RENEE ZELLWEGER (07.01.99)
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BY PETER KURTH
I saw Renee Zellweger at Borders the other day. At least, it was supposed to be Renee Zellweger. That is, the Borders staff assured me it was.
To be honest, I couldn’t tell. From 20 feet away, while I browsed a copy of Spirituality In Ten Easy Steps, Renee Zellweger looked like any other young woman of her generation – loose shirt, jeans, hair that hadn’t been combed in a month, etc. If I hadn’t been told it was Renee Zellweger, I’d never have guessed. As it was, I had to think hard to remember who Renee Zellweger is.
I gather Renee is here to make a movie with Jim
Carrey, whom I haven’t seen. Indeed, I’d walk ten blocks not to see Jim Carrey,
on screen or off. I don’t suppose he just walks into Borders, anyway, like
Renee does. Jim gets upwards of $20 million a picture, while Renee gets – well,
a fraction of that. No female star is among
Anyway, at Borders, Renee bought a couple of videos. I know what they were but I’m not going to tell you – I have my sources to consider. She paid for her purchases by check.
"She has big puffy handwriting," said the sales clerk. I refrained from asking if she drew little hearts when dotting her "i’s," because, frankly, I don’t want to know every detail of Renee’s private life. Really, I don’t. I took a swipe at her once in this column, lamenting my inability to distinguish one pale blonde from another in the Gwyneth Paltrow Years, but at the time I thought Renee must be like Robin Wright (Mrs. Sean Penn), who's so bland that every time she pitched up in Forrest Gump I couldn't remember who she was. I’m ashamed of my attitude now, because everyone tells me that Renee Zellweger is a really good actress, and, of course, I had no idea she’d be coming to town.
Renee, if you’re reading this, forgive me. I didn’t mean it. In fact, I remember you quite well from that Tom Cruise-Cuba Gooding, Jr. picture, whatever it’s called – that’s right, Jerry McGuire – although you’ve got to admit, Renee, that the little kid with glasses kind of upstaged you. I haven’t seen your latest movie, One True Thing, but that’s only because I can’t bear the thought of Meryl Streep playing a kooky mom with cancer. I’ve hardly recovered from Terms of Endearment, and that was 16 years ago!
One True Thing is based on a book by Anna Quindlen, who used to be a sharp social commentator for The New York Times but now writes novels about white women in crisis – confronting work, facing the empty nest, caught in adultery, getting divorced. I’m glad these issues have finally found a literary market -- "Happy families are all alike," as Tolstoy said – but Quindlen is so wryly wise and ironic now you want to pop her one. Give me a fallen woman under a train any day of the week!
Anna, Anna and Leo: "But the peasants—how
do the peasants die?"
The point is, Renee, I’ve seen at least one of your films, maybe more. I just don’t recall what they were. This is a problem I have and it’s only getting worse. My partner assures me whenever we go to the video store that whatever I’ve picked out is something we’ve already seen. How can he tell, I wonder? Normally, my memory is like a steel trap, but when I suggested The Siege the other night for the 15th time in a row, John said, "This has got to stop!"
Renee, have I seen The Siege? It’s got Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, and Annette Bening, another fine actress with nothing to do. Bruce and Denzel are battling something – aliens? terrorists? the government? – I don’t recall. Anyway, things go from bad to worse before everything starts to explode. This goes on for about an hour. I’m not kidding you, Renee – half of that movie is about gunfire.
Of course I might be thinking about Enemy of the State, in which the Denzel character is played by Will Smith, the black Tom Hanks, and Bruce is replaced by Gene Hackman, as a security and surveillance wizard who helps Will fight Jon Voigt. Jon is a National Security Agency big-wig who’s just murdered Jason Robards, as a Republican senator with a conscience (?), leaving Will to sort it all out because someone’s slipped him a video of the crime without his knowing it, thus proving that Jason didn’t really have a heart attack in his car and drive into a lake, as initially supposed.
You can see why I don’t write for the movies, Renee -- I just get breathless! Will Smith has a wife in this picture – a black woman, which is more than Denzel usually gets -- who starts out as a scrappy, hard-nosed civil rights attorney but quickly turns into a whining drip. Her house has been bugged; her husband’s been framed for murder; her credit cards have been cut off, for God’s sake, and all she can talk about is the affair Will had four years ago with Lisa Bonet.
Lisa dies, of course, in the end – Will is too good for that kind of temptation.
So here’s my question, Renee – how do you stand it? No wonder you bought … but I swore I wouldn’t tell.
"No people ever recognize their dictator
in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He
always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National
Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one
of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And
nobody will ever say `Heil' to him, nor will they call him `Führer' or `Duce.'
But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike
bleat of `O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'"
-- Dorothy Thompson, 1935