  Reese Witherspoon takes on the role of a pregnant wife of an Egyptian-born American who is imprisoned by the CIA in the political thriller Rendition.
|
In her Oscar acceptance speech for Walk the Line, Reese Witherspoon channelled the life lessons and words she received, as an enduring gift, from June Carter.
"People used to ask June how she was doing," a reflective Witherspoon told the Academy Award audience that night in 2006, "and she used to say: 'I'm just trying to matter.'
"And I know what she means. You know, I'm just trying to matter, and live a good life, and make work that means something to somebody."
In 2007, despite personal traumas over the breakup of her marriage to Ryan Phillippe, Witherspoon is still trying to matter -- and she is succeeding in making work that means something.
Gavin Hood's political thriller Rendition, which premiered at the Toronto film festival in September, opens Friday as one of the fall's prestige pictures.
Witherspoon, the mother of two in real life, plays a pregnant wife of an Egyptian-born American (played by Omar Metwally). On his way home from a science conference in South Africa, and coincident with a terrorist act in Egypt, he is abducted by the CIA.
On the orders of a high-ranking U.S. official (played with chilling effectiveness by Meryl Streep), this ordinary man is thrust into extraordinary circumstances by U.S. national security paranoia and racial profiling. The CIA sends him to Egypt to be imprisoned and tortured, under the supervision of an American operative played by Jake Gyllenhaal. No one is allowed to tell Metwally's family about his fate.
"Film is a very powerful medium," Witherspoon tells Sun Media. "It can move people to tears. It can make them laugh."
In the laughter category, her Legally Blonde movies qualify as crowd-pleasers. "I just recently realized the power of laughter and how it changes people's lives," Witherspoon says, acknowledging that she had to overcome her "self-doubt" to see the value in comedies.
"You realize the power in that," she now says of the effect of provoking laughter. "In the same way, there are movies that move you to think and really question things -- and I think that's what this film is."
Rendition certainly wrings out the tears, as did the harrowing biopic Walk the Line, which told the story of June Carter and her marriage to Johnny Cash. In the new film, Witherspoon's character is not only denied access to her imprisoned husband, she is denied any information whatsoever.
"It is a lot about isolation and the individual and how all of these lives are so separated," Witherspoon says of the themes of the thriller. Streep's character, in particular, represents the abuse of the individual, supposedly for the greater good, Witherspoon says.
"Meryl Streep's character is making huge decisions about public policy without any sort of counsel or caucus. The fallout on a human level is so severe and it reverberates throughout so many communities and aspects of life. We're all just a hair's breadth away from something really tragic."
Witherspoon is an ensemble player, along with Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, Igor Naor, Alan Arkin and fellow headliner Gyllenhaal (who has also been romantically linked to Witherspoon, although neither talk about their personal lives). Despite limited screen time, Witherspoon makes an enormous impact as the emotional centre and conscience of the film.
That reinforces the notion that she is the real deal at 31, and not just because she has a best actress Oscar. The New Orleans-born, mostly Nashville-raised Witherspoon is a one-time child actress who made her tomboy film debut at 14 in The Man in the Moon (1991).
She burned through her twenties in roles in such fare as Pleasantville, Cruel Intentions, Election, Best Laid Plans, American Psycho, Little Nicky and finally -- in a star-making turn in a box-office smash -- the first Legally Blonde (2001). That hit pushed her salary from $5 million to $12.5 million for Sweet Home Alabama (2002) and then $15 million for Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003).
Stardom also confirmed that Witherspoon ranked as a twentysomething hottie who also showed flashes of genuine talent.
Now she is proving it. Long Hollywood careers may be launched by faces that fill a million theatre seats, but careers don't last just because of looks. There has to be more, lots more. And Witherspoon appears to have enough that she will matter, for years to come. "You are creating images that will stay, hopefully, for a long time," Witherspoon says of being serious about her work.
More Artists
