Jessica Chastain

Celia Foote could easily have stayed as broad as the writing in The Help (2011). Jessica Chastain gives her a vulnerability that the script does not always earn. We were moved by Celia because Chastain finds private feeling beneath that broad characterisation. It is a supporting performance worth seeking out, with the caveat that Tate Taylor's drama is much less perceptive than some of its actors.

The performance belonged to her 2011 breakthrough, when six films included The Help, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011) and Take Shelter (2011). Zero Dark Thirty (2012) then put her resolve and intensity at the centre as the CIA analyst Maya. The determined, highly intelligent woman became familiar casting for her, with Aaron Sorkin's Molly's Game (2017) giving her verbal dexterity a further outlet. It is understandable casting, though it risks making diligence look like the whole of her talent.

Interstellar (2014) placed her in Christopher Nolan's space adventure as Murph. We rate the film more highly than The Help: its family separation earns the emotion, although the explanations are overworked and the music sometimes overbearing. Matthew McConaughey is central to that success. For an introduction to Chastain herself, we would still choose Celia, where the value of her contribution is easier to isolate.

The limitation is a tendency towards correctness, particularly when the role asks chiefly for intelligence and determination. Too much control can leave us waiting for an unplanned response. In The Help, Octavia Spencer's Minny Jackson brings sharp comic timing and makes the shifts between humour and hurt less laboured. Chastain's vulnerability works well beside it, giving us another reason to care about people the writing has drawn too broadly. There is no need for every new part to prove how formidable she can be.