Christina Applegate gives broad comedy someone credible to push against, and we value her sharp timing. Our reservation is with the writing: Anchorman makes good use of her while allowing the men far more mischief.
Fi1m perspective
In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Christina Applegate’s Veronica Corningstone looks capable of doing a day’s work. Will Ferrell’s pompous newsreader and his colleagues make that seem an unusual qualification. Applegate keeps Veronica credible without letting her disappear among the men, giving their stupidity someone to inconvenience. We laughed at her persistence in behaving like a working adult, because it makes the surrounding nonsense look even sillier. She gives the scenes something to play against without stopping them to explain the joke.
Her breakthrough was Kelly Bundy in Married... with Children (1987–1997), followed by lead television roles in Jesse (1998–2000) and Samantha Who? (2007–2009). Film comedies ran alongside that work, with Anchorman giving her a particularly clear assignment as the ambitious news anchor opposite Ferrell. She developed her improvisational skills on the film, despite having the part that most needs to remain plausible. Her control should not be mistaken for a reluctance to join in.
Director Adam McKay lets Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and David Koechner wander into digressions that need scarcely justify themselves as story. We enjoy enough of those detours to forgive the loose construction, but the distribution of comic freedom is uneven. Applegate is required to keep Veronica plausible while the others can become as peculiar as they please. The writing gives her less room to surprise us, and no amount of good timing can quite correct that. We would happily lose some of the men’s wandering for more of her.
A later turn towards darker comedy came with Jen Harding in Dead to Me (2019–2022), which Applegate also executive-produced. It gave her more scope for dramatic work after an earlier career weighted towards lighter roles. That was a welcome development, though we would not treat serious material as a promotion out of comedy. Start with Anchorman: Ferrell gets the larger share of the foolishness, but there is plenty of pleasure in watching Applegate deal with him.
Biography
Christina Applegate is an American actress. She began her career as a child performer and gained recognition for playing Kelly Bundy in the Fox sitcom Married... with Children (1987–1997).
She has appeared in numerous films and television series. Her film credits include Veronica Corningstone in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) and its 2013 sequel, as well as roles in Bad Moms (2016) and voice performances in the Alvin and the Chipmunks films. On television she has starred in Jesse (1998–2000), Samantha Who? (2007–2009), Up All Night (2011–2012) and Dead to Me (2019–2022). Applegate won a Primetime Emmy Award for a guest role in Friends and received a Tony Award nomination for the 2005 Broadway revival of Sweet Charity.
