- “Hush” is the Best Horror Movie You Probably Haven’t Seen (March 2, 2026)
Back in 2016, I was searching for the perfect 90-minute movie and came across “Hush.” Arguably prolific horror director Mike Flanagan’s breakout film (though some might say that was 2013’s “Oculus”), “Hush” was quickly snapped up out of South by Southwest earlier in 2016 by Netflix, signaling a partnership between the streamer and auteur that would span “Gerald’s Game,” “The Haunting of Hill House,” “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” “Midnight Mass,” “The Midnight Club,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” It stars frequent Flanagan collaborator Kate Siegel, who is also his wife and co-wrote the script with him, as Deaf author Maddie Young living alone in a remote cabin. She is stalked by a masked killer, played by John Gallagher Jr., who is intent on ending her life.
It’s that simple—and extremely effective. “Hush” incorporates horror and thriller tropes, such as the single location, which has proven successful in all manner of horror films from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954) to recent entries like Christopher Landon’s “Drop” (2024) and Sam Raimi’s “Send Help” from January.
It also efficiently makes use of a sparse cast, with Flanagan mainstays Samantha Sloyan and Michael Trucco as Maddie’s ill-fated neighbors, Emma Graves as Maddie’s sister, who only appears via FaceTime, and Gallagher Jr. as her initially masked tormentor.
“Hush” owes a debt to “Wait Until Dark,” the 1967 horror film starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman terrorized in her home by a drug gang, and is a precursor to the subsequent rash of horror films incorporating disability, such as 2018’s “A Quiet Place,” starring Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds, “Bird Box” from the same year, in which blindness is a salvation from a vision-based contagion that causes suicide, and the “Smile” franchise, which explores trauma, mental illness, and suicidal ideation.
Disability advocates have been vocal about the lack of representation of actual Deaf people in “Hush,” as neither Siegel nor Flanagan is Deaf. However, they employed a Deaf consultant on the film, and Siegel actually learned American Sign Language for the role.
Speaking to IndieWire in 2020, Simmonds told Kristen Lopez, critic and author of Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies, that despite the research and consideration Flanagan and Siegel put into “Hush,” “You can’t really do enough research if you’re not living it. If you’re not in this situation, and you’re not living with it, and you don’t sign [then] it’s hard to express that and [have] it still feel real.” I don’t presume to speak for the Deaf community as a non-disabled person myself, and the absence of people with lived experience in front of and in power positions behind the camera makes me feel some type of way, but I think there’s still value to “Hush” despite this.
Where it most resonates is in Maddie’s refusal to play the victim. Despite the limitations of her disability and the fact that she lives in a remote cabin, Maddie is far from the damsel in distress, using the biases of her stalker, known only as The Man, to her advantage. Maddie weaponizes sound against The Man, using her car alarm and a piercing, flashing smoke detector to catch him off guard, and uses her heightened senses to feel his breath on her neck when he approaches from behind.
Most horror movies—and, you know, real life—would have The Man be someone close to Maddie (and “Hush” does hint at that when Maddie rebuffs text messages from her ex earlier in the film), but “Hush” resists this temptation. The Man is just some random psychopath with no clear motive for targeting Maddie—he initially expresses surprise that Maddie is Deaf—leaving audiences as perplexed and spent as Maddie at the conclusion, “Hush” is even more unsettling than it would be if it explained away its killer’s catalyst.
All of this makes “Hush” an extremely satisfying payoff for relatively low buy-in. But where can viewers find “Hush” if they choose to take a gamble on it? Despite being initially bought by Netflix, which, for a time, seemed to crown Flanagan the new king of horror, his deal there ended in 2022 when he moved to Amazon Studios, for which he has yet to produce any content. (A “Carrie” series is coming later this year.) Though Flanagan’s long-form series remain on Netflix—for now—“Hush” disappeared from it in 2023 and is not currently available to stream on any of the major platforms, though it’s accessible on video-on-demand for a fee, and Plex has it for no cost.
Ultimately, “Hush” has been a casualty of the streaming-industrial complex, and Flanagan has been critical of Netflix’s prioritization of subscriptions over physical media. There is a push back against this and a move towards physical media again, especially when titles can disappear from platforms altogether, like “Hush,” making it the best horror movie you probably haven’t seen.
- The Artistic Exploration & Wit of Charli xcx (March 2, 2026)
Why slow down when all of the doors are finally open?
She’s so everywhere, but most remarkably, she’s always ahead of the rest of us. Charli xcx has long been a radio hits pop star, but Brat, the universally famous electric lime-green album of Summer of 2024, cemented her as an icon and an experimental tastemaker. Since then, there’s been absolutely no slowdown in Charli’s creative output. “The Moment” and “Wuthering Heights,” released only weeks apart, are perfect examples of her rapidly shifting range while remaining true to her artistic style and integrity, keeping emotional expression at the center of the work.
The interdisciplinary pop star, who once adorned a t-shirt proclaiming that “they don’t build statues of critics,” understands the industry’s games and how to channel bureaucracy into bigger stages and more creative opportunities. The heightened level of fame, while likely suffocating and paradoxical as showcased in her mockumentary film “The Moment,” has spiraled into daily (almost hourly) articles about her stardom and artistry. This essay is no exception.
Since she was a teenager, Charli has sought out performing. From the 2008 raves in East London, accompanied by her parents, to premiering at Sundance in 2026, little has changed about Charli’s style and sound. In contrast to the likes of Taylor Swift’s “Eras,” Charli’s discography has always been sonically centered on synthy hyperpop. To some, this lack of evolution comes across as narrow, but in fact, her commitment to pop music has made her an expert in her craft; it’s a form of evolution grander than genre experimentation. Like “Barbie” (2023), Brat became about the branding, the vibe, the ethos, and energy; almost 2 years after its release, describing anything as “brat” is associated with Charli’s party girl anthems rather than a spoiled child.
Charli xcx has long explored and expressed her interest in film and pop culture; she is keenly aware that audiences are volatile entities that breathe life into Art. Despite industry pressures to remain singular by sticking to what’s working, she’s danced through different mediums. This meta extreme self-awareness explicitly shows up in her lyrics. Across film and music, there is a vulnerability put on display, but it’s consistently culturally relevant and relatable—after all, even the Democratic National Convention hopped on the Brat Bandwagon after Charli (who cannot vote in U.S. elections) tweeted “kamala IS brat.” While such an endorsement could dilute the authenticity of the club-focused coming-of-age album, it is apparent to almost everyone who the leech was.
Charli xcx appears in The Moment by Aidan Zamiri, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
The 2025-2026 Film Festival season has been booked and busy; Charli has worked on seven feature film projects (in varying capacities). Music for movies is not new for Charli, but with her recent collaboration for Emerald Fennell’s “‘Wuthering Heights,’” Charli reveals yet another creative corner of her multimedia mind map in constructing an entire soundtrack for a film, and notably, for a film set long before synthesizers existed. Her ability to iterate on historical material without losing its emotional weight is alchemical.
Outside of “Wuthering Heights,” TikTok’s favorite Brat song, “Apple,” actually carries a much deeper meaning, referencing the ancient object of affection and desire through a more honest or critical lens that considers contemporary conflicts and convictions. Like Fennell, everything Charli puts forth is automatically donned with online discourse from the masses. While the Internet argues for or against every angle and detail of their work, the more widespread the audience, the more likely it is to give them another chance to make more.
She will also contribute songs to the upcoming popstar drama “Mother Mary,” starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, which pairs well with Charli’s overall persona and outlook on fame. On the other side of the camera, she’s landed several acting roles in narrative features, including “Erupcja,” “I Want Your Sex,” “The Gallerist,” and “Faces of Death.” Even if the films flop, which is a terrible contemporary evaluation/labeling of art, they serve as more evidence of Charli’s unrelenting desire to tackle fame in all forms.
Charli seemingly has shifted to film, but her music career has and always will be under the Pop umbrella. With a certain sassiness and consistency in her sound, I’m compelled to draw comparisons to Britney Spears’ career and discography. What sets Charli apart from her pop peers is her ability to weave creative historical context into her work, from art to film to club culture to fashion, and the lived experiences in between, with a clear sense that the ideas were conceived directly in her mind. Yet, from her film “The Moment,” and from appearances on podcasts like A24, Smartless, and Las Culturalistas, it’s also evident that she is dialed in on how to work in a collaborative environment in order to produce the best work possible that leaves little to no space between concept and execution.
Albeit, Charli xcx is not the first of her kind—there are a multitude of other Millennial/Zillennial multidisciplinary creatives who lead massive teams, but we most often see exploration and experimentation in early-career artists. For example, as Beyoncé’s fame grew and her artistry evolved, there were fewer billings for feature films and more focus on the creation of her own films and visuals to accompany albums. Miley Cyrus, who is currently celebrating 20 years since the start of Hannah Montana, has also scaled back her performance appearances and acting endeavors, citing that she may never tour again. Alternatively, for Charli, it’s as if her alter-ego and true self have merged into one–the distinction between public and private personas has blurred under the public eye.
An interesting anecdote of Charli’s artistic exploration, often subliminal or omitted entirely, is her multiracial identity. Her posh accent and pale complexion perhaps fool those who only look superficially, but the evidence is woven into her genetic and artistic makeup. More often than not, artists, particularly women of color, dabble in more than one form of expression. Sometimes, due to necessity (life in the arts is easy, linear, and financially stable for only a few), yet always as a means of accurately capturing the inner complexities, this multi-hyphenate manifestation makes her music and movies that much more layered and intricate.
Charli’s aim was never rooted in reaching ultimate stardom, as she mentioned in a Vanity Fair interview, but she’s honest and earnest in wanting as many people as possible to hear the work that she pours her heart into. Isn’t that the reason artists of all kinds put work into the world? Hoping and yearning to be read and received by others.
The power of the fanbase, which is explored fictionally in the Amazon Prime limited series “Swarm,” has also reached new heights, not only for Charli but for the entertainment industry at large. Studios have been slammed for casting based on social media followers, and studios have been rewarded significantly for the large box-office promise certain actors and filmmakers bring. Charli, well aware of this, has used her dedicated fanbase to her advantage, but it has never compromised what she seeks to create. Interestingly, for artists of this caliber, their fan base is less concerned with the quality of the creative output and more drawn to the person putting it out there.
More often than not, artists who reach a certain level of fame become unrelatable, but for Charli, like many of us, it’s as if movies serve as an escape and a tool for self-discovery, helping her continuously sharpen her music and lyrics. Her universal reach and relevance remain bold and brave, but recently, the artist has followed suit by subtly announcing a new era by privatizing social media accounts and deleting all posts. Paired with the narrative of “The Moment,” audiences are led to believe that Brat is dead. But who is to say when a work of art really dies? When the moment comes, and Charli’s new music makes its way back to the charts, I am confident that we will all be listening (voluntarily or not).
- “RJ Decker” Successfully Brings Whimsy to Network Procedural (March 2, 2026)
ABC’s “RJ Decker” delivers exactly what you want out of this kind of show. Mysteries that wrap up with the satisfaction of completing a 500-piece puzzle. Characters with depth, charisma, and chemistry. A unique setting that colors it all.
Scott Speedman plays RJ Decker, a fundamentally good guy, whose life goes sideways at such a steep angle that he goes to prison, losing his career as a photojournalist in the process. We see the relevant parts of his downfall via flashback. Based on Carl Hiaasen’s character of the same name, the Decker of this series is stumbling along, living in a dilapidated trailer and working as a private investigator.
He is not edgy or wounded like PIs of stories past. Instead, I’d venture to say he’s downright wholesome. But in a modern way, where he can, say, stay friends with his ex-wife (Adelaide Clemens)–and his ex-wife’s new wife (Bevin Bru), who, as a cop, happens to be a useful source for him. The show and the character don’t see anything salacious in this setup, but rather the common human messiness that makes for good TV. And Bru and Speedman play well off each other with her toughness colliding with his slipperiness to make a satisfying study in contrasts.
RJ DECKER – “Pilot” – Ex-con photographer RJ Decker becomes a PI in South Florida, solving strange cases with help from his journalist ex, her cop wife, and an enigmatic woman from his past who may help or destroy him. MONDAY, MARCH 2 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST) on ABC. (Disney/John Merrick)
SCOTT SPEEDMAN, KEVIN RANKIN
A network star for nearly three decades, Speedman is well cast in this role as an unlucky good guy who’s made his fair share of mistakes. And he’s paired well with Jaina Lee Ortiz as his love interest Emi Ochoa. The “Station 19” alum is confident and alluring as part of a corrupt, powerful Florida family who has her own moral compass–and the cross to bear that comes with it. And it helps that after an initial hook-up, the show builds up a believable will-they-won’t-they dynamic between the two of them. There’s a reason it’s such a favorite troupe of serialized storytelling: it works, giving the audience something uncertain to wish for.
Because clearly, RJ Decker is going to solve the mystery every week. That much is known. But how the clues mount up is satisfying, thanks in large part to the show’s use of its Fort Lauderdale setting. The primetime drama gently teases and clearly takes inspiration from South Florida culture, building a mystery in the world of pirated Venus Fly Traps, for example, or making its own “Florida Man” jokes.
Florida’s gotten a lot of small-screen time lately, with varying degrees of success. Shows like “Florida Man” and “Griselda” exoticize the Sunshine State, exaggerating the place’s weirdness. In contrast, “RJ Decker” lets Florida breathe. So, when a man walks by in a speedo and a cowboy hat and our principles react in different ways, we understand that we’re in a place where weird things happen regularly–but that doesn’t make them less weird.
RJ DECKER – “Pilot” – Ex-con photographer RJ Decker becomes a PI in South Florida, solving strange cases with help from his journalist ex, her cop wife, and an enigmatic woman from his past who may help or destroy him. MONDAY, MARCH 2 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST) on ABC. (Disney/Dana Hawley)
SCOTT SPEEDMAN
It’s the type of subtle, effective move that this show delivers so well. And the thing is, “RJ Decker” is fun too. There’s joy and a silliness to this show’s world, even as our characters are busy solving murders and trying to get by.
So, for example, in the first two episodes sent to critics for review, characters joke about how common a stint in prison is on their show–this is a show about an ex-con, after all. But the ABC procedural, for all its light tone, doesn’t shy away from what that means. Decker’s friend and former cellmate Aloysius ‘Wish’ Aiken (Kevin Rankin, doing what he does so well) had to literally win the lottery to get the economic security of having a small business –aka what most shows still pretend is normal for white guys in the U.S.
It’s a delightful mix, one that acknowledges the pratfalls of our reality while building a story all its own out of Florida shenanigans, Speedman’s warm heart, and as much whimsy as makes sense in a murder-mystery.
Two episodes screened for review. It premieres tomorrow, March 3rd.
- “The Bronze” at 10: How a Washed-Up Gymnast Became a Cult Antihero (March 2, 2026)
There’s a moment in the 2016 film “The Bronze” wherein gymnast Hope Ann Greggory (Melissa Rauch) chastises young colleague Maggie Townsend (Hayley Lu Richardson) for spitting out her gum in the street. “You crap on this town, I crap on you,” Hope growls. It’s a moment that comes midway through the movie after the audience has watched Greggory be a fairly terrible person: breaking into her postal worker father’s mail truck to steal money, crushing up Adderall to snort it, and berating everyone she encounters. But there’s a line for Hope, and it’s found in her love for her hometown of Amherst, where the people revere her for being the winner of a bronze medal at the Olympics more than 20 years ago.
Hope Ann Greggory is one of many female antiheroes in film, a grand tradition that includes Thelma and Louise, Lisbeth Salander, and, most recently, “Send Help”’s Linda Liddle. “That is something that has always been appealing about the antiheroine is [she’s] like, ‘Here I am, take it or fucking leave it,’ and I think that’s refreshing,” Rauch tells RogerEbert.com today. In a landscape where women are so often codified as either the saint or the bitch, a female antihero is one who understands the world is rigged and fights against it. She’s not cute and cuddly, but understands that’s what people want women to be.
Hope Ann Greggory is certainly not cute or cuddly, but she knows that’s a major part of being in gymnastics. A scene where she teaches Maggie how to be “judge bait,” and get high points during a floorwork routine, sees Hope slap on a fake smile and sell herself as an overly positive person. “I’ve never had so much fun bouncing,” Hope says, pretending this is the funnest thing she’s ever done in her life because the judges will eat it up. Later, she and Maggie pose on their stomachs, acting as cutesy as can be for each fictional judge while Hope declares, “Commercials. Endorsements. Fuckton of free shit!” Part of Hope’s antipathy is the falsity that comes from the sport. At the end of the day, it’s not about athletic ability, but how darling and, ultimately, likable the gymnast is.
When reflecting back on “The Bronze” ten years later, Rauch is happy the movie’s found its people, and admits there was concern that Hope was too unlikeable a character. “I remember being asked a lot, ‘Why is she bad?’” she said. “And I’m like, I don’t really think that the antiheroine is bad. I think it’s just finally allowing them to be human… I wanted people to say she’s unlikable. She’s petty and afraid, and competitive and insecure, and she’s grieving her past self, and those are all human emotions. If she’s unlikable, then aren’t we all unlikable?”
Rauch herself is so bubbly and happy that it’s a testament to her talent that she plays Hope Ann Greggory so well. The phrase “labor of love” gets overused these days, but, for Rauch, the movie truly was. Co-written with her husband, Winston, the movie started as an idea when Rauch was working on “The Big Bang Theory.” But acting is feast or famine, and while Rauch was finding success, it was in fits and starts. “I was literally at the unemployment office the week before I got The Big Bang,” she said. Much like Hope, Rauch returned to her New Jersey hometown and found that her TV appearances would garner her a free pretzel at the mall. But she couldn’t ignore people asking, “What are you doing now? Are you gonna pack it in? Are you done yet?”
She wanted to tell a story about celebrity and how fame alters someone at a young age, and how that changes you once you age out into adulthood. Rauch jokes that, as a kid, when her friends played house, she was always the baby because she was shorter than everyone. Conceiving the character of Hope was an opportunity to write a complex, hard-R character that she wasn’t being offered at the time. “I was really looking to write myself a role that I wouldn’t necessarily have been given,” she said. “I’ve always used writing as a way to write me opportunities, and so in thinking about this story that we wanted to tell those ideas came together… because it would be something different from what I had been doing.”
The actual filming of the movie was nothing short of an Olympic event, with the Rauches putting everything on their credit card until the first day of filming. “Everyone got paid from our credit cards because we didn’t know if the financing was going to come through,” she said. “I had that summer to shoot it before I needed to get back to work [on “The Big Bang Theory”], and we didn’t have the funding. We were like, ‘well, everyone’s here in Ohio ready to shoot for 21 days. Let’s do it.’ We white-knuckled it and, thankfully, it worked out.”
Hope’s journey is motivated by money and spite. She believes she’ll receive an inheritance from her former coach (now dead) if she trains Maggie and gets her to the Olympics. Because of her jealousy of Maggie’s talent, Hope initially tries to sabotage the young competitor by having her gain weight and become distracted. She eventually relents and becomes her actual coach, fearing she’ll lose the money but also seeing an opportunity for redemption. She also wants to get one over on rival coach Lance Tucker (Sebastian Stan), who believes Hope stole his glory when her brave performance while injured became the story, overshadowing his silver medal. “They’re both assholes,” says Rauch. “But Hope is based in a humanity that, if we look past the unlikability factor, we all can relate to it. … What’s so great about Sebastian is he has this innate charm that you’re pulled into. But the difference is that Lance is truly out to get people in a way that is so self-serving and more ego-driven than Hope.”
Rauch and crew do have ideas for a sequel and would love to see Hope return. “It’s sort of a dream in my mind,” she says. And, honestly, Hope Ann Greggory would certainly fit in in this world. It’s ironic that the character debuted the year Trump was elected, and it would certainly be intriguing to see how she lives in a world where patriotism is weaponized; she does spend nearly the entirety of the first movie in a star-spangled tracksuit. Regardless, it’d be great to see another unrepentant antiheroine again. The world needs Hope Ann Greggory, and as more people discover “The Bronze,” let’s hope it doesn’t take years for us to see her return.
“The Bronze” is currently available on VOD.
- Joan Cusack: Best Supporting Energy (March 2, 2026)
Entertaining audiences is in Joan Cusack’s DNA. A crackling, high-voltage live wire who commits to scenes with an intensely funny mischievous ferocity, Cusack appeared in a few bit screen parts in the early ’80s, including “Sixteen Candles,” before she earned a place as a cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” where she stayed for a single season before venturing on to bigger film roles.
One of six actors in her large Irish Chicago family, including her father Dick and siblings John, Ann, Susie, and Bill, Joan has so far received two Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actress, for “Working Girl” and “In & Out,” five consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations as Outstanding Guest Actress for her role on “Shameless” (receiving one), and has over ninety screen credits to her name.
While likely most famous for her voice work as the irrepressible cowgirl Jessie from Pixar’s “Toy Story 2” (and beyond), for the first few decades of her career, Joan Cusack was most often cast as a quirky yet always warmhearted best friend, sister, wife, or mother, often simultaneously delivering tirades and winning hearts. A Best Supporting Actress MVP, who you just know would’ve fit right in decades earlier as Doris Day’s or Irene Dunne’s best friend, Joan Cusack paved the way for actresses like Parker Posey, Judy Greer, and Melissa McCarthy to lean into their unpredictability, innate comic timing, and offbeat approach.
While I could’ve easily written about over a dozen of my favorite Joan Cusack performances and encourage you to seek out some of her most underseen pictures (like “Men Don’t Leave” and “Arlington Road” alongside more popular entries like “School of Rock” and “High Fidelity”), here are five scenes I love in five likely unexpected movies to illustrate what makes her such an awesome joy to watch.
As Blair Litton in “Broadcast News” (1987)
When they wrapped one of the classic James L. Brooks films’ most famous scenes, everyone was so impressed with Joan Cusack’s desperate, breakneck, madcap dash to deliver a newly edited video across a crowded newsroom obstacle course with zero seconds to spare that they gave the actress a horseshoe wreath that signaled she finished the race like a thoroughbred champ. Enlisting the aid of everything from newspapers to floor spray to ace that terrifyingly screwball file cabinet slide, the scene begins with what would eventually become one of Cusack’s signature highly verbal freakouts, before she dissolves into pained, hyperventilated gasps. She grabs the tape from Holly Hunter like a baton that she must pass, and once it’s in her hand, Cusack doesn’t just sprint—she runs, jumps over a toddler, and crashes into a water fountain, in a bravura moment of open workspace shock and awe.
Joan Cusack described the scene in a 2000 interview with NPR as one of her “favorite things” that she’s done as a performer. Inspired and instantly memorable, writer-director James L. Brooks based the sequence on a similar chaotic run he witnessed taking place by a TV producer in an NBC newsroom. One year later, Joan Cusack was cast in director Mike Nichols’ “Working Girl.” It was her first of many best-friend roles, and with it, she would become the first former regular cast member of “Saturday Night Live” to be nominated for an Academy Award. So you could say that “Broadcast News” was where Joan’s career as the MVP scene-stealing best supporting actress was truly born.
As Hannah Stubbs in “My Blue Heaven” (1990)
When the no-nonsense Assistant District Attorney Hannah Stubbs (Cusack) interrogates Steve Martin’s flamboyantly suited, toothpick-chewing, slick New York–accented liar, she has no idea that the man spinning yarns into hilariously illogical tapestries is, in all actuality, an ex-mobster who showed up in her peaceful southern California community in witness protection. Unable to tolerate the boredom of suburbia, he falls back into his old habits almost as soon as he arrives, kicking off a crime spree just to have something to do. “My Blue Heaven” is screenwriter Nora Ephron’s own retelling of the Henry Hill saga, which inspired her husband Nicholas Pileggi to write the book Wiseguy, which became director Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (also released in ’90).
Word is that Hill had no idea that Ephron was even writing this script, and occasionally, before passing the phone onto her husband when the ex-mobster called their house, she would pepper him with questions. Angry once the film was released and he knew he’d been played without financial gain, in interviews, Hill made an ominous observation that he might have retaliated, “if she was anybody else’s wife…”
Rick Moranis plays the straight man to Steve Martin throughout director Herbert Ross’s sunny crime comedy “My Blue Heaven.” Cusack plays a variation of that same comedic foil, as she tries to hold him accountable for his actions, eventually gets involved with Moranis, and, in one memorable moment, gets blackmailed by the observant Vinnie for replacing her son’s pet turtle, which she accidentally “whacked” while washing dishes.
She’s able to go a little broader than Moranis as the voice of both incredulity and common sense, but Cusack brings unexpected depth to what could otherwise have been a typical screen power-suited ball-busting role of the kind we often saw in the era. Her work in “My Blue Heaven” foreshadows the same heart that shines through her performance opposite Jack Black as the misunderstood, strict Stevie Nicks–loving school principal in “School of Rock” (2003).
Joan Cusack holding shovel next to a smiling Christopher Lloyd in a scene from the film ‘Addams Family Values’, 1993. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)
As Debbie Jelinsky in “Addams Family Values” (1993)
Loving wife Morticia (Anjelica Huston) wears black, but in “Addams Family Values,” Joan Cusack’s black-widow femme fatale, Debbie, wears white. Over the years, director Barry Sonnenfeld’s sequel to Tim Burton’s big-screen adaptation of the classic television series has become even more beloved among cult movie fans than the original. Playing a nanny we discover is a gold-digging black widow, Cusack rides the waves of the unhinged character’s sudden tonal and vocal pitch shifts like a professional surfer, approaching Uncle Fester’s (Christopher Lloyd) twisted new love interest with the same hard-charging energy that endeared her to audiences watching her rush that videotape from one end of a perilous newsroom to another in 1987’s “Broadcast News.”
But thankfully, this time she’s a leading lady. Going from narcissistic self-pity to murderous rage in two seconds flat, Cusack gives one of the film’s most memorable, uproarious monologues, recounting Debbie’s evil origin story, which began when she was given a Malibu Barbie for her birthday instead of a ballerina. Willing to embrace her darker sensibilities, she dials up to a 10 in “Addams Family Values.” Those curious to see Cusack play someone who may or may not be all that she seems should be sure to check out the underdiscussed “Arlington Road,” which was released in 1999, alongside four other features starring Cusack, including the instantly beloved “Toy Story 2.”
As Emily Montgomery in “In & Out” (1997)
“Does anybody here know how many times I’ve had to watch FUNNY LADY?!” Joan Cusack walks a tightrope in director Frank Oz’s “In & Out” as the beautiful, sweet, loving, supportive fiancée of fellow high school teacher Kevin Kline, who learns on her wedding day that the man she lost weight for, who picked out her wedding dress, and whom she was eager to spend her life with, is gay.
There’s an old rule of thumb in acting that you never want to start so high that there’s nowhere for you to go, and that’s exactly what she does here, moving through a range of emotions from sad to mad to incredulous to devastated in a matter of minutes so effectively that she earned a second Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her work. If she played it without that comedic edge and without foreshadowing that she could possibly find love with a man who’d long carried a torch (played by Matt Dillon), it would have been unbearable to watch this woman’s heart breaking, and if it had just flashed to anger, she would’ve become the villain of the film.
But everyone who’s been betrayed by someone they trusted can recognize every stage of grief this woman goes through, and we need someone like Cusack, who feels like everyone’s sister, neighbor, favorite aunt, and lunch buddy, to make it work. In fact, watching this film again for the first time since its release, I realized that while, of course, we care about Klein’s character’s journey to accept and admit he’s gay, Cusack’s Emily Montgomery is the one I feel for most throughout. After all, now she realizes that she should’ve thought long and hard about his “Streisand thing” before she let him pick out her stunning dress.
As Marcella in “Grosse Pointe Blank” (1997)
In a wildly charismatic turn in “Grosse Pointe Blank,” Marcela (Joan Cusack), plays the office manager, assistant, and all-around Girl Friday to hitman boss Martin Blank (John Cusack). On call-waiting in the midst of an expletive-filled rant, she tells her friend that chicken, celery, and carrots are “just the base of the soup,” but you’ve got to add other flavors. Although it’s a boldly unexpected moment of levity, revisiting it, I realized she might as well have been talking about her role in her real-life brother John Cusack’s screen career.
Since the two first started making movies, Cusack has added unmistakably memorable flavor, a gentle heart, fiery wit, and explosive moments to the scenes she often has in John Cusack’s movies, from the frazzled, overstressed big sister to his lead in “Say Anything…” (1989) to one of his friends ready to chew him out for the way he treated his ex in “High Fidelity” (2000). Making the most out of her minor role in “Grosse Pointe Blank,” and largely seen on the phone, Joan uses the power of her voice to match her brother’s equally kinetic energy throughout the film, such as when they play off one another while discussing one villain who’s into “odd Native American art” and ballroom dancing, to this moment when, in between trading recipes with her friend, she morphs into Samuel L. Jackson, delivering the word “goddamn” exactly like he did in “Pulp Fiction.”
Yet what’s interesting about the two, side by side, is that in John we see someone who’s more introspective and implosive. When he gets worked up, he’ll launch into a paragraph instead of a sentence, but mostly, he’s the guy who’s always in motion, involuntarily fidgeting, bobbing a knee, jumping onto a higher perch, where as Joan has always approached her characters’ energy explosively, going from a zero to an eleven and back down again faster than a Ferrari accelerating into a curve without brakes. One of my favorite cult comedies from the ’90s, where each character we meet fascinates (and more Cusacks appear as well), Joan Cusack is so terrific as Marcela that she deserves her own spin-off.
