The Washington Post - 30.08.2019

decision inspired in part by the rapper Pitbull,

whose music video the veteran actor, 65, recently

appeared in — a random fact he volunteers to

back his claim that he’s in the “no regrets” stage

of his career. That’s not to suggest he’s playing it

safe, as that has never been his forte. He’s just

taking on the projects he’s always wanted to take

on, marketability be damned.

Playing a racecar driver had long been on

Travolta’s bucket list, he says, so when the

opportunity arose with February’s “Trading

SEE TRAVOLTA ON C2

BY SONIA RAO

J

ohn Travolta paces a Georgetown hotel

room on this mid-August m orning, imitat-

ing the pronounced physicality of a few of

his more recent characters. He highlights

his versatility by switching from the long

strides of Robert Shapiro, an attorney in

the FX miniseries “The People v. O.J. Simpson:

American Crime Story,” t o the hesitant baby steps

of Edna Turnblad, the protagonist’s anxious

mother in the movie musical “Hairspray.” Satis-

fied with the demonstration, he eventually re-

turns to the couch where he has been sipping an

iced tea, specially requested with a slice of lemon.

Travolta points out that he is bald, a beauty

KLMNO

Style

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

MOVIE REVIEWS IN WEEKEND

 Brittany Runs a Marathon A comedy that never veers off its predictable course. 20

 Love, Antosha A charming documentary celebrates the life of the late actor Anton Yelchin. 22

 Don’t Let Go The time-travel thriller kind of works, if you don’t think about it too hard. 22

Game of chicken

Which chain fries up the best? 13

Weekend

John Tr avolta goes boldly into his next act

The movie star is in the Rotten Tomatoes clunker, ‘no regrets’ stage of his career — and is enjoying every minute of it

MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES

Kirsten Gillibrand ran unapologetically as a woman

The music at

Kirsten

Gillibrand’s r allies

was the kind of

playlist that a

bunch of sorority

sisters might

compile to pull a

recently dumped

friend out of a

funk: “Superwoman” by Alicia

Keys, “Just a Girl” by No D oubt.

Gillibrand’s p referred walk-on

was often Lizzo’s b uoyant self-

love anthem “Good as Hell.”

She seemed to enjoy trying on

hats or sunglasses at q uirky

shops along the campaign trail.

She often arrived at e vents

wearing pink, or surrounded by

“Gillibrand 2020” campaign

signs, whose fuchsia color

schematic was more symbolic

than visually appealing. While

conventional wisdom has

encouraged female candidates to

avoid “playing t he gender card,”

Kirsten Gillibrand was always

running specifically as a woman.

She never made an attempt to

lower the pitch of her youthful-

sounding v oice. She never

stopped talking about paid

family leave. When she discussed

abortion, she was loud and

unapologetic. She was relentless

in matters relating to sexual

misconduct a nd wanting to

punish the predators who were

guilty of it.

During the two official debates

she participated in, Gillibrand

vowed to prioritize women so

often that an average woman

watching from her living room

might feel bashful in the face of

such attention, overwhelmed by

the audacity of Gillibrand’s

support. As t he debate minutes

ticked by, I saw social media posts

unfurl from men who wondered

when she was going to start

talking specifically a bout them,

and then became enraged when

they realized the answer was

SEE HESSE ON C2

Monica

Hesse

BY DIANA ABU-JABER

“When I

open my

mouth, I can

choose b etween

two languages

... b ut o n paper
I cannot deci-
pher either
one.” So la-
ments Rosa An-
tonia Cassima-
ti, one of the
narrators of
“The Sweetest
Fruits.” Elo-
quent Rosa
must dictate
her story to an-
other, and in so doing, she evokes
one of the novel’s central themes:
the question of who gets to tell
what stories.
The marvelous new novel by
Monique Truong (“The Book of
SEE BOOK WORLD ON C3

BOOK WORLD

Imagining

the women

in author’s

life stories
How did you
spend y our
Summer o f the
Blips?
Did y ou enjoy a
world in w hich the
Beatles n ever
existed b ut their
music l ives o n (as
well as one of their most b eloved
members)? Or the one where
Sharon Ta te and h er friends
survived their 1969 murders, a nd
it was t he Manson Family that got
smoked?
The comforting revisionist
fantasies “Yesterday” a nd “ Once
Upon a Time i n Hollywood” were
nothing compared with the s heer
blippitude of “Spider-Man: Far
From Home,” which begins w ith a
clever h igh school video
breathlessly describing not just
the “ blip” t hat explained why
Peter Parker and his p als w ere still
teenagers five y ears after the last
installment, but invoking t he
“snap” i n the l ast two “Avengers”
SEE HORNADAY ON C3

Summer of

blips and

nostalgia

trips

Ann

Hornaday

MARY SCHWALM/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential campaign emphasized that “women’s issues” are societal issues.

THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES

TOP: John Travolta, pictured at “The Fanatic” premiere, recently went bald, a decision inspired partly by Pitbull. He appeared in one of the rapper’s music videos, one of several

eccentric projects he has taken on. ABOVE: Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, promote the film “Gotti,” which wound up with a zero-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

THE SWEETEST
FRUITS
By Monique
Tr uong
Viking. 304 pp.
$26

In Weekend

 The Fanatic But on the plus side, John

Tr avolta proves he’s still a movie star and a half. 21