cinema

I've just seen Nell. There's been nothing like it since Katharine Hepburn starred in Spitfire back in 1934. That was about a backwoods girl too, only Hepburn was wild and tough while Jodie Foster (right) is...I don't know what. I doubt if Jodie knows either, she's so busy dancing poetically and talking her own special forest language and looking divine in faded gingham.

Spitfire was a flop and so is Nell, which only goes to prove that miscasting springs eternal and that actors seldom know what's best for their careers (Hepburn campaigned for Spitfire, Nell was produced by Foster's own company). The hyper-controlled, always thoughtful and supremely urban Foster as a woodland nymph? It's as mad as Tom Hanks as a Wall Street bastard (Bonfire of the Vanities), as Carol Baker as a nun (The Miracle), as Richard Gere as the star of Israel (King David), as Tom Cruise as a campy bloodsucker (Interview with the Vampire), as Robert Mitchum as a meek schoolteacher (Ryan's Daughter), as Shelley Winters as a human being...these people should have been told if they wanted to stretch, they should have bought a rack.

Yes, talent will always want to try something different and occasionally it pays off; who would have thought Winona Ryder would be such a lovely Jo in the forthcoming Little Women or that Robert De Niro could be funny (see the song and dance he does in Mad Dog and Glory)? Still, stars needs to know what's within their range, and what's within their image too, lest they forget, as the dear things sometimes can, that their careers are actually for our satisfaction, not theirs.