Margo Martindale makes formidable women funny, frightening and capable of embarrassing themselves. We rate the toughness, but the pleasure is in the warmth and foolishness that stop her authority figures becoming predictable.
Fi1m perspective
Ranger Liz has a rifle and a crush in Cocaine Bear (2023), and Margo Martindale makes the crush the more embarrassing liability. Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s wildlife inspector Peter is the object of her interest, giving her something to want beyond surviving the next attack. We laughed at Liz’s pursuit of Peter because Martindale allows a woman in authority to make such a fool of herself. The joke depends on her having an ordinary, inconvenient desire, and Ferguson’s embarrassment gives that desire somewhere to go. She is the funniest person in a film that leaves a good cast waiting too long between attacks.
Her earlier supporting film work includes Sister Colleen in Tim Robbins’s Dead Man Walking (1995), which we warmly recommend for the difficult encounters between Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The argument occasionally feels too carefully arranged, but the performances give us reasons to care beyond the debate itself. Her casting took a harder turn with Earline Fitzgerald, the selfish mother in Million Dollar Baby (2004). That part helped establish the association with villainous mothers and tougher supporting characters that followed.
Her television breakthrough came as Mags Bennett in Justified in 2011, with the recurring role of Claudia, a Soviet handler, following in The Americans (2013). Claudia draws on her understated menace and the impression of someone thinking ahead of everybody else. Mags supplies the tough maternal authority; Claudia makes calculation feel just as threatening. These roles make a persuasive case for her toughness; they should not become a prescription for every part she plays.
The caveat is that Martindale cannot make an underwritten film busy enough on her own. Elizabeth Banks gets good comic work from her in Cocaine Bear, but the film still runs slack across its 95 minutes. The part gives her two clear things to play, even when the script struggles to occupy the people around her. Ferguson gives her the right embarrassed partner, and we would gladly see more parts that allow her this degree of foolishness. Try it for Martindale’s comedy, provided the long waits between bear attacks will not spoil the evening.
Biography
Margo Martindale is an American character actress who has appeared in film, television and on stage. She was born on 18 July 1951 in Jacksonville, Texas, and attended Lon Morris College before transferring to the University of Michigan, where she also studied at Harvard during the summer.
She made her film debut in Days of Thunder (1990) and has since taken supporting roles in films including Dead Man Walking (1995), The Hours (2002), Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Cocaine Bear (2023), in which she played Ranger Liz. On television she is known for her Emmy-winning performances as Mags Bennett in Justified (2011) and Claudia in The Americans (2015 and 2016). Martindale received a Tony Award nomination for her stage role in the 2003 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
