Intense scene, one of the most iconic (God, that word!) love scenes in contemporary cinema. It kicks ass, in other words. Would it play today, do you think, given the revelations about Tom and Katie. . . about Suri's high heels at 3 years old. . . about that Scientology video, and the naked bathhouse candid shots (just kidding, but Katie may have had "something" up her sleeve to get that divorce so fast)?
And how about Renee, and her by-now-famous sudden loss of literacy, the way she was completely unable to read off a card at the Oscars? She wasn't even straining to read or trying to hold the card up to her face or do any of the things we'd associate with having trouble reading. She tilted her head and stood there, later just handing the card off to someone less incapacitated.
In Jerry Maguire, Renee was a sweet little thing, a cinnamon heart in the middle of a toxic world, and we ate her up. People made fun of her unusual looks (after all, she does have a strange kind of squint), unaware that her mother is descended from the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia. But not being able to read or stand very straight is something else again, alarming, and seems to indicate a shocking lack of self-awareness. It's ironic, since Hollywood is all about self-awareness, vanity and narcissism. Was she just too far gone to realize how she looked?
