Kevin Smith has a wonderful story to tell about the time he nearly made a documentary with Prince. It’s a fascinating insight into the minds of incredibly successful people who have been in the spotlight for longer than they can remember.
After a week spent in the company of the purple one, during which the genius behind Purple Rain and Raspberry Beret asked him to film a series of fan encounters at his Paisley Park estate in Minneapolis, the Clerks director found himself at the end of his tether after being asked to personally relay Prince’s eccentric message of Jesus to the assembled throngs, despite his own complete lack of religious belief.
The singer’s producer, Stephanie Allain, politely explained to the incredulous Smith that there was simply no way of turning down her employer’s requests. Prince had been “living in Princeworld” for so many decades, she explained, that he had become completely incapable of engaging with anything other than his own deeply idiosyncratic reality.
It might seem harsh to suggest that Angelina Jolie has been dwelling for several years in her own personal artistic comfort bubble. So let us say merely that her own particular career path often appears to be veering into an undiscovered country that at times looks an awful lot like Angelina Jolieland.
Long-term observers might be begging for a dramatic turn to equal the actor’s bestial, Oscar-winning performance as a sociopathic mental-health patient in 1999’s Girl, Interrupted, or perhaps her desperate and determined mother in Clint Eastwood’s head-spinningly harrowing 2008 period thriller Changeling. But Jolie already has two feet in the directing pool and is more interested in giving us deeply personal projects which may or may not be utterly dreadful.
Her film-making debut, 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, won praise for tackling the horrifying legacy of war rape in the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. But last year’s art house relationship drama By the Sea, which saw Jolie direct herself alongside husband Brad Pitt, was poorly received.
And then there’s 2014’s Maleficent, the Disney live action “reimagination” which criminally stands as Jolie’s only acting role (bar animated fare such as the Kung Fu Panda movies) between 2010’s The Tourist and 2015’s By the Sea. Robert Stromberg’s film took a whopping $758m at the global box office, yet failed to wow critics – and for good reason.
Jolie is clearly going for a kind of icy stillness as the wronged fairy who punishes poor Sleeping Beauty for the sins of her cruel, fairy wing-stealing pops, the nefarious King Stefan. But it’s a strangely listless performance: Jolie regularly finds herself being acted off screen by a lively Elle Fanning as the soon-to-be-snoozing Princess Aurora.
An experienced director of fantasy fare – Steven Spielberg or Alfonso Cuarón, perhaps – might have been able to help the movie transcend its monstrously contrived roots. But Maleficent gets the untried Stromberg, previously a special effects artist and designer on 2010’s Alice in Wonderland.
The result is a fantasy fable that stands as the blandest instalment yet in Disney’s ongoing programme of live action fairytale remakes, a movie that would never have existed had the role not been so perfectly suited to its star’s otherworldly beauty and taste for the gothic.
Now Disney has greenlit Maleficent 2, with Jolie set to return. And audiences will no doubt turn out again in their droves for what could be the actor’s final turn in front of the cameras.
But is this really how she wants to go out? Jolie’s CV is hardly impeccable – there are rather too many Lara Croft: Tomb Raider instalments in among the Gias and Playing by Hearts. But we’re talking about an Oscar-winning actor, and quite possibly Hollywood’s most recognisable screen presence.
By taking the easy road with interminable fantasy sequels, the suspicion is that Jolie is deliberately avoiding the kind of edgy director-led projects that might have helped her reach new heights of artistic credibility. Her Oscar-winning peer Reese Witherspoon might be due to play Tinker Bell in a separate Disney venture, but she’s also willing to put in the hard graft on indie fare such as Jean-Marc Vallée’s acclaimed hiking drama Wild.
Moreover, the apparent safe, warm comfort blanket of Maleficent 2 might prove to be a mirage. The similarly pitched The Huntsman: Winter’s War, another pointless fantasy prequel led by an Oscar-winner (Charlize Theron), has just fallen on its own sword at the domestic box office following scathing reviews. Audiences are less star-obsessed, and more discerning, than they used to be.
If this really is to be Jolie’s final promenade, a more suitable farewell tour must surely be arranged. The actor’s long-mooted Cleopatra biopic, which appears to have died in the wake of the Sony hacking revelations, would certainly help her go out with a bigger bang.
With the right director attached, it might even restore Jolie’s reputation as an awards season presence, a development which could not fail to help her directing career. The risks, as Elizabeth Taylor might have told her, would be palpable, but the rewards might even be a genuine crack at that long-awaited second Oscar. Surely that would be worth taking a vacation, no matter how brief, from the Jolieworld bubble?
