Finally. I have been deriding Jennifer Aniston since she announced that she wasn't going to do thriller ever again after Derailed (Filmstalker review), a decision that meant she was churning out uninspiring romantic comedy dross for the rest of her career, and a very bad decision at that. Aniston was great in Derailed and really surprised me at what she was capable of, and she missed the boat.

Now though, after all this time, it looks like she's deciding to take a step away from playing the same character she's always done in Friends and decided to do something that would mean acting, a talent she displayed bucket loads of on Derailed.

When I saw Derailed (Filmstalker review) in February 2006 I was surprised at how well she played her character, she was one of the best parts of the film. Vincent Cassel also starred so she couldn't really beat his performance.

However soon after the film, in March no less, she was already talking about giving up and returning to the dross, and she did. Back then she said:

"Derailed kind of... derailed...Thrillers are tough. I don't need to do these kinds of movies. It's like caviar. I don't need to have it again."

She described it as "caviar" and that she only needed to do it once. Well, that's true, the dross brigns in the hard cash with little effort doesn't it?

Yes dear, thrillers are tough, it's called acting and you did it really well and I had hope that we were going to see you deliver some amazing performances, however you were content to return to films like Rumour Has It and the romantic "comedy" dross continued to pour out, Rachel never went away.

It wasn't long, August of that year in fact, that she was directing a short film for a Magazine, and in March 2007 there were rumours of her leaving "acting", well if she wasn't going to do the caviar and just the pulp then it wasn't going to bother me.

Then in June of 2007, quite some time ago, there was a story about her producing a film called Goree Girls which was about one of the first all women Country and Western groups in the U.S. which was created in a women's prison in the 1940's.

Now word has come through Associated Press and that the project isn't dead and that she's still working on developing that film, although there's still no word of forward movement on the project, it does say that it's active for her and she is still talking about it, albeit it is at the launch of her new perfume...oh dear me.

Yet there's other light at the end of the tunnel for those of us who thought she was going to deliver something more to our screens, she has a new project coming up called Counterclockwise which focuses on the studies of the renowned Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer.

We've also heard that she was going to star in a film called Holler, about a bi-racial student returning to his hometown in Mississippi, getting involved with a white girl and a whole lot of racial tension at the same time, that was just mentioned in July of last year.

In April of last year she talked about directing a feature, she hadn't revealed what, but it could well be The Goree Girls, should that project ever happen.

So far it's all been talk and the only real evidence we've seen has been her strong performance in Derailed (Filmstalker review) that really did surprise. I do hope that she goes back to doing some serious work and performing in front of the camera, for what she did in Derailed certainly did give her the chance to do just that for her Rachel and romantic comedy roles, she chose to turn back though, and there's been no sign of her returning to the serious roles that showed so much promise for her.