Donnie Darko (2001), an outlier in the Flower Films catalog, demonstrated the company’s willingness to back films that did not fit neatly into its commercial template. Richard Kelly’s dark, time-bending science fiction film about a disturbed teenager in suburban America became one of the defining cult films of the early 2000s. Flower Films backed it, and the decision to do so said something about Drew Barrymore’s taste and her willingness to support work that interested her even when its commercial prospects were uncertain.
The business of Flower Films also connected to the broader expansion of Drew Barrymore’s professional identity beyond acting. Her cosmetics line, launched in 2013 under the Flower brand, extended the name she had built into a consumer products category. Her work as a CoverGirl spokeswoman beginning in 2007 reflected the recognition by a major corporation that she had become, over the preceding decade, an aspirational figure — someone whose association added value. A wine label, homeware, a clothing line called Dear Drew launched in partnership with Amazon in 2017, and eventually a magazine, Drew, launched through Bauer Media USA in June 2021, all extended the Barrymore brand into various corners of consumer culture.
The irony of this expansion is one that Drew Barrymore has been willing to acknowledge, at least obliquely, in various interviews: the family name that had been both her greatest inheritance and a significant burden had become, through her own choices and work, something she had genuinely made her own. The Barrymore name in 2020 did not primarily evoke John Barrymore’s genius or his cirrhosis. It evoked Drew’s particular combination of warmth, humor, and resilience. She had rewritten the associations.