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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n
Few names in Hollywood are more polarizing than Gwyneth Paltrow, which was the case even before she sold a $75 candle<\/a> called This Smells Like My Vagina. Paltrow began her career with a baked-in narrative: Here came a well-traveled 17-year-old with famous parents (Blythe Danner and St. Elsewhere director Bruce Paltrow), a more famous godfather (Steven Spielberg), a prep-school education, and preternatural poise \u2014 all of which made her a forerunner of nepo-baby discourse<\/a>. One of the central questions governing Gwyneth\u2019s fame has been whether she\u2019s actually a great actress. She has disputed it at times, too, saying<\/a> that acting was never her true calling. Apparently, Paltrow was destined to be a wellness entrepreneur, hence the colossal cultural force that is Goop. If some people doubt her validity as a performer, still more indict her qualifications as a guru peddling coffee enemas<\/a> and bee-venom facials<\/a>. And yet, she remains one of the lifestyle industry\u2019s most visible luminaries.<\/p>\n Wherever you fall in the great Gwyneth divide, it\u2019s hard to deny she is a master at commanding attention. Who else is powerful enough to popularize a phrase<\/a> that redefines the very idea of divorce? Who rivets a nation with every outfit, every expression, and every word uttered in the aftermath<\/a> of an alleged ski-slope collision? Who forgets entire movies<\/a> they\u2019ve made? Some of the contempt directed at Paltrow is silly. Being charmingly out of touch is what celebrities are for! Then again, she did once hawk<\/a> a $15,000 24-karat-gold dildo.<\/p>\n The thing is, Paltrow is a talented actress; she\u2019s just not a chameleon. She seldom leaves her Gwyneth-ness behind, and it\u2019s rare to be blown away by her choices in any given scene. Paltrow often plays characters whose refinement seems to match hers \u2014 and yet, some of her best performances come when she\u2019s channeling women who are a bit more, shall we say, troubled. You can\u2019t imagine Paltrow sharing their problems. Maybe that\u2019s why she\u2019s able to release herself to the material. No matter what, though, she is immensely watchable. Her charisma \u2014 as convincing as an Elizabethan romantic as it is an \u201cI lost half a day of skiing\u201d cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre \u2014 cannot be manufactured.<\/p>\n Now, with Marty Supreme, Paltrow\u2019s taking on her most significant movie role in a decade. We\u2019re taking the opportunity to rank her performances, with a few caveats. We\u2019re omitting hard-to-find TV movies and miniseries (Cruel Doubt, Deadly Relations), tiny supporting roles and cameos (Hook, Austin Powers in Goldmember<\/a>, Infamous), and voice roles (American Horror Stories). That still leaves us with a compelling r\u00e9sum\u00e9 \u2014 not a ton of films that are excellent as a whole, but more than enough solid performances to justify Paltrow\u2019s stardom.<\/p>\n Photo: TriStar Pictures\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Jessica Lange called<\/a> Hush a \u201cpiece of shit.\u201d She and Paltrow shot the Kentucky-fried thriller in 1996, after which it was test-screened to death. They got called back for reshoots that changed the ending and put Paltrow in an ungainly wig. At least the hairpiece is more entertaining than the predictable cat-and-mouse contest involving a farm owner trying to off-load her pregnant daughter-in-law. Paltrow gives a curiously pulseless performance that might have impugned some of her blossoming star power had Hush opened when it was supposed to. She\u2019s hesitant in embracing the story\u2019s inherent melodrama, helping to turn what could be fun schlock into a witless slog.<\/p>\n No one makes it out of this distressingly unfunny Johnny Depp vehicle unscathed. Paltrow has pulled off many a British accent in her time but totally bungles it here, one of many indicators that Mortdecai is a waste. She and Depp overenunciate everything, seemingly for some sort of theatrical comic effect. Maybe they do it to cover up the lack of jokes, the dull plot, or the overly frantic action. Pastiche doesn\u2019t work if everyone is sleepwalking through it.<\/p>\n Photo: Walt Disney Co.\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Paltrow seems to be doing a light Phoebe Buffay impression in her father\u2019s little-seen dramedy, which merges story lines revolving around competitive karaoke bars. She\u2019s even styled like Phoebe, at one point wearing a purple leather jacket and butterfly hair clips. But Paltrow is not Lisa Kudrow, and Duets is too shaggy to support the fusion of ditziness and vulnerability required of her. One upside: She sings \u201cBette Davis Eyes\u201d<\/a> in an extremely era-appropriate tattoo choker.<\/p>\n With Duets and The Good Night, Paltrow has more than met her family-favor quota. In this one, written and directed by her brother, Jake, she\u2019s a frumpy New York gallerist enduring a loveless relationship with a jingle writer (Martin Freeman) who longs for his halcyon rock-star days. Said boyfriend gets really into lucid dreaming, and sometimes Paltrow\u2019s voice emerges from the body of Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, who plays his fantasy woman. Jake obviously cast his sister in hopes of drawing attention to the movie, but he sabotaged her in the process \u2014 her character is naggy and annoying, and there\u2019s not much to latch on to beyond those attributes.<\/p>\n Whether Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow works depends on your appetite for its desaturated CGI, wherein every inch of every frame looks purposefully artificial. That applies to the performances, too. The actors\u2019 stilted, exposition-heavy noirspeak, meant to emulate pulp comics and sci-fi movies from the \u201930s and \u201940s, is as emotionally thin as the robots and zeppelins that trigger the action. Paltrow is almost doing Barbara Stanwyck drag, and that\u2019s kind of fun. Jude Law \u2014 Sky Captain himself! \u2014 recommended his Talented Mr. Ripley co-star for intrepid newspaperwoman Polly Perkins, comrade to his gallant mercenary. If Paltrow sometimes looks uncomfortable in the role, blame it on the blue screens<\/a> she was staring at the whole time.<\/p>\n Paltrow simply isn\u2019t weird enough for the menagerie of misfits who populate this meandering adaptation. Ryan Murphy turned Augusten Burroughs\u2019s arch memoir into a chore, and his actors don\u2019t seem to share an understanding of what its tone should be. As a frigid Bible thumper who at one point shows up in cornrows, Paltrow tries to go kooky, but she\u2019s a bit lost. She\u2019s not alone \u2014 the movie isn\u2019t poignant or whimsical enough to surpass freaky-family caricature.<\/p>\n Paltrow said<\/a> she initially couldn\u2019t wrap her head around the volatile alcohol abuse she had to portray as a tragic country idol in this overwrought box-office dud. It shows. She resorts to histrionics, her chunky southern drawl and mascara-terrorizing tears as underdeveloped as the story. It\u2019s a sympathetic enough role \u2014 we\u2019re not monsters here \u2014 but Country Strong\u2019s self-seriousness does Paltrow no favors.<\/p>\n All Merchant Ivory movies<\/a> are not created equal. Case in point: this soggy costume drama about Thomas Jefferson (Nick Nolte) during the five years he served as French ambassador, including his liaisons with the teenage slave Sally Hemings (Thandiwe Newton). Paltrow plays Jefferson\u2019s daughter Patsy, tormented by the memory of her late mother and the whole notion of slavery. Her Virginia accent is convincing, but, like most of the cast, she floats through the overstuffed pageantry without much spark.<\/p>\n Photo: Adam Rose\/Fox\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Upon arrival, Paltrow declares that Holly Holliday isn\u2019t \u201cyour average, run-of-the-mill substitute teacher.\u201d She wears a miniskirt, makes weed jokes, and ditches \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Believin\u2019\u201d for CeeLo Green<\/a>. It\u2019s all good fun, but Paltrow overwhelms the five Glee episodes she\u2019s in. Winning a Guest Actress Emmy for the role probably had more to do with her notoriety than anything else (it should have gone to Elizabeth Banks for 30 Rock). But between this, Duets, and Country Strong, it\u2019s clear that Paltrow needs to make a proper musical at some point.<\/p>\n It\u2019s pretty impressive that only a few years into her career, Paltrow could hold her own opposite supernovas like Whoopi Goldberg and Kathleen Turner. What\u2019s less impressive is Moonlight and Valentino in aggregate. The dramedy reduces a vibrant premise \u2014 four women rally to support their newly widowed chum (Elizabeth Perkins) \u2014 to tepid treacle. Because it never sheds the theatricality of the play it\u2019s adapted from, everything feels gauzy and artificial. Still, Paltrow seems comfortable despite being the most callow of the bunch, tapping into a curiosity still accessible to someone in their early 20s.<\/p>\n Thanks for Sharing is more thoughtful than people gave it credit for in 2013, but it\u2019s a cakewalk for Paltrow. All she has to do is turn on her megawatt charm. She\u2019s impossible to resist as the sunny new girlfriend to a recovering sex addict (Mark Ruffalo), leaning into every adorable impulse she can marshal. The movie is wise to both the melancholy and the comic foibles of adulthood, and Paltrow fits in nicely as the One Who Has It All Together.<\/p>\n Photo: Miramax\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Were we ever so young? Back when the Friends cast took turns gunning for movie stardom, Harvey Weinstein, who produced this tonal mishmash of a romantic dramedy, decided David Schwimmer was \u2026 wait for it \u2026 the next Tom Hanks (or so says Gwyneth: The Biography<\/a>). Then The Pallbearer bombed. Paltrow plays Schwimmer\u2019s high-school crush, reunited through mutual friends as Schwimmer\u2019s unemployed architect is summoned to deliver the eulogy for a classmate he doesn\u2019t remember. Even if the sprightly-sad fusion in Matt Reeves\u2019s directorial debut never really coheres, the film conjures a lot of affection for its characters. Patchy New York accent aside, Paltrow is winsome as the kind of vulnerable sweetheart destined for a movie that deploys \u201cHarvest Moon\u201d multiple times.<\/p>\n Paltrow flits through the periphery of this talky biopic, which is a shame because she\u2019s intriguing as a flapper carousing with Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her writer clique in 1920s New York. If you\u2019re never seen the movie, picture Paltrow clutching a cigarette holder and saying \u201cdaaaarling\u201d in a vampy mid-Atlantic cant. Catnip, right? If only she had a little more to do here.<\/p>\n As Estella, the wealthy love interest of orphaned painter Finn (Ethan Hawke), Paltrow exudes nonchalance. She speaks gently, moves with conviction, and seldom musters a shred of concern. But Estella is playacting, erecting a wall around herself to avoid childhood troubles. In modernizing and Americanizing the Charles Dickens novel, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n expunged many of Great Expectations\u2019s subplots in favor of a 1998-friendly romantic drama that cemented Paltrow as an emblem of gentility. She isn\u2019t given a ton to work with beyond Estella and Finn\u2019s courtship, but Paltrow\u2019s even-tempered affect aligns with Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s restrained approach.<\/p>\n And now we come to the fat suit. Paltrow has called the Farrelly brothers\u2019 romantic comedy a \u201cdisaster<\/a>,\u201d which is accurate. Squint and you\u2019ll see a moving moral about an incel-lite finance dope (Jack Black) learning that beauty comes in all sizes. Unfortunately, you have to wade through an onslaught of fat jokes that are hardly jokes at all, no matter what the movie wants us to think. Paltrow\u2019s wish to erase Shallow Hal from her permanent record is reasonable, but she fares fine as Black\u2019s love interest. Hers is the film\u2019s most human character, at once steely and insecure.<\/p>\n There\u2019s not a thing wrong with Paltrow\u2019s Contagion performance, but how high can you rank a movie that kills her off in the first 15 minutes? Steven Soderbergh\u2019s film became eerily prescient<\/a> by the time March 2020 rolled around, depicting a COVID-esque outbreak that originated in China. Paltrow is patient zero. We hear her cough before the first frame, and her sickly pallor worsens from there. There\u2019s a hauntedness to her brief appearance, a vibrancy that disappears as she grows weaker and succumbs to seizures. It almost feels like a cruel joke to torture Paltrow, whose newly Goopified career had made her a joke in some circles, in such a flagrant way. Is she in on that joke? Hard to say. But Contagion milks something out of her star power, even if it\u2019s merely a \u201cDrew Barrymore dying in Scream\u201d rug pull.<\/p>\n Photo: Warner Bros.\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Possession has several Paltrow trademarks. She\u2019s an upper-crust Brit who loves knitwear and finds herself drifting into an unexpected romance with an invigorating hunk (Aaron Eckhart). Neil LaBute\u2019s adaptation of A.S. Byatt\u2019s acclaimed novel about two academics researching fictional Victorian poets keeps its erotic charge at arm\u2019s length, but there\u2019s nary a courtship Paltrow hasn\u2019t known how to play. Even if Eckhart\u2019s performance needs a little zhuzh, Paltrow\u2019s English reserve melts as the pair spend more time enmeshed in 19th-century literary lore. If you don\u2019t already know where this movie is headed, you will when she blushes as Eckhart spontaneously strips off his shirt and dives into a plunge pool.<\/p>\n View From the Top isn\u2019t great, but it doesn\u2019t deserve all the ridicule, including from Paltrow herself<\/a>. It\u2019s a sweet little comedy that could use more focus and a less listless Mike Myers performance, and Paltrow is quite likable as a small-town girl with sky-high dreams. There\u2019s a scene late in the movie where she delivers a teary confession to her boyfriend Mark Ruffalo\u2019s grandmother, only for the grandmother to respond, \u201cWho are you?!\u201d As Paltrow laughs, she rolls her head to the side and runs a hand through her hair, charmed. For a brief second, you almost get the sense that she wished people could wonder who she is, too. Pretty good actress.<\/p>\n Photo: Francois Duhamel\/Paramount\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n What\u2019s funnier, and more fitting for our Gwyn, than having no idea<\/a> how many Marvel movies she\u2019s made or that she was in a Spider-Man at all<\/a>? Before Disney gobbled up the comic-book production company and turned the industry upside down, she took the role of Pepper Potts \u2014 canny assistant and love interest to Tony Stark \u2014 because (a) her old friend Robert Downey Jr. encouraged her to, and (b) the pay was good. Seven long movies later, Paltrow is actually one of the franchise\u2019s most engaging performers. She doesn\u2019t get a lot to do once Iron Man segues to The Avengers, but her rapport with Downey has a classic screwball verve that sets her apart in these increasingly overmythologized blockbusters.<\/p>\n Because she\u2019s so defined by privilege and polish, there\u2019s a novelty to seeing Paltrow play damaged \u2014 and she\u2019s good at it. Proof, a movie largely lost to time, is one of the finest examples. As a fashion-resistant mathematician struggling to prove she\u2019s responsible for work attributed to her troubled late father (Anthony Hopkins), Paltrow thoroughly captures the sunken feeling of depression. She\u2019s dead behind the eyes in all the right ways. This was her second collaboration with Shakespeare in Love director John Madden, and though it suffers from an acute case of self-seriousness, Paltrow\u2019s frayed nerves are captivating. She\u2019ll even make you believe she\u2019s never heard of jojoba oil.<\/p>\n Photo: Warner Bros.\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Paltrow\u2019s glamour often draws comparisons to Grace Kelly, one of many reasons she makes sense in a Dial M for Murder update for the waning erotic-thriller era<\/a>. Another reason: Paltrow is good at playing wealthy urbanites hemmed in by domestic turbulence. Here, her distress comes from screen husband Michael Douglas, poster child of the silver-tongued shark. You know vaguely where A Perfect Murder is headed within its first few minutes, the camera tracking Paltrow through her Fifth Avenue townhouse as she turns away from Douglas and drops the phony smile that greeted him. But awaiting the comeuppance she\u2019s going to give her scheming spouse is half the fun, and Paltrow makes for an alluringly chilly heroine whose acumen is as pleasing as her flippy \u201990s bob.<\/p>\n Paltrow is the best thing about this ridiculous Ryan Murphy series that starts with her leaving her husband for Martina Navratilova and ends with her becoming \u2026 president of the United States? That\u2019s right: Paltrow finally ascends to her rightful throne thanks to television\u2019s gayest showrunner (and her husband, Brad Falchuk, who co-wrote most of the episodes). Paltrow glides through The Politician\u2019s two seasons with the poise of a supermodel, if supermodels delivered succinct monologues to their scheming son (Ben Platt) about the difference between ethics and morals. She\u2019s a hoot here. Whodathunk that playing an enterprising earth-mother socialite would be such a fit?<\/p>\n Photo: Miramax\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n This one hails from the period when Paltrow and Ben Affleck sometimes pretended they weren\u2019t dating despite paparazzi photos that begged to differ<\/a>. \u201cWe are NOT together. I swear on my LIFE. We\u2019re NOT,\u201d she said<\/a> in an Entertainment Weekly cover story (capitalization theirs). Affleck isn\u2019t always great at transferring real-life chemistry to the screen (see: Gigli, Deep Water), but he fares better opposite Paltrow in Don Roos\u2019s contrived romantic dramedy. She shows a lot of depth as a frazzled, highly competent widow\/mother\/Realtor\/brunette. Paltrow doesn\u2019t specialize in characters lacking self-confidence, but the easily accessible doubt infused in both her expressions and her mannerisms gives the character a rich interiority.<\/p>\n The first movie to win Paltrow substantial notice (and some mild Oscar buzz) was this Texas-smoked thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan that cast her as one of those bad girls Hollywood so loved in the \u201990s. To watch it today is to see a rare Paltrow role unencumbered by much public perception beyond being Blythe Danner\u2019s daughter. She\u2019s a petty thief with a raspy voice that belongs to someone who has seen far too much at far too young an age. Entangled with a snarling reprobate (James Caan), Paltrow\u2019s character sets the film\u2019s second half in motion, and this hardened-beyond-her-years performance did the same for her career.<\/p>\n Sliding Doors got middling reviews and only grossed $11.8 million domestically, but it\u2019s left one of Paltrow\u2019s biggest cultural footprints. Even if you\u2019ve never seen it, you probably know the titular phrase to mean, in short, What if? Where that lexical rise started is hard to pinpoint, but it might have something to do with Paltrow\u2019s own A-list upsurge. She\u2019s darling in the movie, which hilariously signals its dual timelines by making her a brunette in one and a blonde in the other. Her ability to enchant makes her a great rom-com heroine and a pretty convincing modern-day Brit (at least to our untrained American ears).<\/p>\n This is a delectable Paltrow performance. She\u2019s granting us ostensible voyeurism in a movie all about egos and neuroses, portraying a rising actress named Skye Davidson who savors the attention she generates from mortals who don\u2019t command $4 million paychecks. Among an immaculate cast led by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming, who also co-wrote and -directed the lo-fi indie comedy, The Anniversary Party makes splendid use of Paltrow. Some critics decided she was playing herself, but that doesn\u2019t give the performance enough credit. She\u2019s in on the joke here, presenting Skye as someone blind to her own vampiric draw.<\/p>\n Paltrow\u2019s presence in Seven is a study in contrasts. She\u2019s soft where everyone else is hard, openhearted where they\u2019re edgy and burdened. Of course, that means the movie kills her off in a brutal way. She\u2019s the sympathetic woman who knows more about life than the career men who get to live. David Fincher\u2019s breakthrough accelerated Paltrow\u2019s name value, as well as that of Brad Pitt, whom she\u2019d met when they auditioned for Legends of the Fall (she lost the role to Julia Ormond). The young beauties started dating during the Seven production, and there\u2019s a real spark to the way they look at each other here. But a sadness creeps into Paltrow\u2019s eyes as the thriller unfolds. Playing the wife of Pitt\u2019s overambitious detective, she alone seems to predict the bleak finale.<\/p>\n Photo: A24\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n Josh Safdie lured Paltrow out of her acting hiatus with a fitting conceit: She\u2019s a former movie star playing a former movie star. This Kay Stone broad was major in the \u201930s, but now she glides around with her high-rolling prick of a husband (Kevin O\u2019Leary), appears in bad plays, and hooks up with younger table-tennis barracudas named Marty (Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet). The washed-out look on Paltrow\u2019s face says that retirement wasn\u2019t entirely Kay\u2019s choice. She\u2019s sad, yes, but in Paltrow\u2019s hands, she is feisty and funny, too, able to engineer her own kicks in life. You can see why Marty is drawn to her, and she to him \u2014 he makes her feel carefree, and she provides a glimpse of the fortune he\u2019s chasing. Paltrow is radiant. The movie doesn\u2019t adequately wrap up her arc, but it gives her a welcome return to the big screen.<\/p>\n In Emma, Paltrow\u2019s shoulders are as upright as her cheekbones. The Jane Austen adaptation, Paltrow\u2019s first lucrative starring role, established the essence that would define her career: genteel, beatific, and a little smug. As the eponymous Regency-era matchmaker, her charisma morphs into a lovelorn yearning, hinting at some of the more dramatic work that awaited her. If Paltrow has a disadvatnage, it\u2019s that she\u2019s out-funnied by some of the giddier supporting performers (namely Toni Collette, Alan Cumming, and Sophie Thompson). Still, it\u2019s easy to connect the dots between this extremely British breakthrough and her casting in Shakespeare in Love two years later.<\/p>\n Sylvia is one of those overly grand great-artist biopics. It\u2019s kind of a drag, especially if you already know the outline of Sylvia Plath\u2019s life \u2014 her uneasy marriage to Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), her struggles as a writer, her horrific death. In spite of all the melodrama, what works about Sylvia is Paltrow. The role asks a lot of her, and she rises to it thoroughly. Paltrow is hopeful but pained, determined but fragile. Most notably, she treats Plath like a full-fledged character instead of some well-worn literary archetype, almost like she built her from the ground up.<\/p>\n Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s debut grossed all of $223,000, but it\u2019s an essential piece of the Paltrow canon. She immerses herself in the role of Clementine, a Reno cocktail waitress and part-time sex worker who galvanizes Hard Eight\u2019s loose plot when a john fails to pay her the $300 she\u2019s owed. This is Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly\u2019s movie, and still it contains one of Paltrow\u2019s most dimensional performances. She complexifies what could be a mascara-drenched clich\u00e9. Despite Clementine\u2019s sweetness, there\u2019s not much sunshine in her eyes. It\u2019s like she\u2019s searching for happiness that constantly eludes her. Take the scene in the diner opposite Hall\u2019s career gambler, where she asks about his family life. When he says he hasn\u2019t spoken to his kids in a long time, the sorrow on Paltrow\u2019s face is genuine but matter-of-fact. In extreme close-up, with Christmas hymns on the speaker, we sense that domestic strain is familiar to Clementine. She\u2019s a little numb inside, too exhausted and guileless to chart a different path. Paltrow used to get one of these dysthymic roles every few years, and she almost always nailed them.<\/p>\n Photo: Miramax\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n After Paltrow\u2019s Oscar came one of her best movies, a film that seems even cooler and smarter in today\u2019s grifter-glutted culture. The early chatter about Paltrow\u2019s natural stardom hit its ideal as she swanned around Italian villages with the sort of mid-Atlantic accent you could imagine her affecting offscreen. In her hands, you barely notice the role is underwritten. This version of The Talented Mr. Ripley\u2019s Marge Sherwood, girlfriend to the ill-fated scion Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), masks her romantic resentments with an insouciance that\u2019s the province of the beautiful, moneyed, and ostensibly unbothered. Paltrow captures the artifice of carefree wealth. When Marge cracks, the way she buttons herself up like a heartsick mid-century housewife is at once emotionally rich and deliciously campy. And when she confronts Tom about Dickie\u2019s unsolved murder, Paltrow explodes in anger, yelling and thrashing with overwhelming conviction.<\/p>\n Sometimes an actor\u2019s contentment transcends the character they\u2019re playing. In Paltrow\u2019s Oscar-winning role, it\u2019s right there on her face. You could argue that Viola de Lesseps, the headstrong protagonist of Shakespeare in Love, has a joie de vivre that Paltrow is merely tapping into. But she\u2019s more alive here than she\u2019s ever been onscreen. When the camera pans toward Viola<\/a> as she finally gets to perform for a rapt audience at the Globe Theatre, the serenity on her face seems to apply equally to the actress portraying her. Cynics will rant about how this movie didn\u2019t deserve to beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture and perhaps how Paltrow shouldn\u2019t have gotten Best Actress over Cate Blanchett and Fernanda Montenegro, rendering both wins underrated. Paltrow understands the story\u2019s romantic swell, and her loveliness is crucial to both the film\u2019s success and her own.<\/p>\n Two Lovers was basically Paltrow\u2019s acting sign-off: In between its Cannes premiere and its theatrical release, she launched the initial Goop newsletter. She made plenty of movies after that, sure, but most aren\u2019t great \u2014 and certainly none compare to James Gray\u2019s devastating romantic drama. Later, when her company had become a proper $250 million fever dream, she would say<\/a> she\u2019d spent all those pre-Goop years \u201cmasquerading as an actor.\u201d This movie shows how little credit she was giving herself. Paltrow is so compellingly human \u2014 which is to say ragged and unpredictable \u2014 as a flighty drug addict who befriends an infatuated neighbor (Joaquin Phoenix) while dating a married man (Elias Koteas). Two Lovers weaponizes Paltrow\u2019s image: She shows up seeming perky and urbane, only to reveal a head-spinning insecurity that makes us fall to pieces alongside her.<\/p>\n Photo: Buena Vista Pictures\/Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n The image of Paltrow gliding off a city bus in slow motion, wearing that mink coat and beefy eyeliner, is seared into the cerebral cortex of every modern moviegoer and anyone who\u2019s attended a Halloween party or seen a couture runway show<\/a> in the last two decades. Wes Anderson\u2019s magnum opus opened two short months after 9\/11, its gloomy gallows humor suiting the country\u2019s mood. Margot Tenenbaum remains the movie\u2019s depressive-chic poster child, thanks to immaculate style and a yearning that makes Paltrow\u2019s distant gaze so legible. The Royal Tenenbaums was a 180 from Shakespeare in Love and Sliding Doors, and yet her flat affect conveys as much life as anything Viola de Lesseps gets up to. She\u2019s forlorn, funny, and fascinating. That\u2019s talent.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ad74b271b62bd69f4395ccbb6a427a9b01-hush-gwyneth.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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