No, the reviews have taken the box office off Jen's shoulders to a large extent, but there's no getting away from the fact that Lawrence has now had a run of bad luck nearly equal to the good that preceded it. Three films. Three Oscar nominated directors. Three solid screenplays (one coming highly praised). Three solid, even enviable casts. All write offs, to one degree or another.
It's not the end of the world, but she's going to need to string together a few, even modest, successes over the next couple of years, and the sense I'm getting is that while critics aren't faulting her this time out, they are getting impatient for her to really stretch herself. That's the yardstick
Mother will now be measured against. Can it deliver on that score? It'll need to.
For perspective though: Remember a year ago Emma Stone was dealing with the fallout from
Aloha. Now she's an Oscar favourite. The two things aren't the same obviously, but the point is this is but a moment. There's another one coming soon. Hopefully it'll be a better one.
