Andie MacDowell

In sex, lies, and videotape (1989), Andie MacDowell’s Ann tells her therapist she has stopped wanting sex and begun worrying about where the rubbish goes. MacDowell makes that change of subject funny without treating Ann as a fool. When James Spader’s Graham answers questions frankly, her attempts to remain composed become the joke. We laughed at her small starts of alarm, which tell us how much Graham’s frankness unsettles her.

That was her breakthrough, and Steven Soderbergh gave her unusually good conditions in which to work. He wrote, directed and edited the film, and the exchanges between MacDowell and Spader feel carefully judged. Spader’s near-motionless delivery gives her small reactions room to register without either actor forcing the joke. She makes Ann’s politeness feel effortful, so that even listening becomes something worth watching.

Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day (1993) puts MacDowell’s directness opposite Bill Murray’s evasions. Her Rita Hanson gives Phil a credible reason to look beyond himself, and she is a good comic partner for Murray. The writing is less generous to her: Rubin and Ramis make Phil a person to investigate and Rita someone to approve of. George Fenton’s music sometimes sweetens moments the actors have already made convincing. We recommend the film warmly, but its romance asks us to accept too much about Rita before we have learnt enough about her.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), opposite Hugh Grant, helped establish her as a romantic-comedy lead, though that was never all she did. Robert Altman’s ensemble Short Cuts (1993) also gave her a dramatic part, before the later move towards supporting film roles and television. In Maid (2021), she plays Paula Langley opposite Margaret Qualley. For a first encounter, though, choose Soderbergh’s film: it gives MacDowell the time to make Ann’s discomfort funny without making it seem trivial.