Ellen Barkin

In Diner (1982), Ellen Barkin makes Beth Schreiber seem worth far more attention than the film gives her. Barry Levinson lets the men be funny, selfish and reluctant to grow up, and Barkin is equally persuasive with less space. We recommend it warmly, though Levinson is sometimes too content to enjoy the male selfishness he notices. Barkin gives us a reason to mind the imbalance.

Her squint and lopsided grin suit the tough, sexually assertive parts that became familiar during the 1980s, including Helen Cruger opposite Al Pacino in Sea of Love (1989). The useful thing is how readily humour or vulnerability can complicate that toughness. The casting could be limiting, and being repeatedly asked to play sexual confidence does not give an actor much chance to surprise us. Caroline, her maternal role in This Boy’s Life (1993), offered a different sort of part.

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) makes the limitation harder to overlook. As Abigail Sponder, Bank’s right hand, Barkin is the only woman with a substantial part, and Soderbergh mainly needs her to be made a fool of. She plays broadly and earns the laughs, but we laughed with some embarrassment because the joke falls on her while the men escape it. It takes comic judgement to get a laugh out of such a thankless assignment. The film passes pleasantly enough, but we would not choose it as an introduction to her.

Television gave her a lead as Smurf, the crime-family matriarch in Animal Kingdom (2016–2019). Her account of the work is practical: “My job is to make the whole picture look better, not jam all my acting chops into the few scenes I’ve got.” That approach helps explain why she remains worth watching in a supporting part that gives her too little. Start with Diner, and pay Beth the attention the film cannot always spare.