The frame for Jake's eyes

I have heard it mentioned that one reason why Jake Gyllenhaal has been wearing so many hats of late may be because he has eyebrow issues. This suggestion clearly merits close scrutiny and, while I fear that one mere post can never do justice to those two fine hairy appendages on Jake's face, I will have a flutter.


Back in the days of Bubble Boy, dissatisfaction was expressed about Jake's styled eyebrows. Overplucking was blamed - although to be fair, Jake may not have had a lot of say when approached by a film's makeup artist with clippers primed and an intent expression on their face. Clearly Jake can't win because, by the time of Brokeback Mountain, it was argued that Jake should prune his eyebrows more if he wanted to compete with Keira Knightly on the love interest front.


The Insider swooned for Jake on the cover of GQ despite his 'furry eyebrows'. But in The Good Girl, Jake 'looks as if the sky is falling on him - an effect he doesn't have to work nearly as hard to produce. His perpetually depressed eyebrows do the job for him, arching down over a gaze which seems permanently fixed on thoughts of the very worst that can happen.'


For Lovely and Amazing, Seattle Weekly took a close up of Jake's face and had this to say (and it is worth quoting at length): 'Jake Gyllenhaal's eyes give him the aspect of a Muppet lost in thought. He is best known for playing a wide-eyed boy taken by the science of rockets (October Sky), a blurry-eyed boy who does violent things in the haze of sleepwalking (Donnie Darko), and a bouncy-eyed boy trapped in a shiny plastic bubble (Bubble Boy). His features are theatrically overstated: fat lips, thick eyebrows, and distended eyelids that have to stretch to conceal two glistening, gluey globes.'


'Jake charms in Lovely.In Lovely & Amazing (in which he is both) his eyes are huge and heavy and ink-blue. They roll around in their watery sockets. One moment they are the bleary embodiment of retail mundanity (he works at a one-hour photo); the next moment they seem to swell and bulge forth with sexual longing. (His character may be sensitive, but he's also a 17- year-old male.) You're never really sure if his eyes are a distraction or if everything else is the distraction and his eyes are the performance.'


'Mr. Gyllenhaal should never put on sunglasses, or sleep, or play a blind man on film. His close-ups are particularly riveting, composed of unflagging intrigue and suspense. How can his eyes be so big, one wonders, rapt, and how does he keep them from falling out of his head? And if they did fall out—how could they not, really—is someone prepared to catch them?'


Eyes like those need their frame.


Includes pictures from IHJ.