Olivia Cooke

Opposite Robin Wright in The Girlfriend (2025), Olivia Cooke does not let a confrontation become a solo performance. As Cherry Laine, she supplies enough resistance to make the quarrel feel like a contest, even when the next clash is easy to predict. We enjoyed watching them face each other because Cooke gives Wright someone to contend with, rather than merely someone to overwhelm. It is good, limited melodrama, and their performances make it worth following.

Her breakthrough was Emma Decody in Bates Motel (2013–2017), before film roles such as Rachel Kushner in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) and Lou in Sound of Metal (2019). Those character-led films matter to our view of her as much as the larger productions do. Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One (2018) took her into a blockbuster, while Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon (2022–) brought greater television prominence. Her frequent casting as women who divide loyalties makes sense. Alicent is a clear example of her ability to make a divisive woman understandable without asking us to endorse her.

In The Girlfriend, the shifting viewpoints give that ability something practical to do. Behaviour that looks straightforward in one woman's account becomes less certain in the other's, and Cooke makes the reassessment worth our attention. She need not turn Cherry into someone we approve of for us to be interested in her version of events. This is where we rate her most: keeping a character worth watching while leaving us free to object to her.

There are limits to what that can achieve when the writing repeats itself. Once The Girlfriend has taught us to expect another account, the changes of viewpoint become less rewarding, while thin supporting characters leave Wright and Cooke carrying too much. The increasingly outlandish behaviour also makes their work harder to believe. Start with The Girlfriend for the pleasure of two actors pushing back against each other, but do not expect Cooke to make every escalation convincing.