Brooke Elliott is good at making ordinary worries worth our attention. Her warmth helps sustain Sweet Magnolias when its drama thins out, though we would welcome material that asked a little more of her.
Fi1m perspective
In Sweet Magnolias (2020), Brooke Elliott’s Dana Sue Sullivan takes her friends’ problems seriously. Alongside Joanna Garcia as Maddie Townsend and Heather Headley as Helen Decatur, she gives ordinary worries enough weight to hold our attention. The affection is open, and the programme does not insist on a joke whenever its characters care for one another. We recommend it for these three women, though the drama around them can be slight.
Elliott came to television leads through musical theatre, including Broadway roles in Taboo (2003) and The Pirate Queen (2007). Drop Dead Diva (2009) gave her the breakthrough role of Jane Bingum, which she played across six seasons. That part brought together comedy, drama and questions of body image. Her work has continued to include singing, but it is the ability to move between humour and seriousness that matters most to her television leads.
We felt soothed by Sweet Magnolias because Elliott, Garcia and Headley give everyday problems their attention without waiting for them to become emergencies. It would be misleading to credit Elliott alone: the appeal depends on all three women seeming worth the others’ time. Her work here makes a case for an actor being valuable without having to dominate the company. When the story is slight, their mutual concern is still something we want to watch.
The trouble is how often the programme’s comfort limits the drama. Giving an ordinary problem proper attention should still allow it to be difficult, and Sweet Magnolias can seem too determined to keep the evening agreeable. Elliott helps sustain our interest, but liking Dana Sue and her friends is sometimes doing work that the writing ought to do. Start here for the pleasure of the ensemble; do not expect its warmth to supply all the missing bite.
Biography
Brooke Elliott is an American actress and singer. She was born on 16 November 1974 in Fridley, Minnesota, and graduated with a BFA in Musical Theatre Performance from Western Michigan University in 1998.
Elliott began her career in musical theatre, appearing in the US tours of Beauty and the Beast and Wicked, and in the Broadway productions of Taboo and The Pirate Queen. Her screen debut came in the 2000 film What Women Want. She is known for her leading role as Jane Bingum in the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva (2009–2014) and as Dana Sue Sullivan in the Netflix series Sweet Magnolias (2020–present).
