The wedding party’s not over, but Rachel McAdams‘ got a Red-Eye to catch.
After Wedding Crashers, this bridemaid’s no doubt crossing her fingers that she’s booked a return flight to the upper reaches of the box office Top 10.
Red-Eye represents a slight departure for goremeister Wes Craven. This isn’t A Nightmare on Elm Street at a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet , but a Phone Booth-ish cat-and-mouse game between passenger-in-peril McAdams and her tormentor, 28 Days Later‘s Cillian Murphy. Things get talky but tense as Murphy forces McAdams to make a phone call that puts in motion an assassination plot. Then the plane touches down in Miami and Craven unfortunately allows Red-Eye to turn into a Screaming match, minus the spooky mask and costume.
If audiences are tired of hanging on the telephone with the likes of Colin Farrell and Kim Basinger, then Red-Eye will crash and burn as quickly as Craven‘s most recent hair-raiser, Cursed ($19.2 million). If not, Red-Eye could touchdown smack in the middle of s”>Phone Booth‘s $46.5 million and Cellular‘s $32 million.
Like Phone Booth and Cellular, Red-Eye surely soars or falls on the strength of its lead performance. In this case, McAdams makes the most of a juicy role that requires her to psychologically outwit Murphy and, when words fail to get the job done, to beat him senseless.
“I knew the third act [of Red-Eye] would difficult,” Craven tells The Bottom Line. “But
when I learned she was a champion figure skater, I knew she had the physical discipline required [for
the role], that she could take a bang or two.”
 |
Rachel McAdams at the Box Office | |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
For the first time, McAdams finds herself the center of attention. OK, she gave as good as she got in Mean Girls, but that deliciously catty high school showdown was constructed as Lindsay Lohan‘s Heathers. The Notebook spared McAdams from being Hollywood’s go-to bitch after Mean Girls and The Hot Chick, but the romance wooed audiences of all ages because of the sparks that flew between McAdams and Ryan Gosling. And Wedding Crashers belongs to Frat Packers Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell.
Jumping from Wedding Crashers to Red-Eye makes absolute sense for the Canadian-born McAdams. Julia Roberts did the same, going from Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman to Flatliners and Sleeping With the Enemy. Sandra Bullock cemented her post-Speed popularity by following While You Were Sleeping with The Net.
That’s not to suggest McAdams is poised to become the next Roberts. Heck, she’s not even close to being the next Julia Stiles. But she’s made quite an impression with four diverse roles in just two years. With that comes great expectations from an actress who’s just as comfortable going all silly with the Frat Packers and then getting serious enough to break hearts and jaws. (Too bad McAdams lost the role of Fantastic Four‘s Invisible Woman to Jessica Alba–Doctor Doom would have thought twice about tangling with such a mean girl.)
“For someone to come as far as she’s come in such a short time, it’s quite stunning,” Craven says.
McAdams is “developing in a very special way,” he says. “She’s a beautiful girl … with beautiful blue eyes. Her eyes have a lot of expression. She’s also very intelligent and understands her characters. She looks at what is need to immediately get under the skin of her characters.”
If McAdams exudes a maturity beyond her years, it’s because she’s older than you think. Sure, she played a high school senior in last year’s Mean Girls, but she’s actually 28 going on 29, or almost 10 years older than Lohan. Not that anyone noticed that McAdams looked like she should have been Lohan‘s teacher, not her classmate.
Accordingly, it’s unfair to compared McAdams to tween idols Lohan, Hilary Duff or Mandy Moore. Her true contemporaries are the likes of Stiles, Reese Witherspoon, Kate Hudson, Kirsten Dunst and Claire Danes, her costar in the upcoming The Family Stone (Nov. 4). That said, they all put themselves on the map when they were in their teens, or even younger, and so they have a head start on this late bloomer. She also hasn’t pay her dues in offbeat U.S. independents, but she possess the emotional weight, smarts and sophistication to pull off a Business of Strangers or Virgin Suicides. She’s already earned herself a Genie nomination, the Canadian Oscar, but hands up anyone on this side of the border who’s seen Perfect Pie?
|
|
|
|
With Wedding Crashers partying well into August, this summer could belong to McAdams if Red-Eye flies high. But she really needs to stand out from the crowd in The Family Stone. That’s no small task considering the Christmas comedy features a cast that includes Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson and Diane Keaton. If McAdams makes her presence felt in The Family Stone, and continues to pull off comedic and dramatically demanding roles with finesse, she could soon be giving Witherspoon and Hudson a run for their money. | |
|
||
