Hip Hop Acting Stiles

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2001)

Spoilers Herein.
My two young actresses to watch are Kate Winslet and the girl here, Julia Stiles. I first saw her as Ophelia, and was stunned. So I followed her to a silly teenage movie and saw some confidence and charm. This is an ordinary film for children in every way except for her.
But Kate and Julia couldn't be more different: Winslet is more disciplined, internal. Stiles doesn't have that, and may never. She is external -- wearing her role on her body rather than projecting it from within. Thus, her intent cannot be projected from scene to scene. But so many people `acting' in `real' life today carry their own personality on the outside anyway: that to me is what characterizes HipHop. So her style (sorry!) fits this story. We'll have to see if this is the careful planning of an intelligent actress (and her coach), or exuberant, undisciplined talent.
But at least here -- where that exuberance colors outside the lines -- is an honest manner of acting that I find really refreshing, and risky. Her carriage is like a young Sigourney Weaver, but is carried with more grace. She does most of the dancing here (which is not world class) but the real dancing is when she isn't.
Strangely, of all the possibilities that a moving camera offers in filming dance, the dance sequences here are filmed rather conventionally. This is MTV creativity?
But some MTV guy is hip, and wrote in a decorated box of `remembrances' to mirror that from her 45 rpm carrying case in `Hamlet.'
As an aside, the lead black male receives admittance to Georgetown, presumably on merit. It would have been better (have fit the story better) to have named a school that doesn't hire illiterate ghetto kids to play sports for their amusement.