Life After American Beauty
For Thora Birch, the movie American Beauty is probably the one movie that defines her career. So it is a kind of a milestone and it is only natural that a lot of people see her screen life as before the movie and after the movie. Post-American Beauty, we see her in roles that are more mature, roles that are different and not really run of the mill.
When the Liz Murray story was going to be filmed for Lifetime Original Movies, It was Thora Birch they thought of for the role. This moving story about a young girl, daughter of drug addicts who finds herself poor and homeless on the streets and her struggle, her going back to school and then winning a scholarship to Harvard is the stuff dreams are made of. And it needed someone who could portray the gamut of emotions that this role needed. It was a wonderful performance from the young star and sure enough, an Emmy nomination followed.
Then there was Slingshot where Thora Birch acts the part of April, an Ivy League girl with a lonely, rich mother looking for love. She acts alongside David Arquette, Balthazar Getty and Juliana Margulies and puts up a very creditable performance as the film races on to its chilling ending. This was followed by Dungeons and Dragons where she plays the Empress Savina and then the role of Liz Dun in the Hole.
What came after these roles was the one which won her a nomination for the Golden Globe as well as commendations at the San Diego Film Critics Society and the Seattle International Film Festival. Ghost World reiterated the fact that Thora Birch was firmly in the saddle as far as Hollywood movies went. Together with Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi, they made this comic book adaptation something to remember for a long time.
Shamrock Boy and Tainted Love are the recent ones she acts in and on the anvil is Train in which her brother Bolt Birch will act as well. Again, a thriller with a killer and the action is aboard a train. Then there’s the part of Chloe, a naïve young girl in Frail, a part that Thora would very much like to do.
She’s had a great celluloid run post the American Beauty days and if she’s gone from strength to strength, it’s only because as the days go by, Thora just seems to come up with even more talent hidden inside her.