Shawnee Smith’s comic timing deserves as much attention as her horror work. We value the vulnerability she brings to Amanda Young, but her bickering with Tobin Bell in Saw X is a particular pleasure: ordinary irritation makes frightening people more convincing.
Fi1m perspective
In Saw X (2023), Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell disagree over logistics while somebody screams in the next room. Smith’s Amanda Young treats this as a working arrangement, complete with disputes about responsibility. We laughed because their quarrels over who does what sound so familiar, even in these circumstances. It is a sharp use of an actor whose comic timing can be overlooked when her best-known role involves so much suffering.
Her horror work did not begin with Saw: she played Meg Penny in The Blob (1988). The other useful starting point is Becker (1998–2004), with Smith as the receptionist Linda opposite Ted Danson. That six-season sitcom role matters when considering the ease of her exchanges with Bell. It also makes the usual emphasis on horror seem a rather incomplete account of what she does.
Saw (2004) brought wider recognition, and Amanda became the recurring part that defined Smith’s reputation. In that film and Saw III (2006), vulnerability and intensity are central to her performance. We value the vulnerability in particular, because sustained distress needs a person attached to it if it is to remain affecting. The return in Saw X gives more space to Amanda’s relationship with Bell’s John Kramer. But an account of Smith that stops at Amanda leaves a substantial stretch of television comedy unexplained.
The pleasure of Saw X is watching Smith and Bell play their partnership as a small business. The humour comes from taking the work seriously enough to argue about it, and their shared scenes give a ponderous film some welcome briskness. The film still stretches revenge into a lecture, and her performance cannot shorten the running time. That is a limit of the material, not a reason to overlook Smith’s contribution. Give her more people to argue with.
Biography
Shawnee Smith is an American actress and singer. She began her career as a child, making her feature film debut in Annie (1982) and appearing on stage in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1984), for which she received a Drama-Logue Critics Award.
She played the recurring role of Linda on the sitcom Becker (1998–2004) and later Jennifer Goodson on Anger Management (2012–2014). Smith is best known for portraying Amanda Young in the Saw franchise, appearing in Saw (2004), Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Saw VI (2009) and Saw X (2023). She also hosted the first season of the VH1 series Scream Queens (2008).
Smith has appeared in other films including The Blob (1988) and The Grudge 3 (2009), and has performed with rock bands including Fydolla Ho and Smith & Pyle.
