This weekend, strong word of mouth has brought popular book adaptation The Help to rise to the #1 spot at the box office this weekend ahead of the well-reviewed blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which had just barely beaten it the weekend before. It's a comparable story to the box office success of The Blind Side in 2009 and puts the likes of Julie & Julia or Eat Pray Love, to which The Help had been previously compared to, in the proverbial dust. Sandra Bullock's continuing reign as America's sweetheart and the star power that comes therein had been said to anchor the success of The Blind Side and, likewise, I think Emma Stone's name can be safely thrown into the "star" category.
While The Help might have had more, well, help, from seasoned character actors like Viola Davis or Octavia Spencer, there is no confusion that the center role belongs to Emma Stone and she has once again opened a movie at which she is the center of to breakthrough success to the surprise of the industry matching her achievement last year with Easy A after also having been involved with the ensemble of the moderately successful Crazy Stupid Love (although my main complaint with the film would probably be that there simply isn't enough of her, especially compared to the irritable child and his creepy babysitter).
Netflix has recently made the film Paper Man available for instant viewing which, though not as strong as the likes of Easy A or The Help on the strength of its own merit, can summon up one aspect of Emma's appeal and how she's skyrocketing to the top of the A-list of Hollywood. Paper Man was an underseen and critically mauled indie dramedy in the vein of a Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry film that had first made critics single-out praise for Emma shortly before she burst on the more mainstream scene with Easy A. In the film, she embodied a persona and character of a strong-willed independently-minded but-still-sensitive-enough-to-yearn-for-some-affection character even more strongly than she had in Easy A and The Help. But it's this character that she plays so well, so precisely, with such sympathy and ability to relate that defines her screen presence in a way that can only hearken back to the most classic of Hollywood stars from the golden era and is the stuff legends are made from. While only being 22.
Yes, well, in Paper Man it was more for her desire to fill a fatherless void that she finds in Jeff Daniels while in Easy A it was a more for a boy who would finally perhaps want to take her out on a real date and aiming for romance instead of just having the opportunity to tell people that they banged her. So it's not like she's playing the same role over and over again, she's finding great roles that suit her strengths in a diverse selection that still manages to show off her versatility. In The Help, she plays a strong-willed independently-minded journalist in the rougher context of 60s-era Mississippi who still wants a sense of normalcy and a good man to like her for who she is just as anyone else would want. And she stands out in an ensemble of Julliard-trained and Tony award winning actresses with her memories of being raised by an old family maid whom her ailing mother (just another layer of psychological complexity that Stone attaches on her character with surprisingly seamlessness that still matched a lighter tone to the film) fires while Stone's character has been away at school. Upon learning the circumstances of that firing, Stone has a killer scene and very easily the best delivered line among the intimidating cast of actors.
Not even mentioning how easily she seemed to slip into the period and carry a believable southern drawl, one would think something of this genre might not suit her talents as much as, say, the indie scene street cred of Paper Man or the hip teen comedy genre of Easy A that proves to be such MTV Movie Award and Teen Choice Award bait, or even the romantic comedy genre of Crazy Stupid Love or Friends With Benefits or even the gross-out comedies like Superbad or The House Bunny. And she only continues to further prove her strengths as an actress, her bankability as a star and her emotional versatility as an artist by choosing her star path so instinctively, so against the grain of conventional wisdom, always subverting expectations for her. While any young bombshell in Hollywood trying to breakthrough big time would die/dye to have blonde hair, the naturally blonde Stone prefers to color her hair red. Many actresses aim for the more passively written female roles in major testosterone filled blockbusters while Emma fights for the female ensembles and comedies (like most of the films mentioned so far) and has even had the privilege of hosting Saturday Night Live to impressive results. But even these comedies, particularly those that have proven to be her three defining roles thus far (Paper Man, Easy A and The Help) she has imbued her generally upbeat characters with a sense of heartwrenching dramatic notes that she hits to home runs with standout line readings. Whether it be "so I swam back..." and the rest of that monologue from Paper Man to "I kind of hate me too" from Easy A to "you broke her heart" from The Help, she consistently seems to be wooing and proving herself more and more with each film and each year in the business while critics and bloggers this summer were expecting her star to grow while even underestimating the potential success of The Help.
Suddenly she seems to have dug a very impressive niche for herself when it's announced that, suddenly, she's gonna be apart of the rebooted Spider-Man franchise. People are blindsided at first but figure ultimately that she'd be perfect for Mary Jane. No no no, she's going back to her blonde roots for Gwen Stacey. She already opened the $8 million budgeted Easy A to over twice that number in it's opening weekend finishing at close to $60 million and opened The Help to, first, match and then even exceed an installment of Planet of the Apes as opposed to many female-opened comedies of the past few years like Love & Other Drugs, One Day, Morning Glory, Life As We Know It, Killers, The Switch etc. etc. by actresses thought to be much more established than the young Emma with, I believe, The Amazing Spider-Man only to be a guaranteed (and for her probably the biggest) box office success in her already impressive hand of cards.
She has the natural talent that had caught the eyes of Hollywood ever since the likes of Superbad, The House Bunny and Zombieland and has the charisma and proven success, especially after this Summer, that should negate any argument of "overexposure" as if her stardom is being forced on the moviegoing public. She's not being rammed down anyone's throats, she's getting there completely on the merit of her own natural talent and is increasingly getting loved by as many people as are willing to give her a chance and paying to see the films centered around her.
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