Keri Russell gives capable, difficult women a convincing sense of work still to be done. We like her best when the writing lets impatience and private muddle coexist, without asking us to find either charming.
Fi1m perspective
In The Diplomat (2023), Keri Russell makes talking to people look like an effort, even for someone employed to do it. Her Kate Wyler, the new US ambassador to the UK, has work to finish and limited patience for anyone prolonging the discussion. Debora Cahn’s writing gives her plenty of conversation, and Russell keeps it from sounding like an audition for the cleverest person present. We recommend the programme chiefly for her, with the caveat that its account of the job is less convincing than its difficult people.
Television has given those awkward habits time to become more than a character description. After the lead in Felicity (1998–2002) and a period concentrating on film roles, including Waitress (2007), The Americans (2013–2018) cast her as Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet spy. Working alongside Matthew Rhys, she could suggest feelings that her character would rather keep private, as well as adopt multiple disguises. The attraction is watching her show us what someone is struggling not to say.
Her partnership with Rufus Sewell in The Diplomat brings that skill into less guarded exchanges. His Hal is Kate’s husband, and their quarrels sound as though each has had years to learn precisely which remark will irritate the other. We laughed at their squabbling because Russell and Sewell make the urge to have one more go so recognisable. Russell’s impatience gives those scenes momentum, while the familiarity between their characters makes the disagreement matter. The programme is less persuasive when it expects these conversations to carry the weight of consequences it has not made real.
The films do not always give her that much to work with. In Elizabeth Banks’s Cocaine Bear (2023), she plays Sari, a nurse heading into the woods after her truant daughter. It is decent creature-comedy fun, but the long waits between attacks leave a good cast with little to do. We would not choose it as an introduction to her work. Try The Diplomat for Russell and Sewell, provided a prolonged argument between two people who know each other too well sounds like an evening worth having.
Biography
Keri Russell is an American actress. She began her career as a cast member on the Disney Channel's The All New Mickey Mouse Club from 1991 to 1994 and made her film debut in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992).
Russell gained prominence for her title role in the series Felicity (1998–2002), for which she won a Golden Globe Award. She later starred as Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans (2013–2018) and as Ambassador Kate Wyler in The Diplomat (2023–). Her film roles include We Were Soldiers (2002), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Cocaine Bear (2023) as Sari, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
She has received multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017. Russell's partner is actor Matthew Rhys.
