My Elizabeth Hurley moment

Elizabeth Hurley? You mean Hugh Grant’s girlfriend? Or former girlfriend? Or embarrassed girlfriend, after Grant was picked-up soliciting a prostitute off the Sunset Strip in 1995? Other than the notoriety arising from that incident – and her sticking with the louse through the scandal – I never really gave much thought to the Brit actor and Estee Lauder model. As far as I was concerned she was just another gossip press personality. Then I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water (2000). Hurley was stunning in it. And I don’t mean just in looks. Excuse me for stereotyping but in the opening scenes of the film, when the characters (including Catherine McCormack, Sean Penn and John Lucas), meet for a short sailing expedition to islands off the New Hampshire coast (the movie was shot in Nova Scotia) she is the unexpected bombshell of a girlfriend along for the ride. Until, that is, she opens her mouth. This woman is a manifestation of brains and beauty. In fact she was the most fascinating character of the entire film even though playing a secondary role. She came across as the most intellectual and deepest of the bunch. Hurley’s Adaline Gunn weighed her words with precision, insight and gravitas from a mind rich in general knowledge and of the vissicitudes of human nature. As the characters embark on their brief ocean sojourn, as you could imagine, the close knit group ends up spending hours talking about everything from the arts (the Penn character is a writer) to people’s hidden motivations, particularly in relation a local double murder that McCormack’s Jean Janes is investigating. For her part Adaline reaches heights of intimidating braininess only to retreat into a kind of self-aware warmth and understanding. Had I not seen this in Hurley before? Well, my only real exposure to her was in the Austin Powers movies where her Vanessa role opposite Mike Myers was, well, rather cartoonish - she was a “fembot” after all! This Elizabeth seems more like the - real - deal.