She may be playing Catwoman right now, but at heart, Anne Hathaway is a comedienne… or rather, a comediva!
Anne is branching out these days into, well, just about any role that Hollywood can convince her to play, but she built her career by playing smart but frumpy girls who discover their own beauty. Wish fulfillment/make over movies are fun because, come on, who doesn’t secretly harbor the fantasy that if only someone would give you the right blow out you too could be a super model? But, duckling into swan movies almost always have a weird edge to them for those of us who are not pretty pretty princess types.
Despite all the progress the world has made towards sexual equality, or perhaps because of it, pretty and smart don’t always fit together comfortably in the same box. As all you fabulous comedivas know, it’s far from impossible to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to being both smart and sparkly, but few Hollywood movies really manage the complicated business of being a girl without coming out in one way or the other. I think that’s why Anne Hathaway’s onscreen transformations are so easy to root for (ie, make a ton of dough in the box office). Whether it’s The Princess Diaries or The Devil Wears Prada, Anne never lets that edge of discomfort with all of the superficial trappings of being a girl die completely as she makes her transition from “ugly” duckling to swan.
Very few actresses have been as believably, and endearingly, awkward as Anne was in The Princess Diaries, with her hair all frizzed out and those glasses. Anne feels so convincingly at home in her “ugly” (read adorable but dressed like the child of a San Francisco Bay Area hippie, which I can vouch for because I am one of those and hey, Anne, did you steal my Doc Martins for that role?) persona and so convincingly NOT at home as a pretty pretty princess. Same goes for The Devil Wears Prada. Anne seems to thrive on the character ambiguity of these coming of age transformations. If we’re not completely comfortable with either duckling or swan, that’s okay. Neither is Anne. That makes her characters feel all the more real and relatable, even inside the fairy tales these movies tend to be.Not all of Anne Hathaway’s ugly duckling movies are frothy comedic fairy tales. Seen Rachel Getting Married yet? Anne’s tormented drug addict Kym in Rachel is a variation on the same role: the young woman who has not yet grown into her potential. Kym may not ever make it to swan, but Anne still manages to make her shine with anguish and beauty and yes, comedy, despite the tragic spiral of her life.
It’s not just skill that lets Anne carry off these transformations in such an engaging way, a good half of what makes watching her transform from duckling to swan so great is sheer personality wattage. Whether she’s a frumpy hippy, a drug addict or a full blown Barbie style princess, her sunlit inner beauty lights up the role from within. That’s the lesson here, comedivas, because star power has nothing to do with style or fashion or how much you weigh in on the scale. The clichés are all true — it’s the inner beauty that counts.
