100 great female com­e­dy per­for­mances – part 2

This is not only one of the great com­e­dy per­for­mances, but one of the great per­for­mances of the 21^st cen­tu­ry. Ter­ry Zwigoff’s sub­lime fea­ture (based on Daniel Clowes’ graph­ic nov­el) con­cerns a young woman search­ing for indi­vid­u­al­i­ty who ends up find­ing lone­li­ness. Birch’s turn as crest­fall­en indie kid Enid offers clas­sic-era com­ic tim­ing with none of the try hard self-con­scious­ness of a more con­ven­tion­al com­e­dy per­for­mance. It’s all the more amus­ing and upset­ting because it nev­er once looks like Birch is try­ing to be fun­ny. David Jenk­ins

Ellen DeGeneres’ unmis­tak­able voice per­for­mance as Dory, an endear­ing blue tang fish who suf­fers from short-term mem­o­ry loss, is so rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the charis­mat­ic come­di­an her­self that direc­tor Andrew Stan­ton actu­al­ly cre­at­ed the char­ac­ter with her in mind. Dory’s comedic val­ue is not only drawn from her amne­sia, but also enabled by DeGeneres’ range, which sees her repeat­ed­ly singing ​“just keep swim­ming” in less-than-ide­al cir­cum­stances and even com­mu­ni­cat­ing in whale. The sheer absur­di­ty of Dory’s para­dox­i­cal nature is made not only cred­i­ble but also remark­ably amus­ing by DeGeneres’ abil­i­ty to bring this ani­mat­ed char­ac­ter to life. Sophie Yapp

Lily Tom­lin does woman-on-the-edge with verve and con­vic­tion in Col­in Hig­gins’ bat­tle of the sex­es com­e­dy, which was co-writ­ten with Patri­cia Resnick who went under­cov­er as a sec­re­tary for research pur­pos­es. Tomlin’s turn as dis­grun­tled office man­ag­er Vio­let New­stead, who is passed over for a pro­mo­tion she ful­ly deserves, is full of anger and frus­tra­tion but she also clear­ly has a lot of fun dis­play­ing a man­ic glee while fan­ta­sis­ing about tak­ing revenge on her boss dressed up as a malev­o­lent Snow White. Kather­ine McLaughlin

Frank Capra’s It Hap­pened One Night is often cit­ed as being the film that gave birth to the con­ven­tion­al rom-com. You know the one: odd cou­ple thrown togeth­er, bick­er­ing ensues, their ani­mos­i­ty is put to the test and love even­tu­al­ly con­quers all. In the male cor­ner is a fast-talk­ing Clark Gable, an under­cov­er reporter search­ing for a scoop. In the female cor­ner is Claudette Colbert’s cred­u­lous heiress, on the run from her bray­ing fam­i­ly. Col­bert snaps and siz­zles as we watch her trans­form from lost fawn to pray­ing man­tis. Her sass lev­els rise off the chart, and she steals the show with a sequence which demon­strates once and for all the prop­er way to hitch­hike (hint: don’t use your thumb). DJ

A frat pack farce about two dudes who infil­trate wed­dings to get trashed and screw girls. From that premise, Wed­ding Crash­ers doesn’t sound like it would leave much room for mem­o­rable female roles, but Isla Fish­er is hys­ter­i­cal, ter­ri­fy­ing and total­ly charm­ing as ​“stage five clinger” Glo­ria, Vince Vaughn’s enti­tled and pos­si­bly unhinged love inter­est. Char­lie Theobald

As far as west­ern spoofs go, Cat Bal­lou doesn’t hold up quite as well as some of the films that fol­lowed in its (wag­on) tracks – for bet­ter and worse, it is unavoid­ably a prod­uct of its time. But it retains its sense of fun and sly wit, thanks large­ly to Jane Fonda’s crafty cen­tral per­for­mance as the epony­mous ​“school­marm-turned-bad”. Not the defin­i­tive role of Fonda’s illus­tri­ous career, but eas­i­ly one of the most all-round enter­tain­ing. Adam Wood­ward

Why can’t Mae Whit­man just star in every­thing? After years of (great) sup­port­ing roles, The Duff marked Whitman’s long over­due tran­si­tion to badass lead. Okay, so the premise is a lit­tle prob­lem­at­ic, but how many female actors can you name who could take a screen­play as suss as this and turn it into some­thing gen­uine­ly sweet and fun­ny? With her flaw­less deliv­ery and com­ic tim­ing, Whit­man is with­out a doubt one of the most tal­ent­ed young actors work­ing today. Hol­ly­wood take note: Mae Whit­man is a dia­mond. Beth Perkin

Elaine May isn’t exact­ly the star of her direc­to­r­i­al debut A New Leaf, yet each of her appear­ances are hilar­i­ous and essen­tial to build­ing the plot’s sub­dued com­plex­i­ty. Hen­ry Gra­ham (Wal­ter Matthau), greedy but broke, plans to mar­ry then mur­der a rich and lone­ly woman in order to main­tain his wealthy bach­e­lor sta­tus. Rich and naïve, Hen­ri­et­ta Low­ell (May) would be the per­fect pray were she not so utter­ly clum­sy, to the point of irri­tat­ing even Hen­ry. Yet despite his con­de­scen­sion, he can­not help being touched by her qui­et nature, her pas­sion for botany, and the con­fi­dence she finds by sim­ply being next to him. Manuela Laz­ic

Gross out come­dies are gen­er­al­ly pop­u­lat­ed by male actors with female char­ac­ters rel­e­gat­ed to the sta­tus of eye can­dy or straight foils. The Naked Gun is strik­ing for fea­tur­ing a female actor in a promi­nent role who par­tic­i­pates in the com­e­dy, rather than being its long suf­fer­ing wit­ness or vic­tim. Priscil­la Presley’s par­o­dy of the femme fatale ele­vates the satire, demon­strat­ing an aware­ness of one-dimen­sion­al female char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion in the film noirs and cop thrillers that the film spoofs. That aspect of both gen­res proves a gold­mine for some of the film’s fun­ni­est, most elab­o­rate­ly ridicu­lous moments, car­ried with con­vic­tion by Presley’s won­der­ful­ly dead­pan per­for­mance. Ele­na Lazic

Pint-size punks with no musi­cal expe­ri­ence form a band in Swedish direc­tor Lukas Moodysson’s adap­ta­tion of his wife Coco’s graph­ic nov­el. Mira Barkham­mar is fun­ny because she’s so seri­ous. It’s joy­ful to watch chil­dren being total­ly grave when approach­ing tasks of less than world-chang­ing con­se­quence. Thir­teen year old Bobo feels emo­tions at full capac­i­ty. She’s not par­tic­u­lar­ly gar­ru­lous but her watch­ful lit­tle face says it all. Whether lay­ing into her dad for play­ing an instru­ment on the toi­let, tune­less­ly bash­ing a drum or dab­bling in boys, she injects the film with an endear­ing inten­si­ty that sets the tone of a trib­ute to youth­ful ener­gy. Sophie Monks Kaufman

To think, if Bette Midler hadn’t turned down this role, Whoopi Gold­berg might nev­er have played the part that was des­tined for her. She even asked for her character’s name to be changed to Deloris, sim­ply because she’d always want­ed to play some­one with that name. It’s this atti­tude that makes Goldberg’s Deloris Van Carti­er, a lounge singer placed under pro­tec­tive cus­tody in a con­vent after wit­ness­ing a mur­der, so fit­ting and in turn, so fun­ny. In becom­ing a nun, or a ​“pen­guin” as she puts it, Deloris los­es the afro, the glit­tery clothes and the make­up, but her feisty fem­i­nin­i­ty remains, which caus­es con­stant enter­tain­ing con­flict between her and Mag­gie Smith’s Rev­erend Moth­er. SY

Most direc­tors use Cather­ine Deneuve’s appar­ent light­ness to empha­sise trag­ic sto­ries, few­er have ever encour­aged her to unleash her capac­i­ty to make us laugh. Jean-Paul Rap­pe­neau is one such direc­tor. He enhances every detail of her false­ly naïve char­ac­ter in Le Sauvage, a trou­ble­mak­er on a desert island named Nel­ly, lean­ing on Deneuve’s most pow­er­ful weapons to get what she wants: speak­ing fast, being obsti­nate, bold, bitchy (and beau­ti­ful). Mathilde Dumazet

Some music fans will always remem­ber Yoko Ono as the hang­er-on who ​‘broke up The Bea­t­les’. And they may nev­er for­give Court­ney Love for desta­bil­is­ing the del­i­cate bal­ance that exist­ed between Kurt Cobain and Nir­vana. But their true and tire­less ire will always be reserved for Jea­nine Pet­ti­bone: the woman who ​‘turned off the Tap’. Dressed like a cruise-ship Ste­vie Nicks – or ​“an Australian’s night­mare” – June Chad­wick invests Jea­nine with the no-non­sense man­ner of a prison-island din­ner lady and rep­re­sents an insur­mount­able obsta­cle to both the life­long bro­mance of Tap’s two lead gui­tarists and the future of the band. Last seen in the 1994 video-only come­back spe­cial The Return of Spinal Tap, boss­ing David St. Hub­bins around their Lau­rel Canyon ven­ture, Pota­to Repub­lic – a store that spe­cialis­es in ​“itchy Irish cloth­ing.” Adam Lee Davies

The androg­y­nous swan we know and wor­ship is unrecog­nis­able as Amy Schumer’s man­i­cured, ​“tan­doori tanned” edi­tor from hell, Dian­na, in Judd Apatow’s Train­wreck. Though it’s easy to mock her unabashed enthu­si­asm for arti­cles on whether gar­lic makes semen taste bet­ter, these peo­ple exist and these mag­a­zines exist and we have all bought into their shal­low, cap­i­tal­ist agen­das. A flaw­less take­down of every­thing that is wrong with the con­toured Insta­gram gen­er­a­tion. Aimee-lee Abra­ham

“Oh Wal­ter, you’re won­der­ful in a loath­some sort of way,” quips Hildy John­son after con­fi­dent­ly strid­ing across her ex-husband’s news­pa­per office, blithe­ly com­ment­ing on her for­mer employ­ees before announc­ing she’s get­ting out of the jour­nal­ism game. Ros­alind Rus­sell appears to be con­stant­ly in motion through­out Howard Hawks’ screw­ball com­e­dy. Whether she’s nego­ti­at­ing deals at the speed of light or rug­by tack­ling sources, her ener­gy is mes­meris­ing and mag­nif­i­cent to behold. KM

In the Coen broth­ers’ The Big Lebowk­si, Julianne Moore’s per­for­mance as Maude Lebows­ki adds a much-need­ed dose of dead­pan wit. She’s excel­lent as a snooty fem­i­nist artist, whose exceed­ing­ly dry con­duc­tion of speech is hys­ter­i­cal in itself. In one scene she describes her art as being com­mend­ed as ​“strong­ly vagi­nal,” fur­ther explain­ing how the word itself makes some men feel uncom­fort­able, before pro­ceed­ing to say ​“vagi­na” in such a mor­dant man­ner that it’s impos­si­ble not to laugh. SY

Obvi­ous­ly Anne Hathaway’s fun­ni­est per­for­mance is her griz­zly karaōke fish­wife in Tom Hooper’s Les Mis­er­ables (ooh, sick burn!), but a close sec­ond is her astound­ing and com­mit­ted take on a men­tal­ly unhinged daugh­ter return­ing briefly to the fam­i­ly nest for a wed­ding. Direc­tor Jonathan Demme gen­tly mocks the rites and rit­u­als of sub­ur­ban bour­geois con­for­mi­ty, but lends the mate­r­i­al an edge of hair-trig­ger sus­pense by throw­ing the ultra volatile Kym into the mix. Along with endear­ing ear­ly turns in films such as The Princess Diaries and The Dev­il Wears Pra­da, Rachel Get­ting Mar­ried cements the case that Hath­away would do best to chan­nel her con­sid­er­able ener­gies into mak­ing movie lovers laugh. DJ

With her rain­bow of hair rollers and satin night­gown, there’s noth­ing imme­di­ate­ly threat­en­ing about Qiu Yuen’s car­toon­ish, chain-smok­ing Land­la­dy. That is until she lets out her ear-split­ting, glass-shat­ter­ing Lion’s Roar. This har­ri­dan-like arche­type is the com­ic dri­ving force behind Stephen Chow’s dizzy­ing mar­tial arts spec­ta­cle, hold­ing domin­ion over the low­ly res­i­dents of Pig Sty Alley with an iron will and some killer kung fu moves. AW

Adri­enne Shelly was on strong antibi­otics while film­ing Hal Hartley’s com­e­dy about sex, love and abor­tion and stat­ed that she felt sick and weak dur­ing the shoot. She also claims that it helped her to con­nect with the cri­sis her preg­nant teen pro­tag­o­nist Maria Cough­lin was expe­ri­enc­ing. Maria trans­forms from a dis­dain­ful bub­ble gum chew­ing teenag­er to a strong woman over the course of the film and Shelly exudes a trem­bling sad­ness. She’s all inquis­i­tive glances and cheeky arro­gance while pop­ping out Hartley’s wry dia­logue yet ably con­veys a sense of con­fu­sion too. KM

Some scenes are guar­an­teed to make you smile no mat­ter how many times you see them. In George Armitage’s high school reunion/hit­man-based com­e­dy, that moment arrives when John Cusack’s free­lance assas­sin drops in on his old sweet­heart, played by Min­nie Dri­ver. It’s a brief meet-cute, but between Dri­ver answer­ing the door in a Spe­cials-ref­er­enc­ing Jamaican lilt to Cusack giv­ing her an impromp­tu air­plane ride, the pair’s easy, play­ful chem­istry is utter­ly irre­sistible. Cusack may be cool­ness per­son­i­fied, but it’s Driver’s effort­less charm and humour that seals the deal. AW

What are some of your favourite female com­e­dy per­for­mances? Let us know @LWLies and check back tomor­row for part three.