A Winter with Brittany Murphy
Words: Peter Dyer
I attended a birthday party the other night with a light Y2K theme. Though I’m an admirer of early 2000s culture, I don’t own any clothes that are traditionally “Y2K,” so I settled on slacks and my Brittany Murphy sweater, which I bought for $25 with an Etsy gift card. When I arrived to the party, I thought the sweater would be a hit; but no, two people even asked me “Who’s Brittany Murphy?”
I didn’t know how to answer the question: “Who’s Brittany Murphy? How could someone ask that?” But then I remembered that not everyone had been spending the last two months trying to watch every single movie she was ever in, wanting to make sense of this actress and how she met such a tragic fate. I responded by saying “You know, from Clueless? Girl, Interrupted?” to which the person made an expression of mild recognition.
I remember when I first heard about Brittany Murphy. I was 8 - the same age as Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls - and I saw a poster of her movie Love and Other Disasters (2008). I remember thinking that I liked her hair. I never actually saw the movie and still haven’t (it’s $6.99 to rent online, $3 more than the acceptable $3.99). The only movie I had actually seen with her by that point was Happy Feet, in which she voiced a penguin named Gloria (when asked on the red carpet why she would star in “a penguin movie” she replied, followed by one of her raucous laughs, “Because they asked me to!”). A year later, I’d be sitting at the dentist’s office, thumbing through the glossy pile of Us Weekly, InTouch, People, and Star magazines. Splashed across the front of each was news of Brittany’s death at 32 years old. It made no sense.
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Watching Brittany Murphy’s movies is similar to looking at a Francesca Woodman photograph, or listening to a SOPHIE song. It’s impossible to consume the art without thinking about how it all ended; a film is cast over all of her movies, even the saccharine-sweet ones like Just Married or Little Black Book. Since the beginning of December, I’ve managed to watch quite a few of her movies, including a necessary rewatch of Clueless, Girl, Interrupted, and Uptown Girls - and I’d like to make the case for a couple of Murphy’s lesser-known roles being some of her best, if not her best-known.
“There’s something about the genuine empathy that her character shows throughout the movie that feels completely natural, as though Brittany is just playing herself.”
As Lisa Swenson in the cult classic Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), much of Murphy’s role revolves around her idolising her gay brother, Peter, who, as she says, “followed his dream all the way to New York.” With the unbridled joy of a proud sister, Lisa shows us photos of Peter dressed as Liza Minnelli (one of Brittany’s real-life icons), Barbara Streisand, and Madonna. Much of Brittany’s screen time in the movie includes her signature laugh; still, to this day, there’s nothing else in cinema like a Brittany Murphy laugh. There’s something in it that says, “I know I’m funny and if you don’t think so…I don’t care!” She does the pageant with the rest of the girls (Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Amy Adams, among others) because “If you’re 17, and you’re not a total fry, it’s just what you do.” She’d really rather be at Peter’s drag shows, but she’ll sing and dance to Sinatra’s “New York, New York” at a corny pageant in rural Minnesota until she gets there.
Perhaps my favourite Brittany Murphy character is Fay in Riding in Cars with Boys (2001). There’s something about the genuine empathy that her character shows throughout the movie that feels completely natural, as though Brittany is just playing herself. When Bev (Drew Barrymore) gets pregnant and everyone turns against her, even at her wedding, Fay is on-stage, belting out a rendition of The Shirelles’ “Soldier Boy”.
After practically getting booed off the stage, Fay announces her own pregnancy, in solidarity with Bev. She appears throughout the movie at necessary moments - announcing her divorce as she and Bev play with their kids on a see-saw, selling weed with Bev to make extra cash, and, of course, the infamous “my daughter’s a tramp!” scene. It’s one of those roles that makes you realise that no one else could have played it; I’ve yet to see another actor bring that much unforced kindness to a role. To see Fay remain by Bev’s side, even as her own family collapses, even as her eyes remain glassy with near-tears throughout the whole movie, is one of the most heartbreaking cinematic experiences I’ve had.
Last night I tried to watch The Ramen Girl (2008), and turned it off halfway through. It’s admittedly a not-great movie for many reasons, but I couldn’t continue watching because, after my Brittany Murphy marathon, I had seen a light go out in this one. By that point, she was very sick, and in her final red carpet interview in December 2009, she says to the blonde interviewer “Can I have your hair in my next life?” her signature laugh struggling to surface, and when the interviewer says “Can I be you in my next life?!” Brittany lets out a dark chuckle and says “No problem!”
This was the last thing the public heard her say until she died later that month, and it still haunts me. I keep watching interview after interview, movie after movie, trying to make sense of what happened, and I’m realising that I never will. I’m happy to see the culture keeping her memory alive (pop artist Slayyyter has a song called “BRITTANY MURPHY.” on her new album), because to watch Brittany is to witness true empathy, compassion, and humour. Though that ominous film continues to float over all of her movies in the wake of her passing, there are some moments, like when she’s singing a Carly Simon song at the top of her lungs in Little Black Book, or screaming at Mickey Rourke in Spun, when I feel frozen in time with Brittany, grateful to be experiencing just a moment of her magic.
