Country Strong : Why Paltrow Isn't America's Sweetheart

America's Sweetheart she isn't. What's our beef with Gwyneth?

  • Scott Garfield / Screen Gems

    Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong

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    Is the problem that Paltrow appears superhuman? Actually, no. Thanks to her two-year-old lifestyle website, Goop.com (she's said Goop is an old nickname), we know just how human she is. For instance, she sometimes feels compelled to starve herself on miso soup, greens and tidbits of protein for a week to "detox." On Goop.com we can watch a video of her making guacamole for her children Apple and Moses and see that it is no more magical or complicated than when we make it. We know that looking as she does requires her to work out at least 90 minutes a day six days a week, often accompanied by a personal trainer who used to train her friend Madonna and is now Paltrow's business partner. We know she likes to shop locally and that she enjoys a bargain (Goop tip: Spanish Cava is much cheaper than Champagne) as much as she does a "cozy" $1,095 spike-heeled winter boot. Like any celebrity, Paltrow lives behind glass, but her authorship of Goop takes the tint off her windows. It's like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous narrated by the rich, famous and self-congratulatory.

    When someone like Chelsea Handler tells Paltrow, as she did during a November interview, "I love you," the words carry more than a hint of "I know I'm bucking a trend here." Handler went on to rave about Paltrow's singing and even suggested she make an album. Paltrow graciously accepted the compliment. But if she needed it, it didn't show. A lack of humility may be the issue — that and the dangers of taking your act cross-platform. The very existence of her website suggests Paltrow assumes we are eager to sit at her knee. She has said she wants to share the wealth of opportunities she's had — from talking novels with Christy Turlington to staying at the best hotels — and she does, magnanimously, in e-mail newsletters signed, "love, GP." The implication is, Of course you'd like to be me. Her lifestyle-guru identity, combined with the cookbook she's got coming out in April, suggests Paltrow aspires to be an object of emulation, an Oprah with an Oscar.

    Yet pop culture has cast her not so much in the role of helpful nurturer as in that of the mother-in-law you will never be good enough for. She slings that guitar around like a champion in Country Strong , and when Kelly's onstage, she bravely and astutely taps into the necessary narcissism of a big-time performer. But neither Paltrow nor writer-director Shana Feste ever make us understand this troubled character in full, and the personal satisfactions and triumphs of Paltrow (those legs!) cast a long, distracting shadow. When Kelly's manager-husband James (Tim McGraw) tells her young love interest Beau (Garrett Hedlund, in a performance as alluring as Brad Pitt's in Thelma & Louise ) that Kelly "doesn't travel light," he's referring to baggage both literal and metaphorical. He might also be talking about Paltrow.

    This article originally appeared in the Jan. 17, 2011 issue of TIME.

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