While promoting the release of her latest movie, The Lost City, actress Sandra Bullock revealed she is taking a break from acting. The star of such film favorites as Speed, The Proposal, and Gravity will be spending the hiatus with her kids. Bullock has taken time off before, including a two-year recess following her Oscar-winning performance in the 2009 drama The Blind Side and then another break in 2018 following her appearance in Netflix’s phenomenally popular apocalyptic thriller Bird Box. The more recent pause in her career ended with her return to Netflix for the drama The Unforgivable in late 2021.
The Lost City is now in theaters, where it opened at number one at the box office. That’s a great achievement to go out on. Bullock does have one more credited role due out this year, in the action-comedy Bullet Train, but that seems to be a small part and mostly off-screen. Her character, as the “person in the chair” for Brad Pitt’s aging-assassin protagonist, will likely entail a predominantly vocal performance. Meanwhile, Bullock has top billing in The Lost City, portraying Loretta Sage, a romance novelist who winds up in an adventurous love story of her own. And in addition to the box office success, this is just a perfect movie to mark the point of her latest departure.
Bullock broke out with the 1994 action blockbuster Speed, opposite Keanu Reeves in the lead role. The following year, she was headlining projects on her own, starting with the action thriller The Net. With the 1997 sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control, Bullock had taken over the franchise that launched her into stardom. She’s been on the A-list ever since. However, after Speed 2 bombed at the box office, she wasn’t put behind the wheel of any more action tentpoles. That was okay because Bullock quickly realized her new destiny as a popular leading lady in romance-driven movies, always positioned as the primary or at least the equal-status star of these dramas and comedies.
She was considered one of America’s sweethearts of the silver screen, alongside Julia Roberts, throughout the next decade. This was a suitable spot for Bullock, who has proven to be very funny in her joke delivery and especially in her physicality while still fulfilling the more tender and fantastical needs of such characters. Going back to her early-career work in the rom-com Love Potion No. 9 and as a combined love interest and comic foil in the ahead-of-its-time sci-fi action flick Demolition Man, the actress has always shown prowess in the art of the romantic comedy in particular.
Yet Bullock has remained deserving of a little more action in her filmography, as she can also be tough when necessary and awkwardly fragile when not. Just as with her versatility in comedy and romance, in action movies, Bullock’s capable of playing to the genre’s base requirements of exaggerated characteristics, and she can also be a perfect straight person in contrast to the central comedic or heroic aspects, if that’s the assignment. Bullock exhibits a fabulous knack for comedic action in the Miss Congeniality films as well as in her hilarious buddy-movie team-up with Melissa McCarthy, The Heat.
In The Lost City, the actress gets to show off all of her best talents. She plays a reluctant action heroine, which initially capitalizes on her slapstick skills before the character is confident enough in her physical strength to lift that side of Bullock’s abilities. The role, being that of an intelligent author, also calls for some dry verbal wit that comes naturally to the eloquent performer, who has always maintained a level of classiness in her banter with her co-stars. Finally, while her awkward chemistry with Channing Tatum isn’t perfect, she herself is a magnetic mix of adorable, glamorous, and sexy, making it clear why Tatum’s character is so enamored with her.
Sequels to rom-coms and romance-driven adventure movies don’t often work. The love story aspect just can’t be developed further than what culminates in the original installment. With The Lost City being a hit at the box office, however, Paramount is obviously looking to deliver The Lost City 2. If it’s essentially more of the same, even without the appeal of a romance build-up, the follow-up will be worth it just for allowing the actress to work more of her magical combination of humor, charisma, and might. That’s everything she was born to do, and it’s wonderful to see Sandra Bullock find her most complete acting showcase here before stepping away from the industry for a time.
