100 great female com­e­dy per­for­mances – part 3

Speak­ing on her break­through role, Alyson Han­ni­gan has been known to take a deep breath before men­tion­ing the trust fund she set up to pay for her children’s ther­a­py when they inevitably see Mom talk­ing about that one time at band camp. We’ve all heard chang­ing room rumours about the unex­pect­ed, unsavoury con­quests of the qui­et kid in the cor­ner. Han­ni­gan is that kid, and she’s absurd and brave and so, so real. Aimee-lee Abra­ham

Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s sex sym­bol sta­tus always threat­ens to over­shad­ow her act­ing tal­ents. Com­bin­ing her sex­i­ness and artis­tic skill, Some Like It Hot may be the best film to ful­ly under­stand her per­sona. Mon­roe deploys her nat­ur­al charms as pes­simistic Ukulele play­er Sug­ar. Yet Sug­ar is tact­ful, and although she finds her­self roman­ti­cal­ly manip­u­lat­ed by Tony Cur­tis, she also sub­tly sup­plies him the tools of her own seduc­tion. Con­fess­ing to Cur­tis’ female alter ego, Mon­roe demon­strates sen­si­bil­i­ty and sur­pris­es with her dead­pan, self-dep­re­cat­ing sense of humour. Manuela Laz­ic

Every sin­gle female play­er in Robert Altman’s blun­der­buss Kore­an War satire is either a will­ing­ly pli­ant bim­bette, a geisha or an uptight shrew who is sex-shamed, giv­en a humil­i­at­ing, who­r­ish nick­name and then forced to parade naked for the hideous amuse­ment of an entire army hos­pi­tal unit. Major Mar­garet ​‘Hot Lips’ O’Houlihan falls into the lat­ter camp, and Sal­ly Kellerman’s star-mak­ing reac­tion to that final, debas­ing straw is a tirade to her Com­mand­ing Offi­cer that ris­es in unhinged com­ic inten­si­ty before becom­ing some­thing far more point­ed, uncom­fort­able and self-reflex­ive than Alt­man pos­si­bly intend­ed. Adam Lee Davies

Next to her friv­o­lous father, hyper-sex­u­al moth­er and dumb broth­er, Wednes­day Addams seems the most down-to-earth mem­ber of the macabre fam­i­ly. Per­pet­u­al­ly blasé, her only source of amuse­ment is scar­ing her broth­er, Pugs­ley, to death or ter­ri­fy­ing the mor­tals she despis­es. Young Christi­na Ric­ci tru­ly mas­ters the dead­pan sar­casm and blunt­ness that made Wednes­day such an endur­ing fem­i­nist icon. As though she had indeed been around for cen­turies, Ric­ci main­tains her com­po­sure at all times, yet her deliv­ery is as sharp as a knife. ML

It would be easy to be over­shad­owed by Will Ferrell’s Ron Bur­gundy, but Christi­na Apple­gate not only ris­es to the chal­lenge, she ends up over­shad­ow­ing him. Not only is she empow­er­ing as Veron­i­ca Corn­ing­stone, a quick-wit­ted, for­mi­da­ble female news reporter try­ing to pur­sue a career with­in an extreme­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed and chau­vin­is­tic indus­try, she is also excep­tion­al­ly amus­ing as she com­pe­tent­ly back­hands her male col­leagues’ attempts to ridicule her live on nation­al tele­vi­sion. Sophie Yapp

Marge Gun­der­son doesn’t appear in the Coen broth­ers’ snow­bound black com­e­dy until a good 30 min­utes of vio­lence and under­hand­ed­ness has played out, but as she rolls over in bed to answer a call about gris­ly mur­ders, utter­ing ​“aw geez” in a dis­tinct drawl, her pres­ence is a calm­ing one. Frances McDor­mand learnt the accent from Howard Mohr’s ​‘How to Talk Min­nesotan’ and she nails the friend­ly demeanour of the preg­nant police chief with dis­arm­ing smiles and a cute wad­dle. It’s a role that was specif­i­cal­ly writ­ten for McDor­mand, who took home the Best Actress Oscar for it in 1997. Kather­ine McLaughlin

This bril­liant lost trea­sure about female friend­ship writ­ten and direct­ed by Clau­dia Weill recent­ly resur­faced, thanks to Lena Dun­ham in New York and Jem­ma Desai in Lon­don. As Susan, Melanie May­ron man­ages to be seri­ous, plucky, play­ful, child­like, lost, con­flict­ed and loy­al as she nav­i­gates the emp­ty space left after her best friend, Anne, mar­ries Bob Bal­a­ban and moves out. Nat­u­ral­is­tic cam­er­a­work and pac­ing pro­vides an ide­al plat­form for Mayron’s per­for­mance. Behind owl glass­es and under a curly bouf­fant, she excels at grad­u­al­ly turn­ing up the lev­el of reac­tions, going from opaque to vul­ner­a­ble, while inter­act­ing earnest­ly with her envi­ron­ment. Sophie Monks Kaufman

The great Kati Out­i­nen has appeared in no less than 10 fea­ture films direct­ed by Finnish mas­ter Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki, which pret­ty much tells you every­thing you need to know about her abil­i­ties and con­sis­ten­cy as an actor. It’s in 2002’s The Man With­out a Past, how­ev­er, that she gives her finest, fun­ni­est per­for­mance as Irma, a sto­ic social work­er who makes a mean­ing­ful spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion with a man suf­fer­ing from amne­sia. The film is a rare delight, a gen­tly uplift­ing med­i­ta­tion on the human con­di­tion ground­ed by Outinen’s Cannes-win­ning turn. Adam Wood­ward

Although Woody Allen’s film is self-con­scious­ly over-edit­ed, Judy Davis stands out in an unin­ter­rupt­ed sequence in which her char­ac­ter Lucy arrives at the house of nov­el­ist Har­ry (Allen), ready to mur­der him. Her anger is com­plete­ly jus­ti­fied; Har­ry has lift­ed pri­vate moments of her life for a nov­el. As neu­rot­ic and depres­sive Lucy, Davis brings dark humour to the scene, play­ing a rare female incar­na­tion of the recur­rent Allen arche­type. Melo­dra­mat­ic, over­ly sen­si­tive and endear­ing­ly inse­cure, Davis makes the moment very fun­ny, end­ing on an amus­ing­ly piti­ful note as Lucy plain­tive­ly admits she is too weak to blow her own brains out. Ele­na Lazic

It’s hard not to fall in love with Anna Karina’s Mar­i­anne in Jean-Luc Godard’s road movie. She is the def­i­n­i­tion of whim­si­cal ele­gance as she runs away with her ex-lover to go on a Mediter­ranean crime spree, shar­ing her views on every­thing from danc­ing to fash­ion. Mar­i­anne and her epony­mous part­ner (Jean-Paul Bel­mon­do) are well-matched in terms of their charm and dry humour, but it is the for­mer who stands out, singing unabashed­ly even as a dead body lies on the floor of her apart­ment. Cather­ine Karellis

Not strict­ly a com­ic per­for­mance, more a study of unswerv­ing cheer­i­ness in the face of wide­spread gloom. Sal­ly Hawkins is a mar­vel as pri­ma­ry school teacher Pop­py, a woman who sees the absolute best in every­thing and every­one. While much of the film’s com­e­dy comes from pair­ing Pop­py with the most can­tan­ker­ous peo­ple imag­in­able (Eddie Marsan’s psy­chot­ic dri­ving instruc­tor needs to be seen to be believed), Hawkins always makes sure that her char­ac­ter nev­er appears as a the­atri­cal con­struct. David Jenk­ins

Richard Cur­tis movies are about so much more than posh peo­ple swear­ing. That said, his skill as a screen­writer can be summed up in a glo­ri­ous two-word exple­tive uttered by Emma Cham­bers in the most lung-bust­ing­ly hilar­i­ous scene from 1999’s Not­ting Hill. ​“Holy fuck!” is her character’s stunned reac­tion to meet­ing her brother’s movie star squeeze (Julia Roberts) at a friends’ din­ner par­ty. It’s a quin­tes­sen­tial moment in British com­e­dy cin­e­ma, made all the more price­less for Cham­bers’ exem­plary com­ic tim­ing. AW

In her beloved break­out role, Julie Hager­ty plays Elaine, an hon­est-to-good­ness flight atten­dant aboard a doomed transcon­ti­nen­tal flight. Elaine finds her­self in increas­ing­ly ridicu­lous sit­u­a­tions as the dis­as­ter par­o­dy spi­rals towards slap­stick and sur­re­al­ism. In a stand­out flash­back, she dances to the Bee Gee’s ​‘Stay­ing Alive’. And when her part­ner is dis­crete­ly stabbed in the back, she mim­ics his flail­ing, think­ing it’s a dif­fer­ent dance move. CT

In the under­rat­ed Enchant­ed, Amy Adams plays an actu­al Dis­ney princess trans­port­ed to New York City who finds humour in the bleak con­trast between the opti­mism of fairy tales and the harsh­ness of the real world. Repeat­ed­ly shocked by people’s heart­less­ness, the princess screams and cries and dances to make our world a bet­ter place. Adams’ use of her big eyes and bright smile is apt­ly grotesque for a char­ac­ter who ini­tial­ly appears quite sim­ple. As she learns to nav­i­gate the world with­out tam­ing her bound­less ener­gy, Adams’ abil­i­ty to por­tray more sub­tle emo­tions comes to the fore, mak­ing the char­ac­ter at once amus­ing­ly pic­turesque and intense­ly human. ML

This endear­ing­ly ram­shackle home improve­ment com­e­dy from Richard ​“My Step­moth­er is an Alien” Ben­jamin is remark­able for two things: being the first col­lab­o­ra­tion between Tom Han­ks and Steven Spiel­berg (who took a co-exec pro­duc­er cred­it) and the fact that Shel­ley Long did all her own stunts despite hav­ing giv­en birth to her first child just a few weeks before prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy began. The scene where a racoon launch­es itself at Long from the dumb­wait­er shaft of the couple’s crum­bling new abode is phys­i­cal com­e­dy per­fec­tion. AW

If you do the maths, Reece Witherspoon’s Tra­cy Flick is only a few small removes away from per­haps her most well known screen cre­ation: Legal­ly Blonde’s ami­able air-head, Elle Woods. In Alexan­der Payne’s Elec­tion, she brings to life a wide-eyed polit­i­cal mas­ter crim­i­nal whose dogged, legal­ly dubi­ous attempts to become high school pres­i­dent would’ve made Richard Nixon blush. Though Oscar-endorsed for one of her straight dra­mat­ic roles (as June Carter Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line), all the evi­dence points to With­er­spoon being, first and fore­most, a nat­ur­al com­ic actor. In Flick, she dances on a tightrope between inno­cence and evil with the prowess and tim­ing of a mas­ter. DJ

She’s the Man is one of the only films my whole fam­i­ly can agree to sit down and watch – and it’s all thanks to the com­ic tal­ents of Aman­da Bynes. With all the bad press she’s received in recent years, it’s easy to for­get the promise she held as a young actor. But here she is sim­ply hilar­i­ous, giv­ing us a lov­able hero­ine we can real­ly root for. From her bril­liant­ly bizarre man voice, to an arse­nal of facial expres­sions that would make Char­lie Chap­lin proud, Bynes deliv­ers a comedic per­for­mance far beyond her years. Shh­hh! She’s bril­liant! Beth Perkin

It must’ve been fun try­ing to devel­op a love inter­est for Steve Martin’s dim-brained drifter, Navin R John­son, but the mak­ers of The Jerk hit pay­dirt and then some with the help of Bernadette Peters. The pair meet when the for­mer secures a job at a fun fair, and their first date takes place in the back of a lor­ry over a deli­cious Cup O’ Piz­za. It’s instant­ly obvi­ous that both char­ac­ters are dis­placed from time and place, him with his inces­sant opti­mism, her with her rag doll get-up, frizzy hair and hyper log­i­cal inno­cence. Navin: ​“I’m gonna buy you a dia­mond ring so big you’re gonna puke!” Marie: ​“I don’t wan­na puke!” DJ

There’s some­thing innate­ly like­able about Meg Ryan. Even as she’s prim­ly inform­ing wait­ers that her dress­ing must be served on the side thank you very much, it’s impos­si­ble not to fall for her charms. She’s like a cat meme, only with bet­ter hair. The genius of Ryan’s per­for­mance in Rob Reiner’s film lies in her abil­i­ty to take all the qual­i­ties that make a type‑A like Sal­ly so annoy­ing, and turn them into the things we love about her most. With Ryan’s infec­tious, always sun­ny dis­po­si­tion, we def­i­nite­ly want what she’s hav­ing. BP

Gregg Araki’s supe­ri­or ston­er com­e­dy owes it all to a deranged lead turn by Anna Faris. She plays Jane, a fun­time pot­head who unwit­ting­ly eats her creepy roommate’s weed cup­cakes. Absolute­ly blast­ed, she sets out for a Hemp Fes­ti­val to replace her roommate’s stash. It is absurd and at times cringe-wor­thy, but Faris is entire­ly endear­ing in the role. Her mis­ad­ven­tures include an impas­sioned mono­logue on union rights and a hys­ter­i­cal com­mer­cial audi­tion. CT

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