Dermot Mulroney is a useful ensemble actor, especially when he is allowed to be hapless. We favour his work in About Schmidt; the thinly written parts in Anyone but You and Scream VI give him less to offer.
Fi1m perspective
In Anyone but You (2023), Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths, playing Bea’s parents, are given a running gag and little else. We were frustrated by how little there was for either actor to do beyond repeating it. Will Gluck’s comedy illustrates a recurring difficulty for Mulroney: familiarity can get him through an underwritten part, but cannot make it rewarding. We rate him more highly when he has room to be awkward, as Alexander Payne allows in About Schmidt (2002).
His earlier films suggest a different career was possible. Young Guns (1988) gave him an early breakthrough in a western ensemble, while My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) put him opposite Julia Roberts as romantic lead Michael O’Neal. Sustained leading-man status did not follow, and supporting and ensemble work became the more usual business. That need not be read as a disappointment: we would rather see him given a worthwhile supporting part than a thin leading one. David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), in which he plays Captain Marty Lee, places him within another ensemble.
In About Schmidt, his Randall Hertzel is the hapless son-in-law, a supporting part with more comic scope than the parent in Anyone but You. Payne gets useful work from Mulroney within a film chiefly sustained by Jack Nicholson’s restrained performance as Warren Schmidt. There is a caveat: its jokes about the people around Warren sometimes come too easily. Mulroney’s contribution is worth seeking out without pretending the whole comedy is equally well judged.
Scream VI (2023) gives him Detective Bailey, but our reservation there is much the same as with Gluck’s comedy. Bailey is positioned as a suspect so plainly that we notice the plotting before we can become interested in the person. The film has effective set pieces; they do not make its tired conversations more rewarding for the actors delivering them. These parts leave us wanting to see Mulroney given something beyond a function in the plot. Start with About Schmidt if you want a supporting role that gives him more to do.
Biography
Dermot Mulroney is an American actor and musician. He was born on 31 October 1963 in Alexandria, Virginia, and graduated from Northwestern University.
He has appeared in films including Young Guns (1988), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), About Schmidt (2002), Zodiac (2007), August: Osage County (2013), Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), Scream VI (2023) as Detective Bailey, and Anyone but You (2023) as Leo. On television he has played Sean Pierce in Shameless and roles in series such as Crisis and The Purge. Mulroney is a classically trained cellist who has contributed to film scores.
