John Cusack hasn’t outgrown Lloyd Dobler

Tara
I can’t quite hate him, though I see your points. These days, I mostly just feel sorry for him; it’s all gone so badly wrong for him. Half the time, he’s just making paycheck movies like “America’s Sweethearts,” “Serendipity,” “Identity,” “Pushing Tin” and “Runaway Jury.” (And how many of those I may have paid full price to see in the theatre is between me and my conscience.) Presumably, he makes those to subsidize what he does with the other half of the time: ostensibly respectable indies. Only I’m not sure how much I can respect so unsubtle a polemic as “Cradle Will Rock,” or so misguided an art film as “Max” (“Come on, Hitler, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade”?!). “High Fidelity” was interesting as a chick flick for dudes, although (a) Cusack’s haircut is so hideous in it that I spent the first 40 minutes thinking it was supposed to be a mid-’80s nostalgia piece, and (b) it was rather eclipsed two years later by the far superior Hornby adaptation “About A Boy.”

Of course, later this year, we can look forward to seeing him play Torvald in “A Doll’s House,” which…wait, huh? I just can’t sign off on that. “Bullets Over Broadway” notwithstanding, the man doesn’t really have an old-fashioned-y face, and he needs to quit trying the period pieces, for real. Plus Ibsen might be a bit of a reach if he’s coming straight off “Must Love Dogs.” Maybe a Tom Clancy in between would make for a smoother transition.

Sarah
I think a Tom Clancy is an excellent idea — if only to guarantee that I won’t see it and can thereby avoid an Cusack-adjacent annoyance.

Although it occurs to me that maybe there’s a way for Cusack to shake off any associations with “Say Anything…,” and to capitalize on my dislike of him at the same time: villainy. He played an amoral weasel in “True Colors” and actually did a great job — opposite one of Hollywood’s all-time great amoral-weasel portrayers, James Spader, no less, so you know I don’t say that lightly. And his character in “Eight Men Out” isn’t evil or anything; he’s just kind of weak-willed and a bit slimy. But perhaps it’s time Cusack played more roles like that, roles that let him pinch up that tiny, officious-looking mouth of his and do some dastardly mustache-twirling instead of that virtuous hangdog “I’m a girls’ guy” crap, which had already gotten old 15 years ago.

Tara
Perhaps. We do know the man can grift.

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