Natalie Portman’s budget cocktail dress at ‘Brothers’ premiere

The Cinema Society Screening Of "Brothers" - Arrivals

A few weeks ago I mentioned that while I used to really like Natalie Portman, every single thing she’s been doing or saying lately has been grating on my nerves. From her interviews, to her defense of Roman Polanski, to her “eating a steak is equivalent to rape” vegan/vegetarian stance, I’m totally over her. All of this to say, I don’t really care for this dress that Natalie wore to the premiere of Brothers. I give Natalie credit for not being afraid of bold, interesting colors, but this dress looks cheap, doesn’t it? It looks like budget Delia’s. I can’t find the designer, but my guess is Marchesa. Totally budget. But I do love her shoes. The shoes are killing me.

The Cinema Society Screening Of "Brothers" - Arrivals

Anyway, Natalie’s promotion for Brothers has been very limited. I couldn’t even find any recent interviews she’s done to promote her role as a would-be war widow (her husband is played by Tobey McGuire) who has a relationship with her husband’s brother, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. This is the only thing – from a press conference in which she’s not talking about Brothers, she’s talking about why she took a role in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor.

Ever since Natalie Portman signed on to play Dr. Don Blake’s love interest Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Thor, the actress hasn’t done a ton of interviews, so we haven’t had much of a chance to learn about her take on the character.

At the press conference for Jim Sheridan’s Brothers, a terrific drama in which Portman is quite astounding as a young mother whose husband is a soldier who has gone missing and presumed dead in Afghanistan, we tried our best to broach the subject, trying to find out why she decided to do it, having already starred in one comic book movie (V For Vendetta) as well as starring in one of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time (Do we even have to name it?). We also were hoping to find out what sort of research or comics she might have read for the role, and whether it might be a big part, considering that much of the movie will probably take place in Asgard.

Unfortunately, the press conference environment is not the best place to get into this sort of thing–and we felt quite guilty even asking about it–but she did tell us at least why she did want to be in the movie:

“I just thought it sounded like a weird idea because Kenneth Branagh’s directing it, so I was just like, ‘Kenneth Branagh doing ‘Thor’ is super-weird. I’ve gotta do it’,” she told us, before a journalist interrupted her answering our question because he didn’t even know who Jane Foster was (The heathen!). Sadly, she never got to the rest of our question, but hopefully, we’ll get another chance to talk to her before the movie comes out.

[From Superhero Hype]

I have no idea why Tobey, Natalie and Jake aren’t promoting this movie more, because it actually looks like a really solid (albeit depressing) drama. Perhaps there’s no money to promote it. But it does look interesting. The trailer does seem to give away too much of the story, so beware of possible spoilers. Here’s the trailer:

The Cinema Society Screening Of "Brothers" - After Party

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33 Responses to “Natalie Portman’s budget cocktail dress at ‘Brothers’ premiere”

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  1. snowball says:

    She’s been wearing the same-ish dress for the last year. Strapless, ruffly around the boob line, very short, usually more rufflies or poofs somewhere.

    There were a bunch of pictures from, I think, this year’s Cannes, where she looks like she’s wearing the same dress, just in different colors.

    I’m not sure what to think about this new movie. I don’t know why, but Natalie looks perpetually around 17 to me and I have a hard time thinking that she should be playing adults.

  2. Firestarter says:

    I was thinking the very same thing Snowball, seeing her as a wife and mother just doesn’t jive.

    I do like Tobey and Jake, so I will see the movie…when it comes to satellite.

  3. Pont Neuf says:

    Natalie is an awesome actress; in every single role she’s done, she has performed exceedingly well. The only issue I have with her is her personality: too self-important and condescending altogether. It’s almost as if she thought that the rest of the planet were too unintelligent to deserve anything other than a paternalistic, disdainful attitude. Really unappealing.

    Anyway, she has awful taste in clothes most of the time. Which is a pity, because she is very elegant and has a graceful figure.

  4. kelbear says:

    I loved her in the movie “Anywhere But Here”

  5. Babs says:

    If eating a steak is rape in Natalie Portman’s mind, then does that mean Roman Polanski’s raping of a child was the equivalent of his eating veal?

    Maybe that’s why she doesn’t think Polanski drugging and raping a little girl was that big of a deal. After all, there was probably a time when she too ate a cheeseburger, or indulged in some other delicious meat product that she now reviles.

    She can’t hate herself forever for eating a juicy slap of dead cow, so how can she hold a grudge against Polanski?

    I totally ‘get’ Portman’s logic here. I feel like I’ve looked inside her mind, and now I understand her thinking and reasoning.

    No really, I do.

  6. Lantana says:

    Blue dress. Yellow (gold?) clutch. Purple shoes. That’s my first thought when I put together an outfit.

  7. DiMi says:

    Okay, the colors are all wrong. But she always looks beautiful.

  8. alex says:

    Wow. Anorexic!

  9. jess says:

    i love her but go see the original version of ‘brothers’ called ‘Brødre’.

  10. Mairead says:

    I think she looks very nice.

    I’m a veggie and do not agree with her stance at all.

    I’ve not heard about this film at all, but Jim Sheridan is a very solid, if po-faced, director, generally (“The Field” is a marvellous adaptation, “My Left Foot”, “In The Name of the Father” although “In America” looked far too weepy for me.) She, Tobey and Jake are all fine actors so it should be a very interesting film to see.

  11. Tess says:

    I finally caught up with Top Chef and saw the episode she appeared in…sparking negative commentary for her behavior.

    Yikes! Her overly giddy comments about a dish one of the Volt brothers made—something about it being playful and who was his drug dealer and would he take new clients—were tacky and unintentionally quite revealing.

  12. Praise St. Angie! says:

    “in every single role she’s done, she has performed exceedingly well.”

    I beg to differ.

    she was painful to watch in Episodes I, II, and III.

    of course, the material wasn’t that great…

  13. javelin says:

    If she got rid of the belt and wore some dangling earrings it would be an alright look.

  14. Kaiser says:

    Mairead – You’ve never seen “In America”? Oh. My. God. You need to see that! It is sad and devastating, but there are lots of really amazing, heart-warming parts too. Samantha Morton & Djimon Honsou are incredible, and the child actors are the sweetest, most gorgeous little things ever.

  15. pixiegirl says:

    Love the dress! Love her vegan stance! HATE that she supported Roman Polanski.

  16. SolitaryAngel says:

    Oh. My. GOD. MUST see this movie! You ladies can all pick apart her clothes, acting, personality–whatever floats your boat but I’m seeing that movie!!!

  17. TwinkleToes says:

    Hate the dress but love all of the other colors together. Someone is smart in keeping this one quiet because she’s been giving herself away on how stupid she really is. Probably has a pill problem, too. She matches one of the blind items about an actress moving back to LI to be with her parents to get over a vicodan addiction.

  18. orion70 says:

    I quite like the dress. Sure looks better than that white dress Rihanna was wearing a while back that was getting praise.

    I do not agree with her vegan/vegetarian stance, and I’m a vegetarian.

    I’m with Kaiser on “In America”. This has been one of my favorite movies ever since I saw it, and i’ve watched it over and over. The cast was perfect. It also made me a solid fan of Paddy Considine.

  19. emma says:

    the dress is jason wu

  20. GatsbyGal says:

    She’s far too elegant looking to wear such cheap, short-short dresses.

    Oh god but I do totally hate her now. I’m with you, I used to really dig on her because she seemed so nice and cool and normal, but the “eating meat is like rape” thing…

  21. girl says:

    Yes, the dress looks like something left on the rack after a sale at Marshall’s/Ross.

    The movie sounds interesting but the concept I find totally offputting for personal reasons. My husband is deployed and his brother is a total douche. Hells the fuck no would I ever touch that. EVER. So to keep my blood pressure and my lunch down and to avoid waking up screaming (more) for the rest of this deployment, I will probably see it on DVD/Blu-Ray.

  22. Lee09 says:

    Nice, she looks great. I actually saw this movie early in NYC and even though I didn’t really see Natalie in the mom role going in, I thought she pulled it off swimmingly. Great character.

  23. Jen says:

    I agree with Snowball up there. Natalie is so small and young-looking that I have trouble buying her in adult roles – I mean, did you see her in Cold Mountain? The baby they cast as her son was almost as big as she is.

  24. daisy says:

    she was great in ‘the other boelyn girl’.I have always loved her movies.I never realized she was a strange one.

  25. crash2GO2 says:

    Whenever I see her, I think of the phrase ‘doe-eyed beauty’. She really is lovely.

  26. skeptical says:

    so eating meat is somehow morally equivalent to rape?

    clearly that spoiled brat never had to fight off a rapist.

    there is NO comparison. She’s a dick to me now.

  27. Dr_Venkman says:

    @ Emma: WAS Jason Wu, not is.
    Poor Jason, but that happens if people prefer to wear people instead of animal.

  28. Annabelle says:

    Babs, I was going to say the same thing.

    She is said to be intelligent, but every interview I have ever watched she is sort of dazed and not exactly with it… not as if she is on drugs, just kind of vacant. I think i’ve seen more intelligence in Kim Kardashian?

  29. MooMoo says:

    She gets on my nerves too, she seems so smug and cold, I really don’t like it!
    She is so beautiful though.

    I remember watching a couple of interviews with her on the net, in the first one she had just come to the realisation that women are unintentionally often quite self-deprecating, apologising for things they may say and not accepting compliments e.t.c. Then in the second video it was like she was way over-compensating to not come off like that. The interviewer told her she was beautiful or something and she just nodded with a stern look on her face.

    Her attitude just really put me off! You don’t have to act like a cold bitch to be a strong, self-assured person. grrr

  30. Yae says:

    Her political views are just frightening.

    She is beautiful in a siren sort of way. But I don’t see her eyes as “doe-eyed”. That would imply innocence. She has too many political agendas.

    Pont Neuf, I have to stand by your comment.

  31. moonlyte says:

    In reply to Girl:
    “Yes, the dress looks like something left on the rack after a sale at Marshall’s/Ross”:
    or from the ever klassy Berry Fizz prom dress collection:
    http://www.lizajamesprom.com/products/GZ_7614_purple.html

    or it perhaps took its inspiration from the Liza James prom.com collection:
    http://www.lizajamesprom.com/products/LJ_10078_bluelavender.html

  32. Fantastique says:

    Natalie Portman was just on David Letterman promoting Brothers. She is so elegant, and Letterman even says that Brothers is the best movie in the past 20 years!

  33. Zzzzzzzzzz says:

    Digging this one up but I just saw Brothers and it was a very good movie. Tobey Maguire will walk away with most of the accolades and he as good but it was a tad too flashy for my tastes. A little too obvious a role come award season. Jake G. on the other hand was beautifully understated and really, really impressive. And he had great chemistry with Natalie who was also good. Having seen the movie and the Unscripted interview, I’m willing to bet my mortgage that was one friendship (Jake/Natalie) that Reese most definitely was NOT a fan of.