Ok. As you know, I've been questioning the apparently common assumption that Megan Fox is dumb. I hadn't seen her act in anything, not counting that SNL she hosted, but some of the things she's said in interviews and such led me to question the assumption.
Well, now I've seen Jennifer's Body. The fact that Fox chose it as her attempt to show that she could "open" a film (didn't work) is the best evidence I've seen yet that maybe, y'know, she isn't actually all that smart.
I haven't seen screenwriter Diablo Cody's much-hyped Juno, but I have to assume it is a much better screenplay. Because if JB is a credible sample of her screenwriting then she's going on the list of Worst Screenwriters Ever to Win an Oscar. With Akiva Goldsman, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
To be fair, I like what I think she was trying to do. Which I think was to say something about female friendships and the quickly alternating, rotating currents of wanting and being scared of sex that runs through teenagers of both sexes.
These are not unheard-of themes in horror movies. Think of Carrie, based on the breakout novel by Stephen King, who now alternates column space in Entertainment Weekly with Cody. Even the Friday the 13th movies play on the fear of sex, if only in the most crass of ways.
Jennifer's Body doesn't add as much to this as I would've liked, or as I think the filmmakers wanted it to. And here I can feel my heart softening, because I want to say, at least JB tries to be something a little different; smart, which is better than frickin' Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakel.
But--and I think I just put my finger on the problem--the screenplay is smarter than the characters. And that's death. Any feelings we have for these people are based almost totally on what appeal the actors have (the boys as well as the girls).
The screenplay thinks these people are really, really dumb and that this is really, really funny.
And, it's half right. They are dumb.
(You're a teenager alone late at night in a dark house and you're feeling creeped out. A knock comes at the door. Which of these things would you do first? 1. Turn on the lights. 2. Peek out the window to see who is outside. Or 3: Open wide the door. If you answered 1 or 2, you're smarter than Amanda Seyfried's character.)
(It gets better. Shortly thereafter, a bruised and bleeding Jennifer shows up the house, sloppily eats food out of the refrigerator and projectile vomits some black goo at Seyfried's feet. Later, we are shown in flashback Seyfried cleaning up the aftermath of this distressing event...still without turning her goddamn lights on.)
So yeah, they're dumb...but it's not funny.
This strikes me as the kind of movie I would really like to hear a commentary for after the filmmakers have had a few whiskey sours to loosen their tongues because I want to know: Who had the final decision making power?
I get the feeling (based on Karyn Kusama's director's commentary to the extended version, which is the one I watched) it was no one person and that may've been to its detriment. I have little or no trust in the "auteur theory"--as the saying goes, you rarely see any director do much with that theory and 100 blank pages. But here, it seems like, a more consistent eye and voice would've helped the film.
And actually, I may've liked the direction best of anything. It keeps a nice tension sometimes, and delivers at least one genuine "jump scare" which is rarer than an un-flexed muscle in James Cameron's ego.
As for the question: Is Megan Fox the worst actress of the year? For me, the jury is still out, though I'll admit, it's not looking good.
Watching her in this movie lends support to something I noticed on her SNL gig. On that show, in virtually every sketch she did, her blocking consisted of walking onstage, standing stock-still (or sitting down) and delivering her lines.
In one case, they even gave her character an otherwise extraneous leg in a cast as if to answer the question of why the heck she isn't moving around the room.
But, ever giving the benefit of the doubt, I was prepared to suppose that had some more to do with nerves (a live nationwide TV show, after all) than a lack of talent.
In Jennifer's Body, however, she had the benefit of retakes and assorted other ways to "sweeten" her performance. And she still seems to exist only in motion or in dialogue, never (or very nearly so) at the same time.
So I'm forced, nay compelled, to wonder aloud: Is it possible Megan Fox can't walk and talk at the same time?
But the thing is, sometimes, she shows signs of life.
Whether as a "straight" actress or commedianne, she'll pronably never be in this line-up:
(that's Christina Applegate, Christina Aguilera, January Jones, former studio exec Sherry Lansing, Maria Bello, Anne Hathaway and Sigourney Weaver)
But there are enough signs of life here for me to think that with a stronger director and a much stronger script, she could be better than she is too often, in too much of this movie.
Oddly, those moments of life come more when she is speaking than when she's moving.
When her character is being sacrificed to Satan by some indie-rock wannabes, she manages to imbue her pleas with some reality. Certainly more than we've seen in the more than a few variants on this scene in other horror films.
But...she's tied down in that scene. When she has to move, well, I'm gonna suggest something here that may seem counterintuitive if not all-the-way crazy.
Not only am I not sure if Fox can walk and talk at the same time, I'm not even sure if she knows how to walk as a sexy woman.
Now hear me out.
Compare her, first, to some of the women of Nine, to pick examples from a current film.
Nicole Kidman may no longer be at her peak as a beautiful woman, but she sure knows how to work her beauty.
Penelope Cruz knows how to act with her legs.
You put Kate Hudson's ass in a bikini and her feet into some high heels and most men would follow her anywhere.
(And the line would start behind me).Stacy Ferguson's got her sexy body routine down so tight it manages to make up for the face, which is not--I'm trying to be honest but not mean--classically beautiful.
But Fox, at least in this movie where she is supposed to be a freaking seductive siren, strikes me differently.
More as a girl who has been told she's so sexy so often, now she thinks all she has to do is show up in a short skirt.
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