Who’s had “It” in the 2000s and today? Scarlett Johansson seems to have all the qualifications. She’s a sex symbol in silent close-ups, where her pillowy lips can make their impact, but in movement, she’s gauche and awkward, a Kim Novak without the existential angst.
Johansson has the publicity and the movies, but who really has “It”? It’s got to be Eva Mendes, a great beauty who was born for the camera, moves beautifully and acts well; she’s like Bow, Rita Hayworth and Raquel Welch rolled into one. (Valium) Mendes has never played that one iconic part that would make her a star, but she pulses with “It” for anyone with eyes to see, especially in the opening scene of James Gray’s We Own the Night (2007), where she pleasures herself in a way that might have made Bow smile with that heady, innocent sexual excitement that made her the first and the ultimate in “It.”
