Phylicia Rashad

At her computer in The Beekeeper (2024), Phylicia Rashād lets embarrassment turn into fear while a reassuring voice on the telephone empties her character’s accounts. She plays Eloise Parker, a retired teacher whose wish to trust the helpful caller is horribly easy to understand. We were angry watching her realise what was happening, because her face made the fraud feel personal before the film could turn it into a reason for fighting. It is the strongest scene in David Ayer’s thriller.

Clair Huxtable in The Cosby Show (1984–1992) established the family authority with which she is still associated. Yet treating every subsequent maternal role as an extension of Clair is a poor way to watch her. Lena Younger in the stage production of A Raisin in the Sun (2004) belongs to that casting pattern, but her sustained work with August Wilson, as performer and director, suggests where to look beyond the television role. She began directing with his Gem of the Ocean in 2007.

The Creed films have used that familiarity, casting her as Mary-Anne Creed from Creed (2015) through Creed III (2023). Michael B. Jordan directs and stars in the third film, whose inventive fights are more persuasive than its hurried storytelling. It is a good boxing film, though it leaves us wishing the people outside the ring had more room. With Rashād, the danger is assuming that a recognisable family presence needs no further attention.

That is why the computer scene in The Beekeeper matters. Gabriel Beristain lights the call centre pink and purple, while Ben Munro’s open-plan set houses employees cheering as the money comes in. The villains are easy to dislike; Rashād has the harder task of making an unfamiliar victim matter quickly. She manages it, although the film around her is blunt and overexplains its beekeeping metaphor. Give her quiet scene the same attention as the fighting.