National Post (National Edition)
Witherspoon finds another hit with Big Little Lies.
WITH BIG LITTLE LIES, REESE WITHERSPOON CONTINUES HOT STREAK OF HER OWN MAKING
ike Elle Woods, I do not like to be underestimated.”
So said Reese Witherspoon, the blond behind the blond, at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards in 2015. And it was a fair warning, because if there’s one role that made Witherspoon a household name, it’s Legally Blonde’s Elle — and if there’s a role that solidified her as a woman with a surprising amount of pluck, it’s Election’s Tracy Flick.
It’s no surprise then that, with her ambition and gutsiness, Witherspoon has transformed into a real-life combination of both women, who came to her two years apart in the late ’90s: a time when Witherspoon’s brand of not-so-easy-to-love Type-As defeating just about any stereotype a woman could be saddled with was not only on trend and much needed, but her forte.
Nearly two decades later, with a long list of diverse roles and an Oscar under her belt, Witherspoon is still breaking down doors by entering the second stage of her career: businesswoman.
As part of an industry often criticized for both its lack of diversity in roles and filmmaking opportunities for women, it seems clear that the best way to change the norm (in film or just about anything, really) is to do it yourself — something to which Witherspoon seemed to catch on long before many.
The actress turned producer in 2000 when she started her first production company, the aptly named Type A Films, which released both Legally Blonde and its sequel, along with Four Christmases and Penelope. It was a low-key venture, but just the kind of beginning Witherspoon needed to later merge her company, in March 2012, with producer Bruna Papandrea’s Make Movies to create the independent Pacific Standard.
The pair tore through stacks of manuscripts, settling on two books written by women that they felt would make ideal first projects: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. They optioned both projects with their own money — the first rule of what not to do as a filmmaker in Hollywood — banking on the “strong, complicated, fascinating women at the centre” of each story, more than just the usual wives and girlfriends Witherspoon was seeing come across her desk.
Both books went on to hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, giving the producing duo a sigh of relief. When it came to the books’ cinematic counterparts, each released in 2014, Witherspoon hired the best of the best — and also perhaps the unlikeliest — including David Fincher to helm Gone Girl, and Jean-Marc Vallée for Wild.
Gone Girl and Wild each banked over half a billion dollars worldwide and earned three Academy Award nominations for women in acting performances (including Witherspoon’s second nomination, for Wild).
In 2016, Papandrea left the company, and Witherspoon gained full control of a company that had turned what some might dismiss as beach-reads and chick-lit into multi-milliondollar movies with nuanced stories and characters. This made her not just a top-level producer, but a tastemaker, with 2014’s Gone Girl triggering a wave of films just like it.
“I let it be known I wanted to see material,” Witherspoon said to Variety in 2014. “And because we’re specifically looking for Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz and, of course, herself. The series premièred last week on HBO, quickly picking up rave reviews, with many critics praising Witherspoon for her long-awaited return to the Type A woman — and yet again stealing the show.
The limited series, along with much of the Witherspoon’s work, explores themes of marriage, motherhood, abuse, crime and class, all while giving way to meaty characters who are more than just what they seem: a collection of Elle Woods, if you will, now available in all different colours and sizes. And that’s just the beginning. Pacific Standard currently has over 25 films in development, 16 of which are adapted from books, along with three television shows.
“And they all have female leads
Touching on everything from Hollywood’s double standards to, well, how she’s been working to erase them, Witherspoon didn’t check her business at the door, shouting out, “I hope Amy Schumer and all the other nominees that when you consider making your biopic, you’ll give me the rights first, which would be great. Although Amy, I’ll have to play your grandmother in the movie (by Hollywood standards), and you’ll probably have to play your own mother.”
If there’s any role with which to best understand Witherspoon, it’s that student in school who took charge, was often left with most of the group work but still asked for extra credit. It’s that sort of work ethic you don’t often hear about in Hollywood, one that rarely receives a spotlight when a woman is at the helm.
“I believe ambition is not a dirty word,” Witherspoon said during the speech. “It’s just believing in yourself and your abilities. Imagine this: What would happen if we were all brave enough to believe in our own ability? To be a little bit more ambitious? I think the world would change.”
It just might. According to a 2014 report in Variety, 60 per cent of Gone Girl’s audience was women, a demographic that regularly makes up 51 per cent of average movie-watching audiences. And according to Deadline, Big Little Lies, whose première picked up a total of 2.1 million viewers, has already become HBO’s “most female-skewing hourlong series,” with women comprising 57 per cent of its audience — and this is the same network that boasts Lena Dunham’s Girls. Not that there’s any competition.
“Once again, female audience are driving the box office and not just with young adult movies or films aimed just at women, such as romantic comedies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak, in Variety. “The female audience is vitally important to the health of the business.”
As a blond, blue-eyed, white southern woman, Witherspoon has a leg up on some of her more diverse contemporaries when it comes to both walking into a room of Hollywood executives and owning it, especially with a resumé that’s been long established. Having now used that privilege to build a production empire and roles for women we don’t always get to see on screen — the strong, the dark, the complicated — it’s interesting to see just how much more diverse Witherspoon will be able to help make the film industry.
And if that sounds like a difficult feat in an industry dominated by men, in the words of Tracy Flick, “It was like apples and oranges. I had to work a little harder, that’s all.”