Lake Bell

Lake Bell gives us someone else to watch while Tim Robinson’s Ron dominates The Chair Company (2025). As Barb Trosper, she keeps the supporting cast from feeling like people lined up to be overwhelmed by him. We were relieved to have her there: Ron’s discomfort can become exhausting, and Barb gives us someone else worth attending to. She is doing a supporting actor’s job properly, in a comedy that could easily forget it needs anyone beyond its lead.

The early work did not always offer that opportunity. Boston Legal (2004–2006), in which she played Sally Heep, established her on television, while films such as What Happens in Vegas (2008) put her in more conventional comic supporting parts. Those roles are a limited guide to what interests her as a performer. The more revealing turn is In a World... (2013), her feature writing-and-directing debut, in which she also plays Carol Solomon.

That film’s subject, voice-over work, makes sense for an actor with a sustained interest in voice and dialect. Bell’s comic timing and physical comedy are strengths; we would pay as much attention to what she does with her voice. Her animation work includes Chloe in The Secret Life of Pets (2016). Co-creating and starring in Bless This Mess (2019–2020) gave her another opportunity to help shape the comedy she performed.

In The Chair Company, the writing team, including Robinson and Zach Kanin, supplies dialogue precise enough to make the awkward encounters more than a succession of complaints. Bell helps those exchanges work by giving us an interest in someone beyond Ron. Some scenes still prolong the embarrassment beyond the joke, and her presence cannot solve that problem. It is a reservation about a programme we recommend, rather than about her place in it. For Bell choosing the words as well as saying them, try In a World....