Patricia Arquette

In Severance (2022), Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel has the composure her corporate surroundings require, but offers little reassurance. We felt uneasy watching her because we could not decide how to read that calm. Arquette lets the uncertainty persist without making Cobel seem vague or leaving the performance dependent on the next unanswered question. She also belongs to an ensemble that keeps workplace absurdity funny without treating the employees’ predicament as trivial.

Her breakthrough as Alabama Whitman in True Romance (1993) brought vulnerability and force together. Playing Kathy O’Hara in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994) placed her in a supporting role within a film unusually kind towards artistic failure. Burton’s sympathy makes the film funny without becoming cruel, though it runs long and sometimes leaves Johnny Depp too little to play. We like seeing her in work that allows people their failings without deciding that failure is all they amount to.

In David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), being difficult to read becomes a more central part of the job. The longer commitments followed: the lead as Allison DuBois in Medium (2005–2011), and twelve years of filming for Boyhood (2014). The grounded acting in Boyhood is worth keeping in mind when considering the more troubling women she plays. Her convincing Dee Dee Blanchard in The Act (2019) gives us another reason to value her in parts that ask us to judge what a woman conceals.

There is a limit to how much such control can do for a programme. The first season of Severance takes too long to gather pace, and even Arquette cannot make every delay feel necessary. But she gives the office scenes an interest beyond waiting for an explanation, helped by Adam Scott’s performance and an ensemble alive to the comedy. Start there for the unnerving version of Arquette, or with Ed Wood for a warmer evening; allow both a little more time than they need.