Shailene Woodley makes hurt visible without asking her characters to be agreeable. We rate her highly when she is allowed to be awkward; roles that ask only for patience and concern waste much of what she can do.
Fi1m perspective
Alexandra King does not become agreeable just because her father is trying. In Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011), Shailene Woodley keeps the hurt visible beneath the daughter’s impatience, even when a scene invites tenderness. We were moved by her refusal to make her father’s discomfort easier: his attempts to reach her have to reckon with that resentment. Opposite George Clooney, she makes the father-daughter relationship difficult enough for its gentler moments to matter. It is the clearest reason to seek out her work.
The lead parts that followed included The Spectacular Now (2013), The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and the Divergent trilogy (2014–2016). Her move into adult ensemble drama included Jane Chapman in Big Little Lies (2017–2019). Across that shift, the quality worth looking for is her ability to keep a character’s private hurt apparent within a larger story.
Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money (2023) gives Caroline Gill the task of worrying at the kitchen table while it gets on with the GameStop squeeze. Woodley does the job, and there is nothing embarrassing about the performance. There is also little scope for the resistance that makes Alexandra interesting. It is a well-cast film whose writing gives her concern to express and scarcely anything to develop.
Michael Mann’s Ferrari (2023) is more frustrating. As Lina Lardi, Woodley is given a kitchen, a son and a single expression of patient hurt, with no room to get beyond them. The domestic scenes are stiff, and keeping her so subdued does nothing to make them less so. We can recommend the film for Penélope Cruz and the racing, but Woodley’s part is a poor reason to choose it.
Payne gets more from her by letting Alexandra remain difficult, and by giving the family more than one way to respond to distress. Amara Miller’s Scottie has her own response, so Woodley need not represent every feeling in the household. That leaves Alexandra free to be particular and sometimes hard to like. Start with The Descendants; do not mistake the smaller demands of those later roles for the limit of her ability.
Biography
Shailene Woodley is an American actress. Born on 15 November 1991, she began modelling at the age of four and acting professionally in minor television roles. She gained prominence playing Amy Juergens in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013).
Woodley received wider recognition for her roles in The Descendants (2011), The Spectacular Now (2013), The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and as Beatrice Prior in the Divergent film series (2014–2016). She has since appeared in Snowden (2016), Adrift (2018), Big Little Lies (2017–2019), Dumb Money (2023) as Caroline Gill and Ferrari (2023) as Lina Lardi. She has been nominated for Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy awards.
