Michelle Pfeiffer makes a woman's effort to stay composed worth watching. We value the small physical choices that show what she cannot say, though the writing too often leaves Pfeiffer supplying the feeling by herself.
Fi1m perspective
In The Madison (2026), Michelle Pfeiffer's Stacy Clyburn seems to consider falling apart an imposition on other people. Her hands and breathing tell us how much staying composed costs, and Christina Alexandra Voros holds on her long enough for us to notice. We were moved by that effort to spare everyone else, especially when Taylor Sheridan gives her so little to say. With Kurt Russell's Preston, she makes the silences between an older couple feel familiar. The writing elsewhere is too thin to justify the same attention.
Her breakthrough came as Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983). Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) gave her room for the restrained, physically precise acting we still value in her. Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) put anger into movement. As Countess Olenska in The Age of Innocence (1993), she played a woman whose desires clash with social rules. She took an extended break after the early 2000s and returned prominently to films in 2017, before these contrasting television parts in 2026.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) demonstrates the limits of asking an actor to repair a film. Pfeiffer plays Janet Van Dyne as someone worn down by years of keeping a secret, and her face registers the place around her when the rest of the family scarcely seems affected. Her scenes with Jonathan Majors give us two people worth attending to amid the subatomic clutter. They are the film's strongest stretch, but they do not make the rest worth recommending.
Margo's Got Money Troubles (2026) gives her better material. As Shyanne, opposite Elle Fanning and Nick Offerman's Jinx, she can be funny without turning everyone else into a spectator. She keeps Shyanne complicated, while the family scenes let the three performers respond to one another rather than wait for their next joke. Start there for Pfeiffer with room to be funny, allowing for a few stretches when the heavier drama gets too much attention.
Biography
Michelle Pfeiffer is an American actor. Born on 29 April 1958 in Santa Ana, California, she began her career with minor television and film roles before securing her first lead in Grease 2 (1982). Her performance as Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983) brought mainstream attention.
She received Academy Award nominations for Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), and a further nomination for Love Field (1992). Other notable film roles include Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) and Janet Van Dyne in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). In 2026 she played Stacy Clyburn in the series The Madison and Shyanne in Margo's Got Money Troubles.
