Evan Rachel Wood makes a wounded daughter matter in a film preoccupied with her father. We value the feeling she brings to restricted parts, though her work deserves more than a succession of troubled young women.
Fi1m perspective
In The Wrestler (2008), Evan Rachel Wood has to make Stephanie register while the film keeps returning to Randy's unhappiness. She gives his daughter enough feeling for us to want to know what her life is like beyond him. We were moved by the hurt Wood brings to their encounters, despite their rather obvious job of showing us Randy's failures. That limitation belongs to Robert D. Siegel's script rather than to Wood. Hers is a good supporting performance in a film we recommend.
Her breakthrough came with Thirteen (2003), playing the troubled teenager Tracy Freeland. The early association with troubled teenage parts can make the work look narrower than it was. Between that film and The Wrestler, she played Lucy Carrigan in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe (2007), with singing prominent in the role. We would not reduce her to the confrontations, even if those are often the scenes she is asked to carry; the musical work calls on another means of expressing feeling.
Rourke's tenderness and humour do much to make Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler worth the discomfort. Wood's contribution matters because a second-chance story needs us to care about the people being asked to offer that chance. She and Marisa Tomei, as Cassidy, give us reasons to look beyond Randy, even as Siegel's writing keeps bringing us back. We want more of both women, rather than a larger demonstration of the damage Randy has done, and the film does not give us enough of them.
Her return to television brought Veda Pierce in Mildred Pierce (2011), followed by Dolores Abernathy in Westworld (2016–2022). Wood's performance as an android across four seasons of Westworld calls on technical precision as well as emotional intensity. We would not dismiss the earlier daughters to applaud that shift, but it is good to see her given a part she can develop at length. Start with The Wrestler, then try Westworld for a role with more room.
Biography
Evan Rachel Wood is an American actress and singer. She was born on 7 September 1987 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and began acting as a child in productions at her father's community theatre company, Theatre in the Park.
Wood appeared in television series including Once and Again (1999–2002) before gaining attention for her leading role in the film Thirteen (2003). She has since worked in independent films such as Across the Universe (2007) and The Wrestler (2008), where she played Stephanie, as well as the series Westworld (2016–2022) and the animated film Frozen II (2019).
