Angelina Jolie’s blonde bob

Angelina Jolie is in London, seen yesterday on the set of Marc Forster’s film Anxious People, based on Fredrik Backman’s book of the same name. 

This is an ensemble, with Angelina playing an investment banker, Zara, who ends up at an open house on Christmas Eve with a group of strangers and they all get taken hostage by a hapless robber who will presumably be played by Aimee Lou Wood, aka Chelsea from season three of The White Lotus. The thief’s name in the film is “Grace” and she’s described as “reluctant”, and Aimee could totally play that kind of character, someone who for whatever reason is caught up in a crime but is conflicted about what she’s really doing. 

While the premise of Anxious People sounds like crime thriller, those who’ve read the book know that that description is misleading. There’s a lot of humour to the story, and also so much humanity, as those who are trapped begin to understand each other and go beyond their first impressions. A dinner party/open house, the heightened emotions during the holidays – the robbery is there, really, just to advance a conversation about how we connect to people beyond our assumptions about them, how we might shortchange ourselves and others in these superficial situations, and how even in crisis we might find comedy. Not unlike, for example, the Knives Out movies: Rian Johnson is working in the murder mystery genre here but in addition to the whodunnit, he’s also illuminating all the different sides of the characters who are involved and also suspicious about one another and having a conversation about trust and honesty. 

In Anxious People, no one’s trying to figure out who the murderer is, but it’s still playing on having these characters forced to interact with one another and what those interactions expose about who they are, what they believe, what they care about. 

I’m excited to see Angelina in this world. What I enjoyed about her in Marvel’s Eternals, as polarising as that movie is, was watching her in an ensemble, bouncing off the other Eternals. It was an opportunity for her to be unserious at times and in Anxious People, there’s potential for her to let that unseriousness out again. Angelina in a comedy? We haven’t seen much comedy from her over her career, I can’t wait. 

We also haven’t seen her look like this in a long time. She wore her hair chin-length and blonde in Life or Something Like It. Obviously her 2025 blonde bob is much more chic, I actually love it on her, especially in profile, from the side. And it’s framing her face beautifully, not like she needed the help. If this is a wig, it’s a good one. And we happen to be talking about wigs today over on our Substack, The Squawk, because Princess Kate showed up blonde today too. Click here to read my piece there about Kate and join our conversation. 

Angelina won’t be in London for long. She’ll likely take a break from production on Anxious People this weekend because she is expected in Toronto for the TIFF world premiere of Alice Wincour’s Couture, and deals are already being made for the film ahead of its screening on Sunday. TIFF announced her attendance yesterday so she’ll be on that red carpet and it’ll be interesting to see how she wears her hair.