Reese Witherspoon bounces back to impress critics and Hollywood at large

Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon has emerged as an influential producer that restores her position as a prominent figure in the US film industry by producing two successful 2014 movies that are Oscar worthy. These two movies are the critically acclaimed Gone Girl and Wild.

After some lukewarm romantic comedies and some satire dramas she has starred in for the past years - Four Christmases, How Do You Know, Water for Elephants, This Means War, which unfortunately was not accepted favorably by critics, Witherspoon bounced back last year with her acclaimed produced movies.

Wild was adapted from Cheryl Strayed's best-selling memoir and is being talked of as a serious Oscar contender. The Legally Blonde actress stars in this movie and it appears to be restoring her status as a leading Hollywood actor. Apart from starring in this critically favored film, the actress serves as the producer as well.

From the time she won an Oscar, the 38-year-old actress spent a hollow and fallow period when it comes to acting on films. Her professional uncertainty was compounded in 2013 by a bizarre drunk driving incident, in which Witherspoon was arrested and subsequently charged with disorderly conduct after the car her husband, Jim Toth, was driving was stopped by police.

Wild is an intricately constructed, flashback-heavy mosaic describing a woman's liberating trek across more than a thousand of miles of desert, and a showcase for minimalist, downbeat performance. Witherspoon recently was nominated for a BAFTA for her performance as Cheryl Strayed, and we will see this Sunday's Golden Globe Awards if she wins the Best Actress category.

Since then, Witherspoon has taken the road into producing movies with her Type A Films company. The actress literally is still a prominent figure in terms of feminism in the movie industry. Her breakthrough into producing movies is a mark that women in the film industry has to be taken seriously.

Gone Girl was their first attainment to make it into production; Witherspoon, no doubt, planned to take the lead role, but after director David Fincher joined the project, she stepped aside when it became clear Fincher wanted to cast Rosamund Pike. "It didn't matter if I was in it or not," Witherspoon explained to Variety. "When you get someone like David Fincher to agree to do your movie ... you basically go, 'OK, whatever you want!' And get out of his way."