I love, love, love the word ‘suck’. Not like ‘that sucks’, although I do frequently employ that terminology— but like, ‘you’re being a suck’. Remember when we were kids and someone was always being a sucky baby? Now when we talk about it, we use kids’ language and say someone is ‘taking their toys and going home’, but at least there’s a bit of flounce and drama to doing that. The suck, as you know, just sits in the corner and pouts, careful to make sure you can see them being miserable.

THIS IS ROONEY MARA. She is always there to let you know how incredibly uncomfortable she is, and to make sure that every word is like pulling teeth. She and her father did an interview with Michael Strahan, and he was so smiley and outgoing and she (and her father) so reticent you would have thought they were being interviewed about which brand of poison they had recently admitted to using on a family of cute rats.

And don’t give me ‘she’s shy’. I don’t want to hear it. Number one, she showed up AND walked the carpet. Not that I’m endorsing skipping it, because that is not the play, but she’s participating in the media, so I would love her to participate! Number two, she’s an Oscar-nominated actress. She can fake it a little. It’s a part of the job.

All this to say she annoys me mightily, and so I’m even more frustrated at how much I like her dress.

Ordinarily I don’t. Rooney Mara dresses to me are always heavy on the goth and seem designed to make her slouch, and the hair is always severe, and it just feels done before. This dress isn’t some crazy concoction that’s all different, either—I just really like the cleanliness of the front of it. That wide button-placket gives us something to look at, because there weren’t a lot of dresses to marvel at this year. Which…why not?

Can’t we divide up the attendees and assign them a type of dress like we assign them the categories to present? 20% should have to wear avant-garde, 8% 70s vintage, 10% as minimalist as possible but in ridiculous colours…anything to give me some other dresses to look at and prevent me writing something positive about this sucky baby.