Ana de Armas

In Ballerina (2025), Ana de Armas goes low against men larger than her, reaches for whatever is handy and gets up after being thrown through furniture. Between blows, she seems to be thinking, and that makes Eve worth watching even when the film is taking too long to get on with things. Len Wiseman spends much of the first hour explaining a revenge story that scarcely needs explaining. De Armas has already made the practical business of surviving a fight interesting enough. We would have preferred more of that and rather fewer instructions.

In Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017), she has a quieter job as Joi, the holographic companion to Ryan Gosling’s K. Her warmth makes his guarded manner seem less forbidding, and she gives their companionship a tenderness that matters against the film’s chilly surroundings. We felt unexpectedly protective of K because de Armas made the comfort he took in Joi seem so precious. The fact that Joi is made to please him remains troubling, but neither performance treats his need for her as foolish. Villeneuve gets something valuable from de Armas by allowing affection and doubt to remain in the same scene.

Her breakthrough in supporting roles continued with Knives Out (2019), as Marta Cabrera, the nurse at the centre of Rian Johnson’s ensemble mystery. Her vulnerability gives the ensemble someone whose reactions matter. Paloma, the agent in No Time to Die (2021), and Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (2022) followed, before Ballerina moved her into a major action lead.

The frustration with Ballerina is that it keeps telling us Eve is a dancer while giving de Armas almost no dancing to do. Her deliberate movement across a room is persuasive enough without the reminders, and she does not soften Eve by asking to be liked. That makes her worth staying with, though it cannot repair the slow first hour. We would start with Blade Runner 2049, though a few stretches need a firmer cut.