Open letter to JLaw: the Internet still loves you

Tears were flowing the other day when Internet gem Jennifer Lawrence announced that will never join Twitter. Aside from not getting the whole social media hype — and I personally hate Twitter, so I get that feel — she claimed in a BBC Radio 1 interview that light of the nude photos leak, the Internet has "scorned" her. Girl, plz, the Internet still loves you. If you don't believe me, just look to what critics are saying about her performance in the last Hunger Games installment.

Now it's true that Lawrence isn't at the height of her powers like she was during the 2013 awards season, and such is the fickle nature of celebrity worship. There are weeks when every post is about Beyonce, and weeks when every post is about Taylor Swift. And while the Internet can capture your bubbly quirks via memes and giggly blog posts (ahem), prolonging your star status in the meantime, someone else can just as easily put their ass on a magazine cover, knocking you out of the spotlight for weeks. It's an on-going popularity contest out there. There is, however, one thing no one can take away from her: she's Katniss Everdeen.

And as the reviews for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay are slowly but surely coming in, we recognize that embodying Katniss still holds some weight. While critique has been thrown for splitting the last book into two parts (and as in great Deathly Hollows tradition, the first half is usually weaker), Lawrence's performance has been relatively well-received. Besides, as of this moment the film has an 86 percent fresh reviews from critics, which is still a solid B+. Clearly reviewers are still on Lawrence's side.

For example, Kevin Harley of Totalfilm.com notes that while Katniss has lost some of her spark, Lawrence does some "heavy-lifting" to make the movie hold up:

...J-Law tugs us in to Katniss’ fraught humanity, invoking memories of Aliens’ harrowed Ripley as she wakes from troubled sleep in District 13’s rebel base...These layers of trepidation firm up Katniss’ position as a reluctant hero we can engage with, not a superhero: qualities rare enough in some A fiction, let alone YA fiction.

And Geoffrey MacNab of The Independent raves:

Lawrence is again tremendous as Katniss. She gives her character an emotional depth that you don’t expect in a franchise movie, conveying her vulnerability and doubt as well as well as her fiery determination and Barbarella-like sex appeal.

While Brian Viner of the Daily Mail states in right in the headline that the film is "cynical" and "cash grabbing...but worth it for Jennifer":

It it’s Miss Lawrence’s show again. She’s 24 now, and given how much she has done since the first Hunger Games film in 2012, just passing herself off as a teenager is an achievement.

And Justin Chang of Variety says:

If Katniss remains only intermittently comfortable with her celebrity, Jennifer Lawrence herself feels like more of a natural than ever. Although she has less to do on the action front (she fires only one arrow, and it’s a doozy), her Katniss remains the most compellingly human fixture of this dystopian landscape, even when the psychological toll of her sufferings push the performance into a shriekier, more desperate emotional register than before.

See JLaw? The internet isn't that bad. You are routinely critically lauded. Look, I can't speak for Twitter, but if you ever do cave into social media, you will probably have a grand old time on Tumblr. I don't recommend setting your "ask me!" box to anonymous, but other than that, it's a Lawrence-friendly place.

And no matter what happens, if you can't find strength in yourself, you will always find strength in being Katniss Everdeen. Or, failing that, strength in the fact that you were never 2013 Anne Hathaway.

Images: Giphy (3)