At this moment, there aren't that many actresses more popular than Scarlett Johansson. She has made a name for herself with the combination of plenty of acting skills, mostly shown in interesting, small movies like Lost in Translation and Ghost World, and looks. Not only is Scarlett beautiful in a non-Hollywood way, she also possesses a body that has fanboys everywhere going crazy, search terms like 'Scarlett Johansson Boobs' clogging up the internet all over the world. For the discerning Scarlett-scholar and people who have never heard of her but want to know more, I'll try to dig up her five most interesting movies so far.
Where would you start if you want to spend some quality DVD-time with Scarlett Johansson? The obvious answer would be The Horse Whisperer, the movie that thrust her into the spotlights. Scarlett, then about 14 years old, showed she could hold her own in the company of people like Robert Redford and Dianne Wiest. I'm going to skip this movie though, as well as her debut in Sean Connery starring thriller Just Cause, for her black and white debut in The Man Who Wasn't There (***, 2001).
In this Coen Brothers production, we first see the real Scarlett. An actress who is gifted with both a natural talent for acting, as well as 'that certain something' that can drive men wild. Her Rachel 'Birdy' Abundas catches the eye of Billy Bob Thornton's Ed Crane, a man whose life is slowly unravelling when he tries to make good for himself. He finds out his wife's boss is having an affair with her and he tries to blackmail him. Things go horribly wrong, as you would expect, and the only thing in life that is still able to cheer Ed up is Birdy's piano playing. She's the daughter of a friend, and even though Birdy isn't really talented enough to make it big, Ed thinks her the biggest talent since piano playing was invented. Ed seems to have become smitten with her and convinces her to let him become her manager. This also does not turn out quite like Ed wants, and when Birdy goes down on him in the car, as a way of saying thanks, things really spiral out of control. Even though The Man Who Wasn't There is not the best thing the Coen's have ever done, at least Scarlett makes a big impression. Her Birdy may not be overly ambitious or talented, she still grabs your attention.
The Man led to another strong supporting role in the quirky Ghost World, but it was with Lost in Translation (*****, 2003) that the whole world sat up and paid attention. I love Lost in Translation, and watching it many times has convinced me that it's actually my favorite movie of all time. When I tell people this, they wonder why, since Lost in Translation is a movie which drives not so much on story, but more on mood. Part of the charm of this movie comes from the location, Tokyo, which is as much a character as the main actors, but it's also the relationship between Scarlett and Bill Murray which propels this movie to great heights. Both of them are more or less stranded in Tokyo. Murray is Bob, an 'over the hill' actor who is in Tokyo to make a quick buck filming a whiskey ad, while Scarlett's Charlotte has travelled to Tokyo with her photographer husband. Both of them have trouble adjusting to life in Tokyo and suffer from a major jetlag, so it's not weird that they more or less gravitate towards each other. This leads to one of the sweetest romances ever seen in movies. Bob and Charlotte try to make the most out of their stay in Tokyo, go out with Charlotte's Japanese friends and have a blast running through the nighttime streets of the city. Normally, these people would never be interested in each other, in any way, but thanks to the special circumstances they realize they have more in common than you would expect. The scenes where Charlotte and Bob are spending time together are brought to life in a wonderful way. Thanks to the loose, relaxed style of acting, great music and both beautiful and weird locations, you share the experience in a way that is unparalelled in other movies. Both Johansson and Murray won many awards for their performance, and rightfully so.
The nominations and awards also came thick for Scarlett's next movie, Girl With A Pearl Earring (****, 2003). Again, the movie shows Scarlett in a relationship with an older man, and again it's a relationship with complications. Scarlett plays Griet, a girl living in 17th century Netherlands, who is forced to take a job as maid when her family falls on hard times. She ends up in the household of famous painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) and his family. Life there is not easy for Griet, since the wife and daughters don't really like her, but things change when Vermeer starts to take an interest in her. It turns out Griet has a bit of an artistic eye, which Vermeer's wife has absolutely nothing of, and the painter starts spending more and more time with her. He explains her things about his paintings, lets her mix his colors and, to top it all off, decides to make a painting of her. It's obvious that Vermeer has fallen for Griet, but their relationship can never go any further than mutual attraction. The biggest sign of their affection is when Vermeer strokes Griet's hand while mixing colors, and since all the feelings are so repressed, Vermeer accidentally seeing Griet with her hair loose is almost erotic. Scarlett is great as Griet, giving a very understated performance and even looking uncannily like the real girl from the painting. In her scenes with Firth not a lot of emotions are shown, but thanks to the great acting, you can feel electricity crackle underneath those many layers of clothing.
Scarlett followed these two movies with The Perfect Score, a dissapointing popcorn movie, but quickly found her balance again with A Love Song for Bobby Long (****, 2004). Again, we see Scarlett in a relationship with an older man, but this time it's different (in a way that I don't want to spoil here). She plays Purdy (Purdy, Birdy, what's with all these stupid names?), a young dropout who one day hears that her mother has passed away. The two have been enstranged for many years, but mom left Purdy the house where she spent the last years of her life. What she forgets to mention, however, is that the house is inhabited by two other dropouts, ex-college teacher Bobby Long (John Travolta) and his protegé Lawson (Gabriel Macht). The men spend their days drinking, sleeping and talking about the book Lawson wants to write about Bobby. Lawson suffers from writers block, however, and Purdy moving in with them does not really change things for the better. Purdy cannot throw the duo out of the house either, since a snag in the testament makes it impossible for Purdy to do so, at least for the first year. As happens in movies, however, the threesome reluctantly start getting along with each other, which leads to Bobby and Lawson trying to get Purdy to go back to school.
A Love Song For Bobby Long starts off quite slowly, and I was a bit worried that this movie would just be a John Travolta show. An annoying John Travolta at that, since his Bobby Long is quite an unbearable asshole in the beginning of the movie. After about half an hour things start to pick up, however, and as the characters start to learn how to get along, so the movie becomes a real joy to watch.
At this point in time, Scarlett's star was already rising rapidly, and she followed Bobby both with voice work for The Spongebob Squarepants Movie and more interesting roles, in small(ish) and interesting movies A Good Woman, In Good Company and Match Point. And last summer Scarlett got her first chance to break out in a big budget action movie, namely The Island (****, 2005). The Island, Michael Bay's most recent action extravaganza, is flawed but a lot of fun to watch. The first hour of the movie is a blast. We are transported to a community of people living in a sheltered environment. It's some time in the future, and as far as the inhabitants know, earth has been devastated by war. There is only one unblemished piece of earth left, the legendary island from the title, and every now and then an inhabitant from the facility gets selected to move away to the island and lead a life there that is almost like living in heaven. Yes, the people at the facility seem blessed, but one of them, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) feels something is not right. And after about an hour he finds out exactly what it is that has been nagging at the back of his brain, as he and Jordan Two Delta (Johansson) find out that the facility is not what it seems. While the first hour of The Island is an almost serene science fiction fantasy, the intriguing plot more or less crumbles away and gives way to an hour of standard Michael Bay chaos and mayhem. Don't get me wrong, the second hour is still fun to watch, but it is such a big departure from what came before that it almost feels like you are watching another movie. Still, the coherency in the movie is saved by McGregor and Johansson, who are just as baffled as we are, and who are amongst the most likeable characters ever seen in a movie like this. Scarlett easily holds her own amongst all the explosions and 'car' chases, and even though she does not really get a chance to flex her acting muscles, she shows that she has what it takes to be an action hero. The producer behind the movie blamed the failure of the movie in American cinemas (outside the States it was a big success) on it's leads, but it's McGregor and Johansson who give The Island a lot of heart. The movie could even have been a memorable one if Michael Bay wouldn't have said no to Scarlett's offer to appear nude in the movie...
Looking at Scarlett's IMDB page makes you wonder if she has more hours in a day than us mortal human beings. No less than seven new movies are waiting for her, including Brian De Palma thriller The Black Dahlia, magic mystery The Prestige, comedy The Nanny Diaries and fanboy wet dream Amazon, the variety of movies showcasing Scarlett has more going on than your average Hollywood starlet. Her winning an Oscar can only be a matter of time.
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