Imogen Poots is particularly good at making capable people look as though they might still make a terrible mistake. We value her most when a film preserves that uncertainty, as Green Room does.
Fi1m perspective
In Green Room (2016), Imogen Poots makes Amber’s resourcefulness convincing without suggesting that she knows how to get everyone safely through the trouble. A useful decision and a terrible mistake both seem possible from the same person. We found that frightening because Poots gives us someone capable to watch without letting us relax. Jeremy Saulnier’s siege thriller needs that uncertainty to keep its panic believable. Poots resists the temptation to make her character more reassuring than the circumstances allow.
Her break came as Tammy Harris in 28 Weeks Later (2007), and Fright Night (2011) brought a female lead alongside Anton Yelchin in a studio horror remake. She has continued to move between independent films, studio pictures and occasional television, with comedy and drama alongside the genre roles. Vivarium (2019), with Poots leading as Gemma, belongs to the physically and emotionally demanding independent work. She is often cast as women with more going on than their composure first suggests.
Saulnier gets particularly good work from the pairing of Poots and Yelchin in Green Room. Yelchin’s Pat hesitates enough to make each decision look difficult; her Amber can be resourceful without becoming the person who conveniently knows everything. The small touches of humour work because neither performance asks us to believe the fear has stopped. Some of the supporting characters are thin, which makes this pair’s credibility matter all the more. Their acting keeps the suspense attached to people who can get things wrong.
In The Father (2020), she plays Laura in a supporting role alongside Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, with Florian Zeller directing. We rate that film highly, despite a few overworked repetitions, for the distress caused by its shifting flat and the precision of its central performances. It offers a different setting for Poots, but our enthusiasm for the film rests chiefly with Hopkins, Colman and Zeller. Start with Green Room, where she has enough to do to make the case herself.
Biography
Imogen Poots is an English actress. She was born on 3 June 1989 in Hammersmith, London.
Poots first appeared on screen in a 2004 episode of the medical drama Casualty and had a non-speaking role in V for Vendetta (2006). She played Tammy Harris in 28 Weeks Later (2007) and went on to appear in films including Centurion (2010), Fright Night (2011), Filth (2013), Need for Speed (2014), Green Room (2016) and Vivarium (2019). In 2020 she played Laura in The Father.
