Connie, a 15-year-old whose budding sexuality puts her in more danger than she can comprehend. Now streaming on the Criterion Channel, the film expands on the canonical Joyce Carol Oates short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" — particularly in the first hour, when Connie hangs out with her girlfriends and blithely defies her concerned mother (Mary Kay Place). When she finally encounters Arnold Friend (Treat Williams), a predatory older man whose come-ons are thinly veiled threats, the film sustains the allegorical thrust of Oates's story while making their interaction seem terrifyingly real. Connie's introduction to the world of men feels specific to her and applicable to all young women. |
A little over a decade later, Dern humanized another symbolic figure in "Citizen Ruth" (1996), Alexander Payne's scabrous satire about the politics of abortion. Dern stars as Ruth Stoops, a poor, glue-huffing single woman whose unplanned pregnancy lands her at the center of anti-abortion and abortion rights groups, both of which put their interests ahead of hers. Much of the comedy comes from Ruth's bucking against their agendas and gradually figuring out how to turn the situation to her advantage. SCOTT TOBIAS |
The not-always-wonderful world of Disney |
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