Reese Witherspoon in Navy & Nude

Ever since this young woman from Nashville first stunned red carpet viewers at the 2002 Oscars in a Victorian-inspired black lace Valentino gown, we haven’t been able to keep our eyes off her. Reese Witherspoon has become a style icon to many and has graced audiences with beautiful clothes on and off the big screen. Valentino himself even told InStyle Magazine about that 2002 Oscar dress, “…Reese chose it at the last minute…I didn’t really know how perfect this dress would be for her. It’s a very sophisticated look, a little bit Victorian with lots of subtle embroidery. I was afraid Reese might be too young, but she brought an unexpected freshness to the dress that made it look even sexier than it appeared on the runway.” Sophisticated, fresh, and sexy, can anyone sum-up Reese’s style better than Valentino?

Reese’s latest project is the political thriller, Rendition, also starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard and Alan Arkin. Witherspoon stars as the American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer who disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington. The woman desperately tries to track her husband down, while a CIA analyst (Gyllenhaal) at a secret detention facility outside the U.S. is forced to question his assignment as he becomes party to the man’s unorthodox interrogation.

While the movie opened to overblown bad reviews at the Toronto film festival, many other critics aren’t counting it out yet. “Rendition has multiple crisscrossing plots, a cliff-hanger climax, and a strong current of hope -- that an individual’s conscience can triumph over careerism and bureaucratic moral blindness,” says David Edelstein of New York Magazine. Rendition is rated R and recently opened in limited release on October 19^th.

Reese has recently been rumored to be dating her Rendition co-star Jake Gyllenhaal for most of the ’07 spring and part of summer. According to TMZ.com however, the couple has supposedly split and at the premiere of the movie, the two had to be “pulled” together for some “forced” photos.  While Hollywood couples have been able to fool fans before, a source told People Magazine, “It’s totally and completely over.” Here’s hoping those two find love again.