Marin Hinkle is at her best playing women who care fiercely about appearances. Her precise manners make Rose Weissman funny, but the pleasure is in how much more than a fussy mother she becomes.
Fi1m perspective
Rose Weissman’s posture matters. In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017), Marin Hinkle gives her the careful bearing of someone for whom appearances are a serious responsibility. Costume, stance and vocal delivery establish a woman who expects her family to meet her standards, and Hinkle makes that fussiness worth attending to. We found ourselves looking forward to Rose’s company, because Hinkle made her concern for decorum feel human rather than merely ridiculous.
Once and Again (1999), with Hinkle as Judy Brooks, established her in television drama before a long sitcom stretch as Judith Harper in Two and a Half Men (2003). The latter made her a familiar presence, but it is a poor place to look for generous writing about women. Jon Cryer and the supporting cast earn laughs; the predictable jokes and sourness make it hard to stay long. Judith, the anxious ex-wife, fits a pattern in Hinkle’s casting that can too easily become a restriction.
Amy Sherman-Palladino’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel gives her more to do with a woman’s concern for decorum and family expectations. With Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weissman, Hinkle helps make Midge’s parents increasingly welcome company. Shalhoub makes Abe respond to every family crisis as though somebody has set him a particularly foolish problem. Hinkle’s precise physical presentation gives Rose her own comic force, without making her simply compete to be louder. Their work does not cure the programme’s excessive length or the tendency for everyone to sound alike, but it gives us a reason to stay.
The risk is that the manners become the whole performance. Hinkle’s skill with costume, posture and voice deserves parts that keep developing after those first signals have been understood. A familiar family role need not be a thin one, and Rose gives us evidence of what she can do when the writing allows it. Start there, with some tolerance for a programme that rarely stops talking.
Biography
Marin Hinkle is an American actress. Born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she graduated from Brown University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program.
She began her career in New York theatre, with Broadway credits including an understudy role in The Tempest. Television roles include Judy Brooks in Once and Again (1999–2002) and Judith Harper-Melnick in Two and a Half Men (2003–2015). She played Rose Weissman in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023) and received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2019 and 2020.
