Jenny Slate can make an odd voice sound unforced and a supporting friendship feel worth a film of its own. We rate her most when the comedy leaves room for someone else to matter.
Fi1m perspective
Jenny Slate walks into the flower shop in It Ends with Us (2024) as Allysa, looking for a job she does not need, and gives the film someone we are glad to see. She gets laughs without making the surrounding drama seem like an interruption. We do not recommend the film, whose glossy styling too often distracts from its serious subject. Slate's precise comic timing is a considerable compensation.
The stand-up beginnings help explain the readiness with a joke, but the breakthrough lead in Obvious Child (2014) also depended on grounded sensitivity. That combination of frank humour and vulnerability is more useful than the familiar description of her as quirky. Animation and supporting film and television roles followed, including Bellwether in Zootopia (2016). Her work as Marcel gives us a clearer idea of how carefully that distinctive voice can be used.
In Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022), the small, hoarse voice is precise enough to keep a one-inch talking shell from becoming merely cute. Slate makes his occasional wisdom sound faintly embarrassing to him, which helps. With director and co-creator Dean Fleischer Camp, she builds a character whose practical ingenuity has more appeal than his novelty. Liz Toonkel's production design supplies the tennis-ball transport and honey-assisted wall climbing; Slate treats this household routine without fuss. We are less convinced by the screenplay she co-wrote: the discussions of fame drag, and Isabella Rossellini's grandmother carries the second half.
The most rewarding use of her warmth is in Dying for Sex (2025), as Nikki Boyer opposite Michelle Williams's Molly. We were moved by their tenderness because Slate and Williams make the closeness convincing without insisting that we admire it. Directors Shannon Murphy and Chris Teague give that friendship room, while Daniel Vecchione's cinematography keeps our attention on the performances. The writing sometimes enjoys its sexual frankness more than we do. Watch it for the friendship, provided the bluntness is not going to spoil the evening.
Biography
Jenny Slate is an American actress, comedian and writer. Born in Milton, Massachusetts, she attended Columbia University.
She co-created the children's short film and book series Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and voiced the title character, wrote the screenplay and story for the 2022 feature film adaptation. Her credits include Allysa in the film It Ends with Us (2024) and Nikki Boyer in the series Dying for Sex (2025).
Slate was a cast member on Saturday Night Live (2009–2010). She has appeared in Obvious Child (2014), Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) and voiced roles in Zootopia (2016), The Secret Life of Pets (2016) and Despicable Me 3 (2017).
