Isla Fisher is good at making a comic ensemble less well behaved, with the physical confidence to carry the disruption. We rate her more highly than several of her films; too often, they rely on her energy without giving her enough to do.
Fi1m perspective
In Spa Weekend (2026), Fisher's disruptive Mel supplies some much-needed disorder. We enjoyed her unruliness, because it briefly loosened a comedy otherwise stuck repeating tired wellness jokes. Alongside Leslie Mann, Michelle Buteau and Anna Faris, she helps make the company appealing even when the writing is thin. The disappointment is how often the film expects that company to be enough.
The physical confidence has roots in her training at Jacques Lecoq's theatre school in Paris. Her Hollywood breakthrough was Wedding Crashers (2005), followed by the lead role of Rebecca Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009). The work also includes voice roles in Rango (2011) and Rise of the Guardians (2012), and Myrtle Wilson in The Great Gatsby (2013). Yet the quick-witted or chaotic woman in an ensemble comedy remains a recurring job, and one that risks becoming a habit.
Her voice work meets much the same difficulty in Strays (2023). As Maggie in Josh Greenbaum's talking-dog comedy, Fisher gets the least to do among the central four and handles it well. Jamie Foxx carries most of the jokes, while Will Ferrell and Randall Park have more clearly defined comic tasks. It is good work, but too slight a part to justify choosing the film for her. The sweetness helps; the repeated jokes still wear out their welcome.
Ruben Fleischer's Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025) makes the shortage of work more obvious. Fisher returns as Henley Reeves, a part she played in Now You See Me (2013), and settles easily back beside Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco. Yet the film assembles eight magicians and cannot find enough for them all to do. We are pleased to see familiar faces, but there is little pleasure in watching performers wait at the back of a scene. We would rather see her given a substantial comic part than invited to another crowded reunion.
Biography
Isla Lang Fisher is an Australian actress. Born in Muscat, Oman, to Scottish parents, she moved with her family to Australia as a child and began appearing in television commercials before gaining prominence as Shannon Reed in the soap opera Home and Away (1994–1997).
Fisher transitioned to film with a role in Scooby-Doo (2002) and has appeared in comedies including Wedding Crashers (2005) and Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), as well as The Great Gatsby (2013) and Nocturnal Animals (2016). Her voice work includes Rango (2011), Rise of the Guardians (2012) and Strays (2023). She reprised her role as Henley Reeves in Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025). She has also written young adult novels and the Marge in Charge series.
