Angelina Jolie is god!

With Changeling (2008) poised for her Oscar consideration, I’ve found myself on an Angelina Jolie jag lately. She was once compared to Brando for her remarkable capacity as eye magnet and changeling, and you could take her visceral performance in Gia (1998) as proof. Before that she was in Foxfire (1996), where her tough drifter could be seen as a young incarnation of the fallen manipulator she’d later play in Girl, Interrupted (1999).
    From a screenplay by Elizabeth White based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, Foxfire is a heartfelt exploration of young women finding their voice in a cruel and dismissive world. Jolie wanders into suburban Portland, a black leather phantom using her pent-up angst to encourage a group of high school girls to stand up to their oppressors — a rounded assortment of bullying, controlling, abusive boys and men, schoolmates, parents and teachers. While working her magic, a guarded love affair grows between Jolie and top-billed Hedy Burress. Fledgling director Annette Haywood-Carter handles their romantic scenes tenderly, while imbuing most of the picture with the sweaty, late night yearning of adolescence.
    But observing Jolie so early in her career — before the hollow payday of the Lara Croft pictures and the virtually unwatchable Mr. And Mrs. Smith (2005) — is to witness an unexpected elevation of aesthetic. Like Brando, she drifts casually beyond craft. It runs throughout Gia and most of her scenes in Girl, Interrupted, but the overall modesty of Foxfire — from its Oregon locations and small budget, to the relative obscurity of the cast — underlines the value of its pertinent themes while causing the actress to seem nothing less than inspirational. Pauline Kael envisioned a remake of Last Tango in Paris with Jolie playing both the Brando and Maria Schneider parts, and I can see her point.