This weekend's Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising certainly has enough antics to discuss for this month's Girls Gone Wild focus, but its most delightful element is returning star Rose Byrne. While she's not as impactfully utilized in the sequel as she was in the original, she is still just as charming as a slightly reluctant adult who understands what makes the youngsters tic.
The film leaves you wanting more time with her, but when isn't that true even when she is better served?
Over the past decade, Byrne has been steadily becoming our most reliable comedic actress. Her peers may be larger box office draws or recognizable names, but none of them match her consistently rich performances or surprising hysterical highs. The trifecta of Spy, Bridesmaids, and Neighbors are all starkly different women, for Byrne never fails to surprise us with the type of laughs she can deliver with ease...
That natural range is what makes Rose Byrne the chameleon that she is, her relaxed air making even broad characterizations like Spy's Rayna Boyanov believable. That withering loose cannon of a performance might not have worked in the hands of a more forceful performer, but Byrne is precise and intelligent at every turn. The actress turns Rayna into an effortless quote machine, with even the most throwaway of dialogue mined for comic gold. The "sad, Bulgarian clown" monologue is the crowning achievement of the performance, perfect in its balance of silly and smart, mean and sweet. Has there been a sharper, more uproarious comedy creation in the past decade that Rayna Boyanov?
But Bridesmaids still serves as the best reminder of how Rose Byrne is a character actress first. Her Helen is always on, projecting perfection to hide her pain and loneliness. It's when Helen lets her guard down that the performance is its most hilarious and honest, the laughs drawing from an all too universally relatable vulnerability and need to be liked. Melissa McCarthy may have been the Oscar nominee for the film, but Byrne is even more intelligently layered.
While her comic work is winning her new fans these days it's worth remembering that she shows versatility both in and outside of comedies - she's balanced genre films, comedies, and high-minded dramas alike throughout her career. If only awards voters were kinder to comedy she might have been recognized for worthy work like Spy and Bridesmaids, though she was Globe and Emmy nominated for her heavy dramatics in FX's Damages. This summer, she can also be seen in The Meddler and X-Men: Apocalypse, but maybe soon she'll get her own showcase comedy star vehicle. She's earned it.
What's your favorite Rose Byrne performance?