Catherine Keener has been entertaining audiences for decades. She played one of Jerry Seinfeld's most iconic girlfriends in 'Seinfeld' history, abstract painter Nina West, in the episode "The Letter," and coerced the famously frugal George (Jason Alexander) to buy one of her paintings. She hilariously starred opposite Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2 (a criminally underrated comedy) and was adorably ignorant of her reality in Friends With Money.
She is a frequent collaborator and muse of director Nicole Holofcener and has starred opposite Al Pacino, Jim Carrey, and Frances McDormand. Keener is unabashedly direct in her line delivery and has a singular comedic cadence that makes her exciting and unique. She can also use this bespoke timing for the dark arts, like her role as an incredibly unqualified mother in the Showtime miniseries An American Crime. In any instance, Keener's presence and specialty elevate the material, no matter the genre.
'Please Give' (2010)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.45
Keener has been referred to as the alter ego of Nicole Holofcener, and is often featured in her films. In Please Give, Keener is Kate, a successful reseller of vintage furniture procured for low prices from estate sale poaching. However, she can't enjoy her fortune because her guilt prevents it. Kate's husband, Alex (Oliver Platt), is having an affair with the next-door neighbor's granddaughter (Amanda Peet). Peet's sister, played by Rebecca Hall, sees through Kate's guilt-laced empathy and doesn't have time for it.
Keener's uncomfortable yet highly watchable, emotionally bifurcated character is spellbinding and often hysterical. The audience believes her inner conflict - her pained expression when volunteering and her lust for their 91-year-old neighbor's apartment - is a duality Keener executes efficiently. Kate's daughter (Sarah Steele) expresses a need for a life-altering pair of designer jeans and is denied, only to watch her mother give $20 bills to homeless people on the streets of New York City. Holofcener plus Keener mixed with awkward white guilt is priceless.
Please Give
Release Date 2010-04-30
Director Nicole Holofcener
Cast Elise Ivy, Elizabeth Keener, Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steele, Josh Pais, Catherine Keener
Rating R
Runtime 90
'Enough Said' (2013)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.55
As a mainstay in Holofcener movies, Keener returns with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Enough Said, playing a divorced poet who loathes her ex-husband, Albert (James Gandolfini). Things get awkward when Eva (Dreyfus) befriends Marianne (Keener), and Marianne divulges dirt on her ex, Albert, who is also Eva's current boyfriend. Only Holofcener could write a situation so convoluted and rife with conflict and simultaneously make it cringe-worthy and funny.
Keener's Marianne is a shoeless, kaftan-clad, casually famous poet, regaling her new friend Eva with past peccadillos of Albert. Marianne is more self-assured and confident than her Please Give character, and Keener exhibits a languid aloofness reserved for people without debilitating anxiety (like Eva). Marianne is a remarkable person, and Eva is drawn to her. She is compelled to be her friend, even though it might cost Eva her relationship with Albert. This is the power of Catherine Keener's magnetism.
Enough Said
Release Date 2013-09-18
Director Nicole Holofcener
Cast Lennie Loftin, Jessica St. Clair, Tracey Fairaway, Christopher Nicholas Smith, Toni Collette, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Rating PG-13
Runtime 93
'Walking and Talking' (1996)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.66
As longtime best friends, Amelia (Keener) and Laura (Anne Heche) share everything: an apartment, the most profound thoughts and feelings, and the responsibility of a senior cat, "Big Jeans." However, Laura is getting married, and their union is tested, thrusting Amelia and Laura into life-evaluating spirals. In director Holofcener's first feature, Walking and Talking, friends and lovers navigate life in the 1990s. In just under ninety minutes, Amelia casually dates and offends a video store clerk (Kevin Corrigan). Laura picks a fight with her fiancé (Todd Field in a rare acting role before occupying a director's chair) and then considers having a fling with one of her clients.
Desperately trying to understand how she found herself alone, Amelia hooks up with her former boyfriend (Liev Schrieber) and then asks him to critique their relationship. Non-cancerous moles are given as gifts, cancerous cats take flight, and a truce is called, culminating at last, at Laura's wedding. Everyone is terrific in the film, but Keener's turn as Amelia features her range as she sifts through sorrow, anger, and acceptance, providing further evidence of her talent.
Walking and Talking
Release Date 1996-07-17
Director Nicole Holofcener
Cast Liev Schreiber, Kevin Corrigan, Catherine Keener, Todd Field, Anne Heche
Rating R
Runtime 86
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'Out of Sight' (1998)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.68
In this Steven Soderbergh crime caper, a decorated bank robber, Jack Foley (George Clooney), and his burglarizing cohort, Buddy (Ving Rhames), escape prison and kidnap a US Marshall, Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez), inextricably linking them. In true Soderbergh style, the heist movie has many moving parts. As Adele, Jack's ex-wife, and former magician's assistant, Keener's part is brief but memorable.
In Miami, Adele gets a call from her incarcerated former husband and answers the phone while holding a cigarette...and a giant white rabbit. Adele's apartment is painted in vibrant jewel tones, mirroring her outfits and disposition. Her eclectic decor, pet, former career, and ex-husband are the only pieces of information given to the audience, but Keener makes it her own. While some viewers might find Jack/Clooney dreamy, Keener's flippant regard for his livelihood as Adele is a fun and refreshing take.
Out of Sight
Release Date 1998-06-26
Director Steven Soderbergh
Cast Manny Surez, Donna Frenzel, Mike Malone, Jim Robinson, George Clooney, Dennis Farina
Rating R
Runtime 123
'Capote' (2005)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.71
Capote was the first of three movies uniting Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was also the vehicle for her second Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress, playing the role of Truman Capote's childhood friend, Nellie Harper Lee. The movie was based on the actual events and basis for Capote's most famous work, In Cold Blood. After reading about gruesome murders at a family residence in rural Kansas, Capote decided he wanted to write about it and recruited Lee to help him secure the story.
A credit to Keener's ability, she could hold her own when sharing scenes with the late great Hoffman. His embodiment of Capote was a physical and vocal transformation, but it didn't disqualify Keener's rendition of Lee. The pair created an easy rhythm, unmistakably characteristic of lifelong friends, though this was their first meeting on film. Lee's was grounding energy, and Keener conveyed this with a steady, understated flourish, precisely what the late author of To Kill A Mockingbird would've wanted.
Capote
Release Date 2005-09-30
Director Bennett Miller
Cast Kate Shindle, Bronwen Coleman, Craig Archibald, Kelci Stephenson, Allie Mickelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Rating R
Runtime 110
'Into the Wild' (2007)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.78
Inspired by the real-life events of Christopher McCandless and his hike across North America and into the Alaskan wilderness, Sean Penn wrote, co-produced, and directed the movie adaptation of Into the Wild. Emile Hirsch portrays the disillusioned McCandless traversing the United States for enlightenment. During his travels, he meets many people, namely, hippie couple Jan (Keener) and Rainey (Brian H. Dierker). Rainey confides in their new transient friend that he and Jan are having relationship woes, and McCandless obliges them with a remedy.
While having a quiet, reflective moment with McCandless, Jan tells him about her estranged son, Reno, then asks him, as a concerned mother, if his parents knew where he was. It's a fleeting moment, but Jan's instincts and concern for her child are projected onto McCandless, temporarily locating the part of him that knows his family feels her specific pain. Keener and Hirsch's chemistry made that chance encounter lasting and beautiful. In one of her shortest roles on film, Keener was a conduit of vulnerability transmitted through Jan, transcending time and distance.
into the wild
Release Date 2007-09-11
Director Sean Penn
Cast Brian H. Dierker, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, Emile Hirsch
Rating R
Runtime 150
'Living in Oblivion' (1995)
Letterboxd Rating: 3.84
Steve Buscemi is Nick Reve, a young filmmaker struggling to capture greatness on film, only to be thwarted in every way possible in this movie-within-a-movie by director Tom DiCillo, divided into three parts. Keener, also a frequent collaborator of DiCillo, plays Nicole, an actress who isn't sure she should be an actor. Reve attempts (and repeatedly fails) to nail down worthy cinematic moments. However, the takes are dream sequences and not reality at all.
In a meta, a self-deprecating reflection of his process and experience, DiCillo's film could have been a lesson in insanity if it wasn't so humorous. Shot-assassinating boom mikes, vomiting crew members, and inflamed egos didn't prevent Keener's Nicole from delivering impassioned lines, take after ruined take. Even after the novelty of the dream sequences started to wear thin, Keener continued to explore Nicole's inner depth.
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'Being John Malkovich' (1999)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.07
An unemployed puppeteer, Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), takes a temp job on the 7 1/2 floor of an office building in Manhattan and accidentally discovers a porthole in John Malkovich's head. In this unique screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich became a cult hit, spotlighting Keener's role as the perpetually unimpressed Maxine. Unsatisfied with his life and his wife Lottie (an almost unrecognizable Cameron Diaz), Craig embarks on a bizarre money-making scheme -- charging entry into John Malkovich -- as well as a love triangle with the icy Maxine.
Nominated for An Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1999 for her portrayal of Maxine, Keener summoned her inner femme fatale. She played with Craig's emotions as if he were one of his puppet creations; she was the puppetmaster. In a surprising plot twist (for 1999), Maxine falls for Lottie, and the once cold and prickly Maxine finds herself in a meta-love labyrinth, heartsick and betrothed to Malkovich. Keener's innate communion with the ensemble and presence were unforgettable in one of the most original and peculiar movies ever made.
Being John Malkovich
Release Date 1999-10-29
Director Spike Jonze
Cast Orson Bean, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich, Mary Kay Place, John Cusack, Catherine Keener
Rating R
Runtime 113
'Get Out' (2017)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.16
In Jordan Peele's horror masterpiece, Get Out, a young black photographer, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), accompanies his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), to her parent's suburban home. The Armitages, Dean (Bradley Whitford), a neurologist, and Missy (Keener), a hypnotherapist, haven't been forewarned about Chris' race but seem friendly enough. The family hosts an annual garden party featuring nearly a dozen upper-class white guests, and slowly, through subtle context clues and slightly off members of the house staff, Chris begins to sense that something is amiss.
Ordinary objects become terrifying totems, as the sound of a delicate teaspoon lazily circling the rim of an ornate teacup can stir the nerves after viewing Get Out. The monotonous wielder of this innocuous weapon? Keener's Missy Armitage, gatekeeper of "The Sunken Place." Something profoundly frightening occurs when actors often associated with their comedic prowess break bad and go dark: it's confusing and, subsequently, scarier. Perhaps for this reason, Missy is chilling, armed only with a tea set and deadpan delivery, suspending time and audiences with her words.
Get Out
Release Date 2017-02-24
Director Jordan Peele
Cast Caleb Landry Jones, Bradley Whitford, Marcus Henderson, Daniel Kaluuya, Catherine Keener, Allison Williams
Rating R
Runtime 103
'Synecdoche, New York' (2008)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.19
Synecdoche, New York is another example of filmmaking genius that benefited from the inclusion of Keener. Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, the film was either heralded as a "masterpiece" by Roger Ebert or wholly ridiculous and self-indulgent. Once again, sharing the frame with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Keener plays his first wife, Adele, a miniature portrait artist. Saddled with the monotony of domestic life and no longer able to cope with her husband's constant mysterious maladies and hypochondria, Adele leaves Caden (Hoffman) and takes their child to Berlin.â
An existential work worthy of scholarly analysis, a light rom-com Synecdoche, New York is not. Having worked with Kaufman before (Being John Malkovich), Keener skipped orientation, dove straight into the role of Adele, and grabbed a paintbrush and magnifying glasses. Though Caden primarily experiences Adele through artistic accolades and gallery shows, Keener transforms the artist into a flamboyant snob. No character in the film is one thing -- nor is there one person in Kaufman's opus -- Keener's work as Adele reflects this idea. She's an elastic performer, a prerequisite for this Goliath artistic vision, and an iconic indie darling.
Synecdoche, New York
Release Date 2008-10-24
Director Charlie Kaufman
Cast Charles Techman, Sadie Goldstein, Peter Friedman, Tom Noonan, Catherine Keener, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Rating R
Runtime 124
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