Jennifer Lawrence's career is a fascinating thing, starting in humbleness followed by a meteoric rise, promises of eternal success and a swerve into the land of flops and unexpected irrelevance. It all started in her teenage years when she was a working actress with credits on film and TV. It was a humble indie film that changed everything. In Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, Lawrence gave a career-best performance, painting a portrait of desperation and lived-in roughness as an Ozark Mountain girl in search of her missing father. She got an Oscar nomination for her troubles and a new star was born…
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Two years after her first nomination, the double-whammy of The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook gave Lawrence her signature role and an auteur that saw her as his muse. While the quality of her work is debatable, the actress enjoyed the sort of instant success Hollywood loves to bestow upon its shiniest it-girls. By the end of that Awards Season, Jennifer Lawrence was an Oscar winner. More importantly, she stole Jude Law's nickname, becoming the one and only JLaw.
What followed was a couple of years of increasing popularity and prestige. Her work as Katniss Everdeen earned her millions of fans, the X-Men franchise practically bent itself backward to make Lawrence's Mystique its main heroine and the collaborations with David O. Russell transformed her into a mainstay of the awards season. Lest we forget, Lawrence came close to a second Oscar in 2013 for American Hustle. Thankfully, Lupita Nyong'o managed to win the statuette instead and even Jennifer Lawrence seemed relieved by the result. Perhaps she knew it isn't good to get too much too soon.
2014 saw the first signs of an impending fall in popularity when the much-delayed Serena finally opened to tepid reviews and even worse box-office. Then came 2015 and her last Oscar nomination for a David O. Russell film. The production was Joy and the role was one of the most complex the actress had ever tried. For what it's worth, her weird mix of movie star conviction and messy character detail make for an enticing performance but, perhaps for the first time, a lot of people started talking about Lawrence as an overrewarded starlet, more popular than talented.
After that, it all went wrong. X-Men: Apocalypse was a dispiriting disappointment, Passengers was lambasted by critics and brought with it a press tour full of problematic soundbites. While Mother! is an admirable balls-to-the-wall bout of madness from director Darren Aronofsky, it was a bit of a disaster, both with audiences and some critics. Moreover, the crazy project highlighted both the best parts of Lawrence's acting style as well as her weaknesses.
Then came the disappointing box office of Red Sparrow and the flotsam disaster that was X-Men: Dark Phoenix. From Hollywood's most beloved star, Jennifer Lawrence became an elusive presence, appearing in fewer films as the years went by and being mostly forgettable in the ones she was in. Whether or not you like the actress, it's a bit sad that her most daring projects, Joy and Mother!, functioned as the harbingers of celebrity doom while some of her most boring projects were endlessly celebrated. In any case, it seems that, after two years of dwindling, JLaw's ready to return.
For 2020, the actress has three projects in stages of production. First, we have a Lila Neugebauer directed drama about a traumatized soldier adjusting to life back home after returning from Afganistan. There's also Mob Girl, the latest project of Paolo Sorrentino about a New Yorker who becomes a mafia informant for the FBI. Finally, she's set to star in Adam McKay's next film, a Netflix original called Don't Look Up about two astronomers trying to warn Earth's population about a catastrophic meteorite that threatens the planet.
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These three projects sound interesting, offering Lawrence a chance to regain her popularity among critics and the general audience. That said, there's another film set to make Jennifer Lawrence a powerhouse in the Oscar conversation. While it doesn't have any release date yet, Bad Blood has already been announced with Adam McKay in the director's chair and Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role of Elizabeth Holmes. Is a bit of celebrity impersonation just what JLaw needs to get herself a fifth Oscar nomination?
In summation, Jennifer Lawrence, the movie star, is (almost) back! Are you happy about these developments?