Some relationships are damned from the very beginning, but they don’t usually end as badly as they do for the two main characters in the 2005 crime thriller Derailed. Jennifer Aniston was making her first movie after her ten-year run as Rachel Green in Friends, and Clive Owen was her leading man, having already firmly established his big screen bona fides. Sure, they make for quite the attractive couple, and if you saw them together on the street, you’d do a double-take, but in this film, they are a doomed couple whose problems go from bad to worse with just about every scene. Directed by Mikael Håfström, Derailed is based on the best-selling 2003 novel by James Siegel, whose source material isn’t always an easy watch adapted to film. It delivers Aniston in her career’s darkest and most vulnerable role. Audiences are accustomed to seeing Owen in gritty and moribund movies like Children of Men, Inside Man, and Sin City but have never seen the rom-com/sitcom actress in such a role.
What Is ‘Derailed’ About?
Owen is Charles Schine, a married father of a daughter and a Chicago-based advertising executive. When he meets Lucinda Harris (Aniston), a married financial advisor, on his commuter train to work one morning, he can’t resist her intelligence, wit, and allure, and the two slowly realize that they have to have each other. But before they can physically consummate the relationship, the two are attacked in a hotel room. The attacker (Vincent Cassel) beats Charles unconscious and then assaults Lucinda. When Charles comes to, he realizes what exactly has just occurred and that things will never be the same between them.
Though it happens only about twenty minutes into the film, it serves as the climax that will shape the tone and mood of the entire movie. The brutal attack and assault are just the beginning of their problems, as the attacker decides that, having caught them in a romantic tryst outside their marriages, he can use the information to blackmail Charles for $20,000. To protect her family, Lucinda persuades Charles not to go to the police. Hence, the pair are at the mercy of an unscrupulous reprobate whose name is later revealed to be Philippe LaRoche.
Owen and Aniston Have Good Chemistry, but It’s an Awkward Situation
When Aniston decided to escape her good-girl image and take on more serious parts, she wasn’t playing around. Audiences have seen the performer in more dramatic roles like Cake, Rock Star, and The Good Girl, and she was quite solid in all three movies. Still, Derailed is the type of hardscrabble film that addresses some serious issues that Aniston had never taken on and hasn’t since. It paints her into a corner of sorts in that she is seen as an unfaithful wife who is also morally compromised. It is a rather difficult departure for any performer who has made their name in lighter, more comedic fare.
The result is a somewhat awkward and uneasy chemistry with Owen‘s character that permeates the entire runtime after the traumatic attack of Lucinda and Charles. The two are such talented and versatile performers that it doesn’t affect the quality of the acting or the overall production of Derailed. Still, it is something that you have to get past to fully enjoy the taut psychological tension that Håfström creates on screen. It’s a faithful adaptation of Siegel‘s incredible novel, so the source material provides a mood that both Owen and Aniston can sink their teeth into.
‘Derailed’ Is Worth Watching To See Jennifer Aniston Play Against Type
Though Owen is less alpha and more of a desperate man in Derailed because of the plot and storyline, he is still in his element. Aniston, however, is very much playing against type, and it is the only opportunity audiences will get to see the queen of the comedic rom-com in such a precarious and serious film. While the material isn’t groundbreaking regarding the devices and tropes it touches on, seeing Aniston in such a heel turn is worth the time investment of just under two hours.
Derailed is currently available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S.
via Collider