I said yesterday that Ever Anderson, the 13 year-old daughter of Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson who plays the young version of Scarlett Johansson‘s Natasha in Black Widow, is the most fetching presence in the film.

I wrote, in fact, that Anderson “has a much more interesting face (indications of emotional complexity, soulful eyes) than Johansson and costar Florence Pugh combined.”

Instead of a “muscular hardcase sisters against their violent pursuers” action thriller, Black Widow would’ve been far more intriguing if Anderson had been made ScarJo’s costar (instead of Pugh), and the story had been some kind of time-warp mother-daughter thing in which ScarJo’s Natasha and her younger self (Anderson) are paired, and the basic dynamic would’ve been been Natasha protecting and schooling her younger self.

Not everyone has “it,” but Anderson definitely does.

She’ll next play Wendy Darling in David Lowery‘s Peter Pan & Wendy (Disney, ’22), which will be the fourth Peter Pan adaptation over the last decade.

From yesterday’s Black Widow pan: “I knew I would suffer through this godawful thing. I knew it would pound and narcotize me to death and suffocate what’s left of my soul, and boy, did it ever. It was serious formulaic torture, but I had to watch it, I felt, and in front of a big-ass screen with a suitably loud WHOMP-THROMP-EERURRP sound system. Once again I sat in the handicapped row, and before the 8 pm show began I was already weakened by 20 minutes of trailer pulp…idiot-level action movies designed to make you vomit and scream.

From “Marvel Goons Behind Me“: “I was sitting in the handicapped row, and there were two or three Marvel fans right behind me, and once the comic relief kicked in (all Marvel films begin to dispense snappy, smart-ass humor starting around the 30-minute mark and then return to it at regular intervals) these guys were laughing too enthusiastically. They were giggling and whooping at damn near everything. Any little quip or side-remark or little smart-ass bit, and these guys were all but rolling in the aisles. They squealed with delight when Florence Pugh‘s Yelena asked ScarJo‘s Natasha why she always poses in the middle of a fight, landing close to the ground and flipping her head back.

“Mind — these guys were the only ones in the theatre who were laughing loudly, and they were making a difficult experience even worse. Did I turn around and glare? No, but I stole a quick glance.”