Sandra Bullock has certainly made an impression on the the movies over the past few decades, emerging as a kind of girl-next-door love interest who soon blossomed into an Oscar-winning talent with a whole bag of tricks of potential in playing it super serious and adorably quirky. While most any movie fan can list of a number of big titles that account for “favorite” Bullock films, I thought it might be a good time to share a few less than well-known performances that deserves a little more attention.
The Thing Called Love
Let’s begin with a small movie that was probably never meant to be much more than just that, but because it remains the last full feature film of its co-star River Phoenix, has gained some notoriety. I’m still guessing you’ve probably never heard of it. Still, the movie isn’t that memorable, despite a few good performances, including Phoenix who, in reflection, seems to be playing signals of his real life. It’s also directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who is one of cinema’s more renowned talents but couldn’t make this anything more than a rather standard “don’t give up on your dreams” kinda thing.
The story centers on Miranda Presley (Samantha Mathis), an up-and-coming country singer who heads to Nashville in hopes of becoming a star, ending up working as a waitress in a bar. There, she meets a host of others with similar ambitions, including the troubled James Wright (Phoenix) and the plucky Linda Lue Linden (Bullock). Trials and tribulation are the name of the game as the group struggles to find their place in the world. Bullock is in a small role but is filled to the brim with that special Bullock charm, and while she takes a backseat to Mathis and Phoenix, makes her moments – if you’ll forgive the wording – sing with fun. Her performance is like a gateway to what we all now now is coming.
The Vanishing
This 1993 remake of the classic 1988 French film of the same name (and by the same director) is a tepid, watered-down Americanized swing at terror that has some good moments but pales greatly in comparison. It stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jeff, traveling with his girlfriend Diane (Bullock) who together stop at a service area where she, heading off inside alone meets Barney (Jeff Bridges). However, he’s not the charming man he appears, luring her to his car to sell her some homemade trinkets, and then violently kidnapping her. He drives away with her unconscious body in the front seat while Jeff is left wondering whatever happened to his partner, eventually leading him on a three-year journey of madness.
Bullock is, regretfully, only in the film for a very short time but what she does with her few minutes of screen time is cause everything that happens after. Intelligent, bright and cheerful, authentic … she is the epitome of the “awesome girlfriend” and when she does that little skip like dance while heading to the shop at the rest area, you can’t help but want to be with her. And it makes it all the more hard to watch as we the audience already know of Barney’s intent while he reels her in closer. That heartbreaking moment when she quite suddenly understands her fate is the film’s singularly most terrifying moment and sticks with you long after the film ends. Bullock only get a couple minutes to make that work and boy does she ever. Not a great film but well worth adding to the list for Bullock completionists.
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
Staying in 1993, you’ve no doubt never heard of this drama from director Randa Haines, starring heavyweights Robert Duvall, Shirley MacLaine, and Richard Harris. The story follows two lonely older men named Frank (Harris) and Walter (Duvall) living in Florida who are completely different in their personalities and approach to life. However, they bond and become close friends though moments test it as the film progresses. It’s a touching story of aging and family, and the importance of connection that is often humorous but met with some genuinely impactful emotional moments, including a shaving scene that is one of the best in the film.
Bullock plays Elaine, a young waitress at a local diner that Walter frequents, and a girl that doesn’t yet understand the value of her kindness and presence in the older man’s ordered and structured daily existence. We don’t get to know all that much about Elaine, other than the struggles of being young and keeping a paying job, but the story allows her to grow and learn what she means as a human being in the minor minutes a day she shares with Walter, one of the few things he has to look forward to in his empty life. Bullock isn’t playing the love interest or a some kind of sexualized object for Walter to lust upon, but rather a young woman with the only real connection the man has and it’s a small but wonderfully emotive thread to this story, with Bullock simply delightful to watch. Check it out.
A Time To Kill
By 1996, writer John Grisham was practically a household name, his books critically-acclaimed and their adaptations to film often celebrated. With A Time to Kill, which many believe is the best of his works, the spotlight is on Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a man named Carl Lee Hailey, arrested for killing two white men who raped and attempted to hang his daughter, believing that they will walk free from court. He hires white lawyer Jake Brigance (Matthew Mcconaughey) to defend him and as the case gains larger attention, violence escalates, leading to an emotionally explosive finale.
Bullock has a small supporting role playing Ellen Roark, a firecracker of a lawyer from the ACLU in Boston come down to the south to help Brigance in the case. She becomes a bit of a romantic enticement for the married Jake, but more so, and more troubling, a target of the KKK, who kidnap her and assault her, leaving her for dead in her underwear in the woods (interestingly, one of the Klansmen is played by Kiefer Sutherland, who portrayed her lover in the first film on this list). Bullock doesn’t have a lot to do and is sort of wedged into some cinematic corners, but wow does she ignite her part with some passion. This film, rightfully, is all about Jackson and so others get lost in the shadow of his dynamic performance, but Bullock grabs the light when she’s on screen and helps to make A Time to Kill one to seek.
Two If By Sea
Okay, let’s wrap this up with a silly comedy because while Bullock is an honest to goodness acting powerhouse, we all love her most when she does some flirty romantic comedy with a kind of goofily sexy flair for bumbling into our hearts. That’s why Miss Congeniality was such a hit and why Speed worked as well as it did, and why Demolition Man is worth a watch. You know these movies well, but how about director Bill Bennett‘s 1996 comedy Two If By Sea? I didn’t think so.
Bullock is a lead her, playing Roz, the long-time girlfriend of petty thief Frank O’Brien (Denis Leary). Things are so-so between them but they want to do one last job and decide to go big, stealing a $4 million painting. From there, they head to an island off the coast of New England where a potential buyer waits, though so does a whole lot more. Hijinks ensue and you can bet do so only because Bullocks makes it absolutely fun to watch, despite just about everything else about the film muddled in mediocrity. Getting past the potential of the script and the way it’s sort of mishandled, the chemistry Bullock has with anyone on screen and the playful tomboy-ish allure of her big and brash performance is undeniably entertaining, proving that while some directors may not know how best to use her considerable talents back the day, she never for a moment let up on the accelerator. What’s not to love?