Matthew Broderick can make a man's dullness funny simply by letting him seem comfortable with it. We value his dry timing, though a familiar, agreeable presence cannot do much when the part gives him little to play.
Fi1m perspective
In No Hard Feelings (2023), Matthew Broderick's Laird Becker hovers at the edge of rooms, keeping an eye on a son who has been protected from almost everything. He plays the father as someone who has never needed to be interesting and sees no reason to start now. We laughed at his comfortable dullness, because Broderick gives him no apparent reason to question himself. The film keeps retreating from its raunchy premise, but his dry supporting turn makes the parental fussing worth watching.
The early screen breakthrough came with WarGames (1983) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and Ferris still shapes his reputation. Yet the dramatic role in Glory (1989) followed soon enough; comedy was never the whole job. As Jim McAllister in Election (1999), he took that familiar appeal into darker satire. We would rather follow him there than keep asking the boyish charm to last indefinitely.
The Lion King (1994) makes good use of his straightforward appeal as the voice of the adult Simba. Nathan Lane's Timon and Ernie Sabella's Pumbaa get the more unruly comedy; Broderick helps keep the family story approachable, despite having less entertaining material. That is valuable work in a film whose lessons can become overbearing, and it does not depend on his getting the biggest laugh. Editor Ivan Bilancio keeps comedy and solemn drama moving briskly, though we wanted a little more time for the quieter feeling.
The danger is that a modest performance can disappear when there is too little written for it. Broderick cannot solve the script's hesitations in No Hard Feelings, and we would not recommend the film on his presence alone. For anyone whose idea of him still begins and ends with Ferris, Election is the next stop.
Biography
Matthew Broderick is an American actor who works in film, television and theatre. Born on 21 March 1962 in New York City, he made his professional stage debut in the early 1980s and won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983).
His early film roles include WarGames (1983) and the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). He later voiced adult Simba in The Lion King (1994) and won a second Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Broderick has continued to appear in films such as Godzilla (1998) and played Laird Becker in No Hard Feelings (2023). He has been married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker since 1997.
