"When you spend your time writing about women and Hollywood there are many, many days when things seem bleak and downright depressing. But not this week. This week I am filled with hope, and that hope is on the big screen in several films rolling out shortly including Catching Fire and Frozen and Philomena. Let’s be honest, 2013 hasn’t been a good year for women onscreen. It’s been disheartening to say the least. In the summer the only women onscreen (in wide release) were Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy in The Heat. Then in October Sandra Bullock again broke box office records as the lead in Gravity. But now, just in time for Thanksgiving there are multiple films with female leads that people all across the country will be able to enjoy.
First, Catching Fire. I can’t say how big a game changer this series of films are. This is the second film in the four part series based on the Hunger Games trilogy of books written by Suzanne Collins. Jennifer Lawrence again takes up the lead of Katniss Everdeen and I caught myself holding my breath during the opening moment which was a full screen shot of Lawrence. It is so rare to see a full on beautiful shot of a young woman to open a film. And from that opening moment, this young woman just commands the screen and leads this film in every way. The fact that she seems completely normal and hasn’t been enveloped into the Hollywood system where most young women seem like they are hungry and have been programmed, is such a revelation. She seems to be in charge of herself, and she’s no longer the girl we saw at the Oscars when she was nominated for Winter’s Bone. She’s become a young woman who doesn’t seem to take herself, and the business too seriously, which was confirmed to me by the film’s producer, Nina Jacobson. Her everyday personality – especially her bold comments about how the industry creates unrealistic images of women, endears her to women and girls, and let’s face it, she’s young and cute so the guys are also into her. She’s the full package and even though she is a huge star and has an Oscar she is still relatively new in the business and will hopefully have a great career ahead of her.
The film opens tomorrow on 4,100 screens and according to Fandango the film is the top advance seller or the year and is “outpacing Iron Man 3 at the same point in the sales cycle.” The first Hunger Games film made the same amount domestically as Iron Man 3. It’s overseas where Iron Man 3 soared making over $800 million. The conventional wisdom is that Catching Fire will do better than the first film overseas. The domestic box office is expected to huge. The last film opened on the same amount of screens and had an opening weekend gross of $152 million dollars. That film opened in March, this time it takes over the Thanksgiving slot that the Twilight films held for several years, so we might even see a larger opening weekend. In some ways, The Hunger Games films have the Twilight films to thank for laying the groundwork for their success. There is no comparing the stories, but Twilight did plant the seeds for successful multiple films told from a female perspective.
I was hugely surprised by how much I loved Frozen which is written and co-directed by Jennifer Lee. It is about two sisters, power and love- things you don’t often get in the animated world. Personally, I still don’t know why every heroine in animated films needs to be a princess, but I will give that a pass here because this is a film where neither sister needs to be saved by a man. There is no hero coming to their rescue, in fact, the girls actually need to save each other. Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen story The Snow Queen, the film gives older sister Elsa (Idina Menzel) the power to make things freeze. It is not something she can control very well so she hides herself away from the world including her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) because she is afraid of what she will do and what people will think of her. Suffice it to say her power is revealed on the day she is to be coronated queen and she flees in fear, and while feeling she unknowingly leaves everything in her wake frozen. Anna takes it upon herself to go and bring her back to save the queendom. No group of men head up the mountain, just Anna. Yet hiding on the mountain, Elsa is finally free from hiding her true self and being the good girl and the moment she embraces her power without fear in an amazing ballad “Let It Go” is a one of those goose bump movie moments. It sure helps to have Idina Menzel’s soaring voice at the center of this spectacular moment but major credit goes to husband and wife writing team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez for creating a moment where a young woman can sing about owning her power. I walked out of the film with a huge smile on my face because I knew that this was another special film moment – an animated movie where the female characters drive the action and need no rescuing from any dudes. Now we just need them to be other things besides princesses. 
Last, but certainly not least, is the Dame Judi Dench starrer Philomena. I saw the film back in Toronto in September and loved it then and still believe it is one of the best movies of the year. It’s a great story about a woman who tries to find the son stolen from her fifty years before. It’s got a terrific script with tons of laughs co-written by Steve Coogan (who co-stars in the film.) But the film would not work without the endearing and heartbreaking performance of Judi Dench who will most probably get another Oscar nomination for it. It opens in limited release this weekend and will roll out into more theatres before Thanksgiving. It is rare that so many different, original and very good films with female characters are released at the same time. Part of the problem is that Hollywood gets nervous that women won’t come out and support these films. They get nervous when they release one, so three at the same time is quite rare. But the thing to understand about these films and about films about women in general is that they are not made for just women. Just because a movie stars a woman, or a girl or an animated female characters should never mean that this is a film for women. These stories are about people, and last time I checked women were included as people. I don’t think I am going out on a limb by saying that these three movies will be successes. What they will prove is that there is an audience of men and women and boys and girls who want to see these stories because they are compelling, dynamic, riveting, adventurous, heartbreaking and exciting. They won’t be successes in spite of the fact they star women but because they star women."
Melissa Silverstein, Forbes
- Lena
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