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Mortdecai, starring former Miramax darlings Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow, hits theaters tomorrow, and from what we’ve seen from the rather incoherent trailer, it looks like a surefire flop. This is nothing new for Depp, nor Paltrow, whose careers have gone from blockbuster gold to tabloid fluff.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW_sfxUnbZA]This isn’t to say the Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning actors, respectively, aren’t getting much work these days. After all, Paltrow has starred in the box office-shattering Iron Man franchise as well as The Avengers, which was the highest-grossing film of 2012. She briefly starred in Steven Soderbergh’s viral thriller Contagion, and has been well received for a stint on Glee as Holly Holliday.
Yet, after she won the Oscar for her role as Viola De Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love back in 1998 and starred alongside Miramax alum Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, her career took a turn for the lackluster, save for her role as Margot Tenenbaum in Wes Anderson’s perennial family dramedy The Royal Tenenbaums.
After 2000 came Shallow Hal, View From the Top, Sylvia, and Proof. A sexist Farrelly Brothers’ rom-com, a crash and burn, a barely watchable biopic, and a subpar adaptation of David Auburn’s haunting play defined Paltrow’s career in the aughts. Being that we’re halfway through the current decade, the horizon isn’t looking much brighter for the actress. In fact, 2015 isn’t looking like much of anything for Paltrow, who, after Mortdecai, has just one film lined up: a tiny Spanish biopic called 33 días.
Who’s to blame here? Did Paltrow somehow lose the talents that garnered her an Oscar back in ’98? Is such a thing even possible? Should she point fingers at her publicist, her manager, herself? It might be worth analyzing how Miramax, the former independent and foreign film distributing powerhouse, has nearly destroyed the very careers it created all those years ago, as so many of their alumni have struggled to get on their feet as middle-aged adults after a falling out with or moving on from the brotherly distribution duo made up of Harvey and Bob Weinstein — nearly reminiscent of the post-studio system fold in the late ’60s/early ’70s.
Paltrow was the Weinsteins’ It Girl back in 1995, right after Se7en put her on the map and just before The Pallbearer and Emma — the latter earning her the top-billing spot two years later in Miramax’s first Best Picture-winner, Shakespeare in Love, beating Steven Spielberg’s war epic, Saving Private Ryan, which, to this day, is still a shock. Paltrow was The Weinsteins’ most promising money-maker, and if there’s anything Harvey Weinstein loves more than editing films to death, it’s money.
Harvey pitched Paltrow to every director and screenwriter who came through the door, but pimping out your talent isn’t the same as helping them cultivate their craft. Now Paltrow, among others, is middle-aged and in an undeniable career crisis. Paltrow isn’t the only actress this has happened to, nor are actors the only talent who have been left to fend for themselves when Harvey and Bob all but closed up shop after snagging another Best Picture win for Chicago and leaving to start the Weinstein Company.
Quentin Tarantino, despite being the unofficial “third Weinstein,” was hung out to dry after Pulp Fiction brought the independent renaissance into the mainstream. Clerks filmmaker Kevin Smith has always been forced to retreat back to the baby blanket role of Silent Bob after failing to make anything substantial after 1999. Good Will Hunting was kept in post-production prison for years before its release in 1997, to the point where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck thought about giving up on the project completely. Speaking of Ben Affleck: the actor had to self-rehabilitate his career, thanks to Miramax, as a hated rom-com staple to a respected utility talent that can act, write, direct, and win Oscars.
Paltrow’s Mortdecai co-star, Johnny Depp, has long suffered from an onscreen identity crisis mistaken for versatility thanks to Miramax, who used the ’80s heartthrob to Americanize their foreign hit Chocolat, before sending him on his merry way to star in uneven dramas and creepy adaptations of children’s classics like Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland. If it weren’t for Captain Jack Sparrow (whose legend has been tainted by a franchise that refuses to die) and the occasional bone thrown from Tim Burton, Depp would be a total dud. After Catherine Zeta-Jones snagged the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Miramax’s Chicago, the actress went on to star in roms-coms that came and went, including No Reservations, The Rebound, Lay the Favorite, and Playing for Keeps (also starring Gwyneth Paltrow), along with an Oceans sequel that everyone wishes they could unsee. Zeta-Jones brings to mind her Chicago co-star, Renée Zellweger, who, after Bridget Jones’s Diary and a surprising Oscar win for Cold Mountain, could not entertain an audience to save her life. White Oleander and Cinderella Man were all snores and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was a disappointment to fans of the classic rom-com.
There are, of course, exceptions to this strange coincidence, starting with Toni Collette, who got her Miramax break with Muriel’s Wedding and Cosi, which are small fries compared The Sixth Sense, In Her Shoes, and Showtime’s The United States of Tara. Billy Bob Thornton is another great example of a Miramax late-bloomer, who is having another Sling Blade banner year after his Golden Globe-winning role on FX’s Fargo. But that came after many years of relative obscurity.
Without trying to point (too many) fingers at the Weinsteins, who undoubtedly propelled countless careers to A-list status (including their own), it’s simply an unfortunate coincidence (or curse, depending on how you want to look at it). But it’s rather disheartening to see actors who defined late ’80s and early ’90s independent films stuck in seemingly endless limbos. If Michael Keaton has taught us anything this Oscar season, it’s that it’s still possible for an actor to break out of a slump with a career-redefining role, but those are few and far between.
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Photos: Everett Collection
