Elizabeth Lail

The bookshop meeting in You (2018) lets Elizabeth Lail's Guinevere Beck enter a familiar romantic scene before Joe's behaviour makes it alarming. She gives Beck the credibility the apparent courtship needs, opposite Penn Badgley's dangerously charming lead. We were unsettled by how much he could learn from her social media without ever asking her a question. Lail makes Beck feel like someone with a life beyond his interest in her. Without that, the programme's surveillance would be a clever thriller device, and considerably less uncomfortable.

Her breakthrough came in fantasy, playing Anna in Once Upon a Time (2014), before a television lead in Dead of Summer (2016) and the move into feature horror with Countdown (2019). Yet Mack & Rita (2022), a comedy opposite Diane Keaton, is a useful reminder not to confuse familiar casting with the whole actor. These parts suggest more possibilities than the recurring assignment of a vulnerable young woman facing danger might imply.

Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) gives her far less to work with as the police officer Vanessa. In Emma Tammi's film, Lail delivers much of the exposition while standing in doorways, a job that offers few opportunities to make Vanessa interesting. Josh Hutcherson finds some warmth in Mike's scenes with his sister Abby, but Lail is too often occupied with explanations. We cannot blame her for the writing, though there is little here to rival her contribution to You.

We would like to see her given more scenes in which she can respond to another actor rather than explain the situation. Badgley is the more conspicuous presence in You, helped by a voice-over that turns courtship into surveillance, but the apparent romance needs both actors. The programme's blunt social satire and occasionally hurried plotting keep our enthusiasm in check. Start there for Lail, with patience for a thriller that sometimes moves on just when it has found something worth asking.