Claire Danes, Post-Homewreckage:

The trailer for Shopgirl is fantastic, criminal even, that we have to wait until Oct. 21 to see the movie. Never has Claire Danes looked so luminous. However, despite getting lost for several minutes in her deep aburn tresses, something struck me as a bit calculating about this role and then I remembered: Shopgirl is Ms. Danes’s first post-homewrecking role, her first screen appearence after leaving boyfriend Ben Lee for the arms of Billy Crudup, her co-star on her last film, who was at the time expecting a child with Mary-Louise Parker. Crudup didn’t come out of the publicity hail smelling so sweat himself but he’s 11-years Danes’s senior and, unfair as it is, has the burden of age, gender and a serious artiste’s reputation on his side. Danes, as Fametracker points out, has never quite lived up to the goodwill heaped on her from My So Called Life, the TV blip that brought her to our attention. She’s young, beautiful, and has made a series of career choices which look great on paper but don’t add up to much in the moviegoer’s imagination. Shopgirl is Claire Danes playing a grown-up, a working woman desired by two men. Chosing what you want in a mate and what kind of person embodies it is among the first adult decisions we make. Ms. Danes seems to be making it on several levels here, an art/life/chicken/egg happening that now, I’m even more eager to see.

• Category: Cinematically Speaking...