Dianne Wiest

In Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Dianne Wiest's Helen Sinclair treats every conversation as an occasion for everyone else to recognise her importance. Her grand manner is funny partly because maintaining it looks like such hard work. We laughed at her insistence: she makes other people's attention seem like something she is owed. Wiest plays her broadly, but the wish to be noticed remains clear beneath the theatrical flourishes. The film's familiar stage types and occasionally stiff staging are real limitations; she is a good reason to forgive them.

The five films she made with Woody Allen between 1985 and 1994 established her in cinema, often playing women whose insecurity was close to the surface. Holly in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) belongs to that period. The maternal roles in Parenthood (1989) and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990) made use of her warmth. There is value in that sincerity, especially in a fantasy that needs somebody recognisably human. The trouble came when later film offers kept returning her to underwritten nice mothers, leaving too little else to play.

In Steven Soderbergh's Let Them All Talk (2020), she makes herself worth watching while the other women speak. Her Susan is a mild, watchful peacemaker, and Wiest does much of the work with her face as Streep and Bergen talk. The pleasure is in being able to follow someone who is listening, without needing the dialogue to announce that she matters. We would happily watch more of her, though the film itself remains slight and leaves several threads unattended. A good supporting performance cannot do all the work of a more fully developed script.

The temptation is to praise that quietness as though it were always the better choice. Helen Sinclair is a useful correction. We value Wiest's warmth, but we like her most when somebody gives her permission to be difficult. Start with Bullets Over Broadway; a tolerance for theatrical extravagance will be rewarded.