Kiersey Clemons

In Angie Tribeca she is Maria Charo, a detective in a precinct where every desk has a gag on it and most of the gags belong to someone else. She is given less than the others and makes what she can of it, which is the kind of sentence that follows Kiersey Clemons around. In The Flash she is Iris West, the reporter asking straight questions of a man who cannot stand still, and our review did not single her out. That is not a slight on her. The film forgot whose story it was telling, and she was one of the people it forgot.

The reputation was made elsewhere. The early work was Disney Channel and guest spots, and then came Diggy in Rick Famuyiwa's Dope (2015), the tomboyish friend in a coming-of-age comedy, and the part that got her noticed. After it the pattern settled: supporting roles in comedies and indies, Neighbors 2, Flatliners, a lead in Hearts Beat Loud (2018) opposite Nick Offerman that let her sing, Antebellum (2020) alongside Janelle Monáe, the title role in Susie Searches (2022), The Young Wife (2024) for Tayarisha Poe, and a main part in the series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters from 2023. Running underneath all of that was Iris West, cast in 2016, glimpsed in restored scenes in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), and finally given a film in 2023. Seven years is a long time to hold a part that turns out to be this size.

What she does well, by the account of the directors who have worked with her, is carry feeling in the face and the body without announcing it: the easy, naturalistic presence that can tip from reserved to funny in a line. That is a gift the big pictures have had no use for. She has said of Iris that she wanted to give her a big sense of humour and was directed the other way, because "Iris, she's very straight to the point." The result is a character defined by what was taken off her. We sat through The Flash waiting for a scene that would let her do something, and were quietly annoyed by the end that a performer with her reputation had been reduced to asking Barry Allen how he was feeling.

We have not reviewed Dope or Hearts Beat Loud, so we will not judge them here beyond saying that they are where everyone who rates her points. The franchise years are a footnote. If she goes back to the smaller films, and The Young Wife suggests she has, we expect to have a good deal more to say.