Susan Sarandon

In Blue Beetle (2023), Susan Sarandon's Victoria Kord discusses turning the scarab into a business opportunity with the ease of someone making a routine purchase. She wants armoured soldiers to sell, and sees no need to sound troubled about it. We enjoyed the casualness of her menace: the voice stays pleasantly matter-of-fact while the ambition is ugly. The writing gives her a straightforward corporate villain, but she finds comedy in how unremarkable the whole arrangement seems to Victoria.

Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) brought her early attention; Sally Matthews in Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980) followed. Her recurring role is the woman who can stand her ground, with Louise Sawyer in Thelma & Louise (1991) an obvious example. In Dead Man Walking (1995), Sister Helen Prejean, a nun counselling a death-row inmate, gives that firmness a difficult purpose. The performance's emotional directness is a better measure of what she offers than any account of how many genres she has worked in.

The later career has included fewer leading roles, and Blue Beetle shows how much she can still contribute in support. Mayes C. Rubeo dresses Sarandon in ivory against the Kord offices, which Pawel Pogorzelski lights in blue and violet. The contrast makes her conspicuous without requiring her to raise her voice, and her relaxed delivery suits a woman accustomed to getting what she wants. Ángel Manuel Soto's film gives the Reyes family most of its warmth, but Sarandon ensures that their corporate opponent has at least a little wit.

The trouble is how little else Victoria gets. Selling armoured soldiers remains almost everything the film gives her to think about, and Sarandon's delivery cannot make that sufficient. We would not recommend Blue Beetle for her alone, even if she makes the Kord scenes better company than they might have been. Start with Dead Man Walking if you want a part that asks more of her.