The Hartnettaissance is HERE
The Hartnettaissance is HERE
Josh Hartnett has a shirtless scene in his summer blockbuster yet Glen Powell doesn't... think about that.
Visiting Los Angeles in July, I was struck by how many billboards there were for M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, Trap.
Not because I had not heard of the movie prior nor because I felt it unusual for so much of LA’s advertising real estate to be devoted to movies, but because it confirmed a feeling I’d had brewing in my gut for about a month.
The Hartnettaissance is here.
The Hartnettaissance, for those who need it spelled out, is the Josh Hartnett Renaissance.
Doesn’t it just roll off the tongue?
I saw Trap on Tuesday night. I had already felt like not a true preacher of the Harnettaissance gospel by not being able to go opening weekend, and an extra push by my friend Jake, who did contribute to its $20.1 million box office opening, propelled me to book tickets to a 10:15 p.m. showing.
It was near full when I booked my ticket, though I don’t think the theater ended up filling up as much as the map showed. Still, I took it as another sign from the higher power that I was right about the Hartnettaissance.
I’m not really here to write to you about the movie, though. I will say I had a blast.
To quote The Big Picture’s Amanda Dobbins, “If you want to go to an M. Night Shyamalan movie starring Josh Hartnett as a serial killer at a pop girl concert, you will have a fantastic time.”
I really started to consider the Hartnettaissance and what it means for our culture while binging FX’s The Bear Season 3 the weekend it dropped on Hulu.
Minor spoilers, but Hartnett makes an appearance in S3E4 “Violet” as Frank, the new fiancè of Cousin Richie’s ex-wife Tiffany.
Like I do often, I imitated the Leo DiCaprio pointing meme when Hartnett’s character opens his front door for Richie. I’d held no expectations over who a cameo like this would go to, but he certainly hadn’t been high on my list.
The first Trap trailer had already dropped by that point, but one TV/movie appearance in a year does not a renaissance make.
Seeing Hartnett in one of the most popular shows of the decade, even if just briefly, added a few more brushstrokes to the mosaic I was painting in my mind.
Really, though, the Hartnettaissance’s roots lay in the biggest movie event of 2023: Oppenheimer.
Hartnett plays Ernest Lawrence, a role that earned him sixth-highest billing in a star-studded cast.
I don’t think I had realized he’d be in the movie until I was actually seated for it and having the experience I know many did while watching the film of going, “Oh, he’s/she’s in it?” every few minutes for the opening act.
It’s not that these roles have been a re-emergence of Hartnett to the screen. He’s been in plenty since his career took off with no major significant gaps, though these are certainly the three most notable projects he’s been in since the early aughts.
Rather, the Hartnettaissance is about Hartnett’s re-emergence as a cultural figure. A figure for young women (and men!) to thirst after, no longer because he’s a early-20s heartthrob but because he’s an endearing 40 year old who plays a great girl dad.
Though it is a laughable moment to a degree in Trap — which is all I’ll say because again, this isn’t about the movie and the last thing I want to do is spoil an M. Night movie for anyone — Hartnett has a summer blockbuster shirtless scene!
That’s a fact not even hunk of the summer Glen Powell can boast because he didn’t get one in Twisters (which was criminal, I might add).
I’ve probably let myself get too far in here without letting you know why I even care about the Hartnettaissance in the first place.
My introduction to Hartnett was in AP World History towards the end of my sophomore year. We’d already taken our exam and were watching “historical” movies through the final weeks of class since we had nothing to do.
One such movie was Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay’s three-hour 2001 war romance very loosely about the tragic historical event but more about soldiers getting it on with a pretty girl.
Hartnett stars alongside Ben Affleck – this was also my real first introduction to how hot he was (still is), though I certainly think I had seen at least segments of The Town by this point – as Capt. Danny Walker, who (major spoilers) steals Affleck’s Lt. Rafe McCawley’s girl after they believe him to have been dead. McCawley only reemerges the night before the Pearl Harbor attacks, and then things go from there.
Sixteen-year-old me was literally gobsmacked by Hartnett’s and Affleck’s co-hotness on screen and would watch that movie somewhat regularly for at least the next two years.
I can’t remember the last time I watched it now, but with the Hartnettaissance, it’s definitely on my list for sometime soon.
Really, at its core, the Hartnettaissance is three things.
A subset of our larger cultural re-embrace of the Y2K era/early aughts
A fun way of referring to the mid-life revitalization of a (somewhat failed) Hollywood starlet’s career
A vehicle for pushing my Hartnett is still hot agenda on all of you
If I’ve convinced you, book tickets to the first Trap showing you can make near you. Let’s make the Hartnettaissance last more than just a year.