The Patriot Cast: Lisa Brenner

In The Patriot
Lisa Brenner as Anne Howard has the more material to work with than Joely Richardson's Charlotte Selton, the more highly billed and only other significant female in the film. Ms. Brenner did well with her scenes, although the character was bit modern for her setting in a heavily religious rural town. As a result, she comes across as older than the fourteen to eighteen year old that Anne is supposed to be in the film.

Just as Heath Ledger's Gabriel Martin appears mature and older than his age, Anne falls into the same category. Both actors showed maturity which inadvertently aged their characters. Brenner's scenes with Ledger had some dignity as well as some natural flirting. Their relationship is the film's main romance, completely contrasting with whatever the interaction between Charlotte and Benjamin Martin could be called.

Lisa Brenner's scenes with Heath Ledger had a spark to them and an underlying edge to them that seemed to belong to college-aged young adults, rather older teens, but that is the script's fault, rather than Brenner and Ledger's fault. Their romance should be more unrestrained than Charlotte and Benjamin's, but perhaps with more of a look to the time in which the film was set rather than the time when the film was released.

< Lisa Brenner: Bio/Filmography