The Bottom Line: Winona Ryder Treads 'Darkly' with Comeback Bid
By Robert Sims, Special to Hollywood.com
| Thursday, July 06, 2006
Winona Ryder |
Career, interrupted no longer. At least that’s what Winona Ryder’s probably hoping.
Ryder finally attempts to put her December 2002 shoplifting conviction behind her with the sci-fi head-trip A Scanner Darkly, which marks her first major film appearance in four years. She’s also handing out the Darwin Awards, a black comedy that debuted to so-so reviews at the Sundance Film Festival, and has enrolled in Heathers writer Daniel Waters’ Sex and Death 101.
Save for a cameo in Asia Argento’s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Ryder’s absent from theaters began after 2002’s Mr. Deeds and S1M0NE. She wasn’t locked up for shoplifting designer clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills--found guilty of grand theft and vandalism, her sentence included three years' probation—but she quietly disappeared after receiving a nasty slap on her sticky fingers.
After her conviction, Ryder’s spokeswoman Mara Buxbaum told the Associated Press that Ryder’s criminal record would not affect her ability to work.
“Hollywood is such a forgiving community that unless it's some sort of heinous crime, the industry is incredibly supportive,” she said.
Ryder’s Greatest Hits
Mr. Deeds $126.2 million
Bram Stoker’s Dracula $82.5 million
Beetlejuice $73.7 million
Edward Scissorhands $56.3 million
Little Women $50 million
How true.
Just ask Robert Downey Jr., Ryder's A Scanner Darkly and 1969 co-star.
The recovering drug addict is on the straight and narrow after years of receiving—and blowing—one chance after another. True, he must make do buttressing such noble endeavors as Good Night and Good Luck or wallet-stuffing ventures as The Shaggy Dog. But he’s working.
So’s Ryder. But she’s got other problems she must face. The Generation X poster girl’s conviction came at a time when she was falling out of favor.
Everything seemingly went sour for Ryder after she received her Oscar nominations for The Age of Innocence and Little Women.
Ryder’s Greatest Misses
Boys $516,349
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael $3.9 million
Celebrity $5 million
1969 $5.9 million
The House of the Spirits $6.2 million
The flakey black-clad teen who mesmerized us with her dark, quirky turns in Heathers and Beetlejuice began to bore us with her parade of angst-ridden misfits (Autumn in New York, Boys, How to Make An American Quilt). She tried to break free of that stereotype by—embarrassingly—kicking butt (Alien: Resurrection, Lost Souls). Then Angelina Jolie stole Girl, Interrupted from Ryder. She looked uncomfortable witnessing Adam Sandler’s juvenile antics in Mr. Deeds. Illness forced her to ditch Lily and the Secret Planting.
Johnny Depp’s ex-fiancée also found herself burdened with a groupie-like reputation for making sweet music with Beck, Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner and Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz. Dating Ryder almost became a rite of passage for singers: you’re nobody until you rock ’n’ roll with Noni, seemed to be the prevailing wisdom of the day.
“I wasn’t happy being so famous and written about all the time,” Ryder tells Another Magazine. “Hollywood people associate movies solely with fame and I didn’t enjoy working in that way. I am so much happier now.”
Fine. But let’s not kid ourselves: the script for the next Break-Up or Walk the Line isn’t about to drop into Ryder's lap until she pays she dues again.
Taking on roles in small but intriguing independents—such as director Richard Linklater’s talky but visually arresting A Scanner Darkly, which was shot using live-action photography and then animated à la his Waking Life—should make Ryder happy while aiding her cause. And allow her to get back to where she once belonged—working with the likes of Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese—if that’s what she wants.
The Bottom Line
Does it matter whether Ryder's absence was by choice? She’s paid for what she did; now it’s time for all to move on. OK, she’s probably never heard the last of those “Winona Scissorhands” jokes. But luckily for her, Hollywood—rightly or wrongly—accepts criminal behavior as an occupational hazard. And that means work for Ryder will never be hard to come by.
Photo(s) by Ken Kwok- © 2001- Hollywood.com, Inc- All Rights Reserved