MVP of the Month: Brie Larson

I had the great pleasure of speaking to Brie Larson in 2006 about her film, “Hoot,” and I thought she was terrific, both in person and in the film. Last week, I had the even greater pleasure of seeing her in three outstanding new independent films.  In “The Spectacular Now,” she plays the popular high school girl who breaks up with the main character but acknowledges that he’ll “always be my favorite ex-boyfriend.”  She has just one line in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon,” but it shows that throughout all the other scenes where she was texting as her family argued all around her she was paying better attention to what was going on than any of them.  And she stars in the heart-wrenching “Short Term 12” as a sympathetic aide in a facility for abused and neglected teenagers who is still struggling with her own history of abuse.  Larson was funny, smart, and very real in the wild comedy “21 Jump Street,” and it is great to see her get a chance to explore a wider range of characters.  Up ahead, “Basimati Blues” with Donald Sutherland and Tyne Daly and “Relanxious” with Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis.  Can’t wait.