Dear Aaron Eckhart,
Yup. That's right. That's exactly how you should look right now. And you know why? This is a warning. A significant one. Do you realize you are appearing in a seriously terrible-looking redemptive romantic dramedy with Jennifer Anniston (We're leaving Ms. Anniston out of this, because I cannot be bothered with her career. You should be lucky I'm still concerning myself with you. I get perturbed because I care.)? Where you play a motivational speaker? With a lot of a guilt? That you should be able to handle, because Martin Sheen plays your father and ought to help you through anything?
I understand your dilemma. You and James Marsden should form a club for seemingly-smart guys who also happen to look like they were put on earth to make women go cross-eyed with desire. With faces like yours, you two were always going to be able to waltz into roles and studios were always going to be able to make bank on you. Whether they were good roles or not was always going to be a matter of supreme indifference to those same studios. The two of you started out in different places: Marsden did a lot of the teen-poppy stuff before falling into the dopey-but-body-hugging uniform of Cyclops in the X-Men franchise, while you made your first big splash in nasty indie In the Company of Men. But lately, he's been handling things a little bit better than you, Aaron. He made a smart transition, playing heartthrobs with an undercurrent of dementedness in Enchanted and Hairspray. And he's now he's starring in the new Richard Kelly period thriller, The Box, which will be terrible, or awesome, or both, but will certainly get him a whole bunch of attention and indie cred.
Aaron, you had him smoked last summer. You got your face burned half off, and you went crazy, and you killed people, and you revealed hidden depths acting against Heath Ledger at his most incandescent and crazy and terrifying. Hell, people noticed you were in the same damn frame as Heath Ledger. You built on all this good will you had built up with women on the basis of type-transcending performances in movies like Erin Brockovich and Possession, so that you could get hideously deformed and we'd still want you: the man stayed on once the face was gone. You were a lot of fun in Thank You For Smoking, in part because you weren't afraid to pack a lot of weakness into your cocky lobbyist's chest cavity in the space where his heart used to be. It was easy to forget that you'd spent time doing bland trash like No Reservations because it seemed like the dues you paid to get cast in the other stuff.
So why are you reminding us of these dark blips in your history? I am not encouraged or comforted by the fact that you, and apparently Bridget Moynahan are going to fight aliens in a bombed-out Los Angeles at some point soon. You're going to be in Johnny Depp's next non-Tim Burton project, for the love of all that is holy in acting. You do not need this. I understand that all actors have a director they can't turn down, or a genre they fall into when they need something to do, or think they need something to do. But you had, at least for a while, Neil LaBute, who if not consistently amazing, is serious about his movies. James Marsden is in LaBute's next movie, the probably unnecessary Death at a Funeral. He is moving in on your territory, Aaron. You don't actually need to be in a romance with Jennifer Anniston to pass the time. You like photography? Take some of that hard-earned Batman money and go someplace with really pretty scenery.
I love you, Aaron Eckhart, I really do. And it grieves me to say this, but you are on notice. I expect better.
xo,
Alyssa