Maribel Verdú

A kitchen and a shopping list give Maribel Verdú enough to work with in The Flash (2023). As Nora Allen, she plays a mother going about her day, and Ezra Miller's Barry stops twitching when she is on screen. We were moved by the first kitchen scene because she plays it plainly and Benjamin Wallfisch's score offers a few notes, then leaves her room. That ability to make an ordinary exchange worth our attention is a good reason to seek her out.

Her Spanish film career began in the mid-1980s, but the international breakthrough came with Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También (2001). As Luisa Cortés, she faces a different version of the same risk: becoming a woman whose purpose is to improve a man's story. Here there are two young men, both capable of demanding more attention than they deserve. Verdú gives Luisa the authority to challenge them and the appetite to enjoy herself without asking their permission. The film's sexual frankness works because her pleasure matters, and her participation never feels like a duty to educate them.

Y Tu Mamá También and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006), in which she plays Mercedes, brought wider recognition without replacing her work in Spanish cinema and television. Siete mesas de billar francés (2007) and Blancanieves (2012) belong to that continuing career. There is more to her work than the occasional international appearance, and Nora's small part should not be taken as a measure of what she can carry.

The difference between Luisa and Nora is how much their films allow them to accomplish. The Flash lets callbacks and computer effects crowd out its story about a son wanting his mother back; Verdú cannot correct that from the kitchen. Cuarón's film occasionally presses its social commentary too hard, but gives her enough freedom to make its challenge to the boys' self-importance convincing. Start with Y Tu Mamá También.