Have we settled this yet? Eva Green for Catwoman

I will not have a one-track mind. I will not have a one-track mind. I will not have a one-track mind.

I will try not to have a one-track mind.

Seriously though, who among us hasn’t developed a liiiittle obsession since The Dark Knight‘s catshadowing and  the subsequent rumors that Cher or Our Lady of Fertility, Angelina Jolie, would be donning the leather bodysuit for the next installment? Who? Critical Darling wants your secret.

For me, The Dark Knight did a couple of curious things. For one, it created higher expectations for future installments in terms of performance quality. If Batman Begins “[kept] it real,” to quote Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers (dear God, I never thought I’d do that), TDK kept it realer.

I don’t have to tell you that Aaron Eckhart, Heath Ledger, and Christian Bale were all on top of their respective games. I hadn’t expected such grounded portrayals, given that in BB, Tom Wilkinson got away with a performance so campy it belonged in A History of Violence. And Katie Holmes? Please don’t make me go there again; I just went through the hell of putting it into words for my arts criticism prof. (OK, it went something like this: “incapable of expressing more than one emotion at a time,” “swings the short distance between preacher and scold,” “paper doll for delivering key morality messages,” “I don’t care if she didn’t have much to work with; take a leaf from Tilda Swinton’s book for Pete’s sake.”)

By replacing Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Dark Knight’s filmmakers committed to the next level of performance, which resulted in that second curious thing: Holy cow, I totally empathized with, like, the one token female character in this comic adaptation. That never happens. She was intelligent, complex, bullying, and cute as fuck. (I didn’t hear any complaints from the dudes around, either.)

So now, in light of all we’ve been through — my loyalty in the face of Holmes, etc — I anticipate nothing less from Chris Nolan & Co. than to have extraordinarily smart and able bitches around. Preferably ones with minimal baggage (which would, you know, exlude Jolie and ScarJo) and unconventional beauty (which would, you know, exclude Jolie and ScarJo).

All of that’s meant to get us to: Eva Green for Catwoman. You saw her in The Golden Compass; you saw her (find elegance in the dumb-fuck things Paul Haggis + friends wrote) in Casino Royale; and you saw (a lot of her) in The Dreamers. She’s brave and clever and intense. She’s going to give as good as she gets. Plus, she has those great sort of jagged teeth.

Regardless of which Catwoman origin story the filmmakers go with (oh, Frank Miller, you only know one kind of woman …), I can’t seem to come up with anyone I’d rather see in the role. And I’ve been thinking about it. Every. Single. Day.

Of course, I am operating on the assumption that the target age here is around 30 (to match with Bruce, natch). Given a few years’ flexibility, though, Ms. Rachel Weisz could also have my vote. I can totally see her picking up that 3 a.m. … whip?

September 12, 2008. Tags: A History of Violence, aaron eckhart, Angelina Jolie, batman, Batman Begins, Catwoman, Cher, christian bale, christopher nolan, Comics, Eva Green, Frank Miller, Heath Ledger, Katie Holmes, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Travers, Rachel Weisz, Rolling Stone, the dark knight, The Dreamers, The Golden Compass, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson. Movies. 2 comments.