I have this notion that Jennifer Lawrence has been half-flatlining over over the last seven or eight years. She’s been in some popular films (Hunger Games, X-Men franchise installments), a couple of well-reviewed David O. Russell films (American Hustle, Joy), a morally repulsive stinker (Passengers), a brilliant Darren Aronofsky smarthouse horror classic (mother!) and a weird disappointment (Red Sparrow).

Alas, none of these have really throbbed and zapped like her early-Obama-era success d’estime Winter’s Bone, and certainly never matched her career-peak performance in Silver Linings Playbook, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar. Eight, nine years ago.

The last time I even thought about Lawrence was when I was complaining about the spreading neck beard worn by her husband, Cooke Maroney.

My general feeling is that she needs to get back on it, strike sparks, generate currents, go for the gusto.

Lawrence has two films coming out later this year, but only one she’s starring in — Lila Neugebauer and Elizabeth Sanders‘ Red White and Water (A24), a war-wound recovery drama which shot during the summer of ’19 in the New Orleans area.

The other is Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up, a star-studded sci-fi ensemble piece in which she costars with Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande. (Yes, the above “teaser” is a fake, fan-made thing.)

In the spring of ’19 Collider‘s Jeff Sneider reported that Red, White and Water “will find Lawrence playing a U.S. soldier who suffers a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan and struggles to recover back home.”

“Scott Rudin and Eli Bush are producing alongside Lawrence and her Excellent Cadaver partner Justine Polsky. Atlanta star Brian Tyree Henry stars opposite Lawrence. Neugebauer made her Broadway debut last year directing the revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery starring Elaine May and Lucas Hedges, and she also helmed an episode of the HBO anthology series Room 104.”