How Life Might Continue to Imitate Art for Dear Jen

Jennifer Aniston has been artfully self-mocking this week, joking at an awards ceremony that the titles of her movies seem to reflect her own love life. "It started with The Good Girl," she quipped, "then of course Rumor Has It, followed by Derailed. Then there was The Break Up. If any of you have a project entitled Everlasting Love With a Stable Adult Male I'm at table six." Well, you'd crack gags if you were constantly being defined by the man who dumped you four years ago.

Since her divorce from Brad Pitt in 2005 (sorry, Jen), Aniston has done a lot of films that focus on the negatives of relationships while simultaneously dating one feckless boy after another, none of whom seemed capable of making a grown-up commitment to her.

Aniston, who appears to be solo again at present, has just finished filming The Baster, the story of a 40-year-old single woman seeking to get pregnant with donor sperm. An indication of her next move or just another title/life-stage coincidence? In the spirit of wresting back control of her destiny, perhaps it's time she pitched some new Aniston projects to the studios:

Jane Eyre in Malibu

Brad Rochester locks his raven-haired, tattooed and quite mad former lover in the attic and rekindles his romance with Jen Eyre, the governess with lovely hair whom he stupidly jilted in favor of the lady in the loft.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (remake)

The female protagonist forgoes all men and joins a seminary, thereby saving herself decades of further turmoil.

The Pit and the Pendulum

Very loose adaptation of the Poe short story in which the fact that Aniston was dumped by Brad Pitt is continually dangled over her until she hurls herself willingly into an oubliette to give us all something else to talk about.