Christina Ricci: 8 Roles That Have Defined Her Career
4. Katrina Sleepy Hollow (1999)
This, for our purposes, is another potentially problematic entry on our list. Most Tim Burton fans would surely agree its one of the directors finest, most distinctive films, and its equally easy to mark it as a career turning point for Johnny Depp as his first attempt at a distinctly unconventional action hero; a trope he would later revisit to considerably greater impact in Pirates of the Carribbean. So yes, we can comfortably call Sleepy Hollow a great Tim Burton movie and a great Johnny Depp movie; whether its so great a Christina Ricci movie is rather more open to question. I think its fair to say that Ricci was far from ideal casting as the noblemans daughter and white witch Katrina Van Tassell. She never seems entirely at ease in the role, at least in part because she isnt called on to do much but evoke a conventional feminine ideal; not really what she specialises in. Worse yet is the age difference between Depp and herself; somehow she looks even younger than she did in Buffalo 66, and given Depp is some 20 years older than her (and had known her since she was 9), there's an undeniable ick factor. As such, the love story angle is largely downplayed (we never even see the two of them kiss), and stands out as one the most poorly executed elements of an otherwise hugely engaging movie. Again, though, its hard to look too unkindly on Sleepy Hollow or Riccis performance in it. Yes, its another somewhat underdeveloped two-dimensional love interest, but the actresss innate likeability still shines through. I would certainly argue that Katrina can be classed as one of her definitive roles, though perhaps not for the nicest reason; as it stands to emphasise that, by and large, Hollywood has never quite known what to do with her (see also her subsequent subpar roles in subpar horror movies Bless the Child and Cursed). Nor would Hollywood quite know what to do with her next definitive work...
