I may have said a while back that Meryl Streep is the most bankable actress in the business at the moment (despite her lowly ranking on the Forbes 100), but I didn’t quite mean it in this way.
“Julie & Julia” may not be performing at quite the same level as “Mamma Mia!” or “The Devil Wears Prada,” but it still marks the third time in four years that Streep has successfully spearheaded a healthy piece of mainstream counter-programming amid the testosterone-fueled dross of summer.
With Nancy Meyers’s “It’s Complicated” looking to apply that same populist Midas touch to the Christmas season, that’s a pretty remarkable track record for any woman in the business, much less one in her sixties.
But this article by Jonathan Romney in today’s Independent takes Streep’s commercial viability even further, and outside the movie theater, by pointing out the peripheral economic effects of her recent hits, in departments ranging from the music industry to the leisure sector.
He writes:
Her latest film, Julie & Julia, in which she plays the kitchen guru Julia Child, has already taken more than $28.5m (£17m) since its US release two weeks ago, and has sent Child’s 1961 book Mastering the Art of French Cooking back to the top of bestseller lists, as well as triggering a boom in interest in French cuisine classes in the US.
This is not the only recent manifestation of the Streep Effect. After the star uncharacteristically sang and danced – in dungarees, what’s more – in last year’s Abba musical Mamma Mia!, the highest-grossing British film ever, not only did the Swedish group’s Gold collection top the album charts, there was also a surge in demand from couples who wanted to marry on the Greek island of Skopelos, as in the film, with easyJet reporting flights up 13 per cent in the months after the film’s release. (Streep herself, singing the film’s title song, made the Portuguese Top 10.)
Of course, this is a slightly fluffy argument (in the case of “Mamma Mia!,” the traveloguing of Greece is the film’s doing, not Streep’s), but in reverse, it does show up the fact that Streep is successfully catering for the older market that has the buying power to make such an effect noticeable. Middle-aged audiences love Streep, and in turn, Streep has a canny sense of what they love.
She may not be picking the most interesting or challenging films of her career, and it’s worth noting that unlike her younger heirs like Nicole Kidman or Cate Blanchett, she’s not particularly auteur-oriented — Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion” was a rare recent instance of her choosing to work with a director whose name precedes hers. But she’s managing her career like nobody’s business.
(The way she manages to be the prime selling point of most films she appears in these days puts me in mind of a wonderful line from British comedy duo French and Saunders’s spoof “Mamma Mia!” making-of doc, as a gravelly trailer voice-over guy intones: “Watch it for the sheer acting of Meryl Streep!”)
The numerous Streepoholics among you, meanwhile, should enjoy the rest of Romney’s piece, which is a tidy celebration of Streep’s entire career, in which he concludes that she “truly belongs in the Bette Davis/Katharine Hepburn league of formidable screen women.” Better actress too, no?
Comments
13 responses to “Streep sells”
Streep does draw a certain type of older person, but the writer is giving her too much credit.
It is incredible how well she is doing at her age. I would say, outside of maybe the Pacino, DeNiro, and Nicholson’s, she has the most draw to the blue hairs.
She’s clearly more of a draw than Pacino and DeNiro. They made a movie together and nobody went. A movie that was, apparently, just as bad as “Mamma Mia”.
Well, her ranking isn’t that low on Forbes. She’s 4th in actresses. One above her is Sarah Jessica Parker, but that’s because of one franchise. The others are the ones in the famed Brad Pitt triangle; both only have success in one genre, either middlebrow romcoms or middlebrow action movies. But those films are consistently financially successful.
Much better actress than Hepburn by far. Streep actually plays characters, whereas Hepburn only played herself in every damn movie. I don’t know about Davis, though. That there’s some fighting words.
“giving her too much credit”????? Jeez Louise…the woman is only the greatest actress in the history of the cinema….period….
Foote, you are misunderstanding me. Obviously she is the best actress, but the writer is giving her too much credit for the box office success of the movies she was in. Guy said roughly the same thing in regards to Mamma Mia!
Saw Julie & Julia with my wife Friday night. Great film- thought it might have been a tad long, but it was enjoyable.
Meryl Streep is amazing. She is just phenomenal in everything she is in. She deserves all the credit she gets- Nora Ephron said it herself: if Meryl doesn’t get involved with the project, the film doesn’t get made.
While I agree with John that Streep is the greatest actress in cinema ever, I find it interesting that the media is all over the newsworthiness of 3 comedic summer hits she has appeared in. She has appeared in other summer hits (“Bridges of Madison County”) and other, smaller films. (Was I the only one who saw “Dark Matter?)
@Patryk: No, that makes two of us who saw “Dark Matter,” which I found confusing, dragging, and disappointing, considering the subject matter.
It is incredible to see Streep being such a box office draw, considering that her contemporaries, both male and female, have found their box office power waning. It makes you wonder what it actually takes to stay on top of your game.
I agree, she is a better actress than Hepburn, but I don’t know about Davis.
Thanks for pointing me to the direction of this article, Guy. :)
I agree. She’s doing great and that’s amazing.
Also, she’s a much better actress than K. Hepburn. Do I have to explain myself?
I think her performance in Julie and Julia is flawless. Streep, undoubtly, can do anything and still surprise everyone. That’s an artist.
Oh my god she is such a damn legend in her own time and I do adore her. There have been a few true goddesses in cinema history – Elizabeth Taylor’s beauty could be otherwordly – but this Streep gal is just something else. I hope we canonize her soon! Love that all the admiration is coming her way. Maybe she will finally get her 3rd Oscar – she just simply had to be spectacular 20 years in a row for it to happen!!
Streep was since the beginning of her career, a succesful actress and also star. Maybe “Julie & Julia” isn’t “The devil Wears Prada” in terms of box office draw, but this is the first Ephron’s succesful film in years and also this female driven film compete against male driven films (“G.I. Joe” is a perfet example).
ALso, she has in good shape in acting abilities. I hope she’ll win her deserving third Oscar
That article is hogwash. All the movies cited are based on existing properties and in every case when a film adaptation comes along the existing properties and its web of merchandise get a boost.