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What should we do? Should we root for Annette Bening? We sure rooted for her when she first appeared in 1990's The Grifters (and appeared and appeared -- rrrooooowwwrr!). She prowled onto the screen, a sharp-talking, gum-cracking, slur-purring, man-eating welcome antidote to all the grinning Pretty Women of Hollywood. She was so good at playing molls, or moll-like dolls, or doll-like maulers, that she eventually became one in real life, sort of, co-starring with Warren Beatty in the Hepburn-and-Tracy Lite film Bugsy in 1991, and then actually marrying the mug.
We didn't root for her, though, in 2000, when she was up for an Oscar against Hilary Swank. Swank was the outsider, the indie girl, in the fringe, risky Boys Don't Cry, while Bening was Hollywood royalty, part diva and part semi-retired kept woman, like Lauren Bacall as played by Rita Wilson. Bening had starred in the faux-indie, faux-risky, faux-good American Beauty, turning in a faux-brilliant performance. And she seemed so eager for that Oscar that we actively worried that if Swank won, Bening would mount the stage and claw Swank's bloody eyes out before claiming the statue as her own.
Bening didn't win, or claw anyone's eyes out. Instead, like Rocky to the speed bag, she went back to work. Not to "making movies," per se, but to "winning that fothermucking Oscar." How else to explain Being Julia, which seemed to exist solely as a hundred-minute Oscar clip? Sure, no one liked the movie, but Bening got another shot at the title. It was Bening vs. Swank II: Swank Down. And once again, Bening had to smile that gracious, disappointed, possibly-Botox-inhibited grin.
Bening's back again, in Running With Scissors, which looks like a designer-imposter perfume version of The Royal Tenenbaums. And guess what? People are talking...Oscar!
Bening seems a little like Roger Clemens these days, but without the Hall of Fame credentials. Clemens shuffled from team to team, hungrily chasing that World Series ring, and Bening similarly seems to sign on only for movies that will slingshot her toward the prize. She'll get an Oscar too, one day -- Hollywood Royalty eventually get their way, if not their due -- but, like Clemens's Yankee championship, it won't really feel earned. Still, better not to earn it than not to get it, we guess.
In between Grifters and Scissors, Bening went through the usual stages, each less interesting than the last: Naked Siren (The Grifters); Wife to Harrison Ford (Regarding Henry); Mature Love Interest (The American President); Member Of Star-Studded Ensemble Cast In Failed Prestige Version Of Cannonball Run (Mars Attacks!); Coerced Into Bad Movie As A Favor To A Friend (What Planet Are You From?); Naked Oscar Lust (everything since).
Which brings us round to the initial question: should we root for Annette Bening? She never quite became what she initially promised. She was never going to be Snow White -- that's why we liked her in the first place -- but now she seems like the Wicked Queen of Hollywood. Enshrined in her castle, restless on her throne, only coming down now and again to do battle with a younger, more vital upstart. Rather than representing an antidote to something, now she's wielding the poison apple.
As for her fame, how famous is Bening, really? Once a year, she's unavoidable, and then she disappears. She's more Hollywood wife than actress, more Catherine Zeta-Jones than Catherine Keener. But we do know that we used to want to see the movies with her in them, and now we actively avoid the ones she's in. Which seems like a shame, at least for movie fans. In her chase for Oscar immortality, Bening missed her chance to really leave a mark.
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