An Ode To Anne Hathaway's Oddball Indie Movie Era

For all intents and purposes, Anne Hathaway's The Devil Wears Prada 2 star turn is her "comeback" movie. Typing out those words already makes my soul ache because Hathaway's talents haven't wavered, and she's done nothing to necessitate a comeback. However, Hathaway herself has openly talked about how studio executives refused to cast her in features after her Oscar win. Meanwhile, Hollywood (after 2013-ish) stopped making the kind of mid-budget movies Hathaway used to regularly anchor. Thus, Devil Wears Prada 2 is her first appearance in a major studio theatrical release since Ocean's 8 in 2018. Technically, Devil Wears Prada 2 qualifies as a "comeback" for somebody whose never gone away.

For one thing, Hathaway spent some parts of the last eight years, like so many actors, dipping her toes into prestige television, namely anchoring the Apple TV miniseries WeCrashed and showing up on two Modern Love episodes. Something that deserves recognition, though, is that Hathaway embraced a slew of oddball indie movies in the years between her last traditional big-screen star vehicle (September 2015's The Intern) and Devil Wears Prada 2. David Lowery's offbeat Mother Mary dropping one week before Devil Wears Prada 2 is a perfect bit of synchonicity. As Hathaway returns to anchoring major studio theatrical films, Mother Mary put a bow on her era of admirably unusual indie features.

Monstrously Good Indie Movie Performances

To promote the January 2019 movie Serenity, Anne Hathaway took to social media to post about the film and how it was destined to spark some discussions and controversy. Specifically, she declared:

"Matthew and I are learning our film Serenity isn’t easily broken down into sound bites. I really like movies like that, but just in case I am in the minority, here are some reasons why I think you should see it: I find Serenity to be a thrilling, ambitious, violent, spiritual, erotic, charged, dark, damning, contradictory, maddening, lushly intelligent film from the brilliant mind of Steven Knight. It asks a lot of the audience. It exists outside cut-and-dry, black-and-white moralizing, beyond the realm of “thumbs up” and “thumbs down,” “it sucked,” “it was bad-ass,” etc. It will need some analysis and conversation after. Good. Serenity is a sexy, surreal, modern noir for grown ups who are into things that don’t come standard. If that sounds like you, I hope you’ll consider giving us your time and attention. Thanks for listening xx"

That desire to anchor movies that "will need some analysis and conversation after" speaks to the kind of motion pictures Hathaway anchored from 2016 to Lowery's Mother Mary. The first of these was Colossal, a movie where Hathaway portrayed a weary, messy woman who discovers she's capable of controlling the movements of a monster attacking Seoul, South Korea. Given how often Hathaway's been cast to play prim-and-perfect archetypes in projects like Ella Enchanted, watching Colossal is an extraordinary reminder that she's also gifted at portraying jagged everyday individuals. When she's portraying Colossal's Gloria forlorn in a bar or communicating profound pain with just a facial expression, it doesn't come off as a polished actor delivering a simulacrum of ordinary humanity. 

Hathaway instead melts right into Gloria. With this film, she's tasked with portraying a woman who starts out the runtime jaded, detached, eager to just drink away her worries. As she realizes the gravity of this monster situation (as well as the abusive man hiding in plain sight), she gradually depicts Gloria reawakening to the wider world. It's a character arc Hathaway handles with finesse and fascinatingly messy humanity. Right from the start, she exudes a palpable weariness consuming Gloria. This quality makes it apparent why this character is so content to just be a spectator to life. Meanwhile, Hathaway's strengths with inhabiting a realistically imperfect human being make it extra gripping to see Gloria navigate both her monstrous alter-ego and the abusive relationship she's trapped in.

Colossal isn't just one of 2017's more criminally underrated performances. It also showcases a deeply impressive Anne Hathaway performance that provides a richly human anchor for this high-concept story about abusive relationships and "monsters." From there, Hathaway kept on taking unusual, auteur-driven works, like 2019's Dark Waters. In that Todd Haynes directorial effort, which follows Mark Ruffalo's Rob Billot taking on the corrupt company DuPont, Hathaway is often playing the typical "wife" role in a biopic. However, anytime she gets to deliver a monologue or have the camera linger on her, she instantly commands your attention. Better yet, this movie ensured she worked with one of the best English-language filmmakers of our time. Please don't let this be the last time Anne Hathaway and Todd Haynes collaborate.

Right at the start of 2019, Hathaway embraced the femme fatale archetype for Serenity, the movie that launched the aforementioned social media post. Here, Hathaway plays Karen, a woman who asks her former husband, Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey), to kill her current lover, the toxic Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke). Writer/director Steven Knight's Serenity is a deranged creation. This is a feature that starts as a seaside noir homage before metamorphosing into a Truman Show/Minecraft hybrid with unspoken incestuous overtones. In other words, this is not the kind of movie Oscar-winning performers are encouraged or pigeonholed into doing.

Taking this boondoggle on was a massive gamble on Anne Hathaway's part, and that alone deserves kudos. The fact that she commits wholeheartedly to the role is a cherry on top. Even when she's just asked to constantly say sentences ending in the word "daddy" to Clarke's character, Hathaway is fully alert and gung-ho. She can't save Serenity from its worst impulses or disjointed nature. However, she does embody the admirably gonzo nature of the proceedings. Off the grid from major studio films, Hathaway wasn't looking to just rehash roles she'd played before. Serenity was as far from The Princess Diaries and Bride Wars as you could get. That opened up exciting new possibilities for her as an artist, even in deeply flawed productions like this one.

Not Even The 2020s Could Stop Hathaway's Indie Cinema Streak

When the world shut down in March 2020, everything ground to a halt. COVID-19 had flipped the tables on the status quo. Everyone was stuck indoors, unsure what the future would bring. Under these circumstances, Hathaway reunited with Serenity screenwriter Steven Knight to headline Locked Down, a heist film set in London during a COVID lockdown. The independently produced film (which Warner Bros. Pictures eventually acquired and released to HBO Max) is terrible, despite starring Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It's a thinly sketched movie that doesn't offer Hathaway anything remotely resembling a character to play. Still, this Brokeback Mountain veteran anchoring an indie film during 2020 demonstrated her resilient dedication to smaller-scale movies.

Not even a global pandemic could stop Hathaway from anchoring tinier features made off the grid. She'd return to the big screen with writer/director James Gray's 2022 quasi-autobiographical film Armageddon Time. Playing mother Esther Graff to adolescent protagonist Paul (Banks Repeta), Hathaway's gift for immediately registering as a real human being is perfect for this grounded, gritty drama. She honestly does circles around her co-star, Jeremy Strong (who plays her character's husband). Strong can't resist going for big displays of "SCREAMING!" and grand externalized gestures to sell his characters. Hathaway, meanwhile, conjures up Esther's psychologically tormented personality with understated means. 

Unfortunately, Armageddon Time's third act sidelines Esther (who's deeply distraught after her father passes). Hathaway barely factors into the final 45-ish minutes of the project. This tragically speaks to how, even here, Hathaway couldn't evade the frustrating gender norms for women in American cinema. Indie films are supposed to be the refuge of artists, the place where you eschew major studio standards and traditional narrative impulses. Unfortunately, Hathaway's Armageddon Time character's minimal screentime echoes traditional cinematic urges to relegate mothers and women characters to the background. She deserved better than that, especially since she was delivering one of the film's better performances.

In 2023, Hathaway delivered supporting turns in Eileen (which came SO CLOSE to being gay, "we were so close to greatness," as Orson Krennic once said) and She Came to Me. The latter comedy was a miscalculated endeavor that left Hathaway with not much to do, despite her fantastic comic instincts seemingly being perfectly tailored for something emulating a farce. After that, Hathaway's indie career seemed to be at an end as she began preparing for a return to mainstream work. Her 2024 Amazon streaming film The Idea of You proved a big enough viewership hit that Amazon MGM Studios asked her and Idea of You director Michael Showalter to make the theatrically-released Coleen Hoover adaptation Verity. In early 2024, meanwhile, Hathaway began filming this summer's dinosaur blockbuster The End of Oak Street. Mainstream Hollywood was finally realizing it should do more with Hathaway than The Witches.

Just a week before The Devil Wears Prada 2 inevitably blows up the box office, though, Hathaway headlined one more oddball indie movie. David Lowery's Mother Mary sees Hathaway playing the titular pop star in need of both a dress and some closure of losing her former best friend (played by Michaela Coel). Hathaway's gift for haunted facial expressions and aching, raw depictions of lived-in torment are exquisitely utilized here. Just her standing with those haunted eyes while mournfully clutching one of her arms vividly suggests Mary's been through the psychological wringer. Any set pieces where Hathaway portrays Mary as a pop star icon, meanwhile, are just sweeping. Her voice! Her on-stage charisma! She's so magnificently transportive!

Absolutely crushing these wildly disparate sides of Mary's psyche speaks to Anne Hathaway's range and talent. It's also the kind of performance that might not be possible in a major studio work. Mother Mary is rife with tonal shifts, ambiguous definitions of reality, and imagery that inevitably confounds as many as it enchants. It's not a guaranteed moneymaker or critical darling by any means. Yet Anne Hathaway took this and other offbeat projects (like Colossal) on and gave them every ounce of her talent. 

Hathaway anchoring so many major theatrical movies this year and beyond (including being The Odyssey's leading lady) is a cause for celebration. However, let it never be said she was just twiddling her thumbs in the last decade or so. On the contrary, when major studios closed doors in Hathaway's face, she opened up windows to exciting roles that expanded and reinforced her chops. Apparently, Anne Hathaway is "into things that don’t come standard" and by God did she give audiences that with her exciting era of oddball indie cinema performances.