I honestly feel they dropped the ball with her...I watched Divergent yestarday and she made the whole thing watchable, holding her own against Kate Winslet without any problem...if only the hair/make-up/wardrobe department had done their job decently...honestly, her character in divergent is supposed to look really plain, and she looked waaaaaaaaay more beautiful than she did on the set photos :/ Sorry for my awful photoshopping skills, but to illustrate my point:
Not only did she hold her own against Kate Winslet, she also held it against George Cloney in the Descendants. And that edit is amazing, nice job!
Anyways, I just feel like they hit the jackpot with Shai (pun intended) because she could play a different variety of characters.
In The Descendants, she's the angsty complex teenager. While she's the shy insecure girl in The Spectacular Now.
In Divergent, she's the brave, selfless heroine. But In The Fault In Our Stars, she's a sarcastic cancer patient.
And in White Bird In a Blizzard, Shai is another angsty teenager finding her way of womanhood (through manipulation and seduction i think), etc.
Shai could've brought a lot to MJ's character because although she "does not look like MJ", she has the acting chops and she could've done something differently with the role,
but remember, it all depends on the script. If the script called for a "mousy" ultimate MJ, then so be it.
Shailene towers over Dunst in the looks department too IMO.
