Rachel Anne McAdams

Her second film of 2008, The Lucky Ones, a story about three Iraq War soldiers on a brief road trip back in the U.S., was another box-office flop and received uncomplimentary reviews. McAdams' performance, however, was praised. The New York Times found her "luminous as always", Variety found her "as captivating as ever" while Roger Ebert hailed the performance as "her coming of age as an actress". "Previously she has been seen mostly as a hot chick or an idealized sweetheart", he wrote. "Here she is feisty, vulnerable, plucky, warm, funny. She provides yet another lesson that you can't judge acting ability until you see an actor given a chance to really stretch. Watch the poignance of the scene when she meets her boyfriend's family."
• Return to prominence
She starred in three films in 2009. The first was well-reviewed political thriller State of Play with Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman and Russell Crowe. Entertainment Weekly felt she was "perfectly cast as an ambitious wonkette" while The New York Times noted that "there is some fun to be had in watching (Crowe and McAdams) lock horns..and engage in fine snappy banter."
Her second 2009 project was The Time Traveler's Wife, an adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's bestselling novel. It was a financial success but the critical response was muted. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "I'd watch the vibrant Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana in anything, but The Time Traveler's Wife is pushing it." The Los Angeles Times found her "luminous (yet), sadly, her facility as an actress is mostly wasted." Writing in The Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips, in an otherwise tepid review, said of her performance: “Every scene she’s in, even the silly ones, becomes better — truer, often against long odds — because she’s in it. Her work feels emotionally spontaneous yet technically precise. She has an unusually easy touch with both comedy and drama, and she never holds a melodramatic moment hostage.”