If your only experience of the remarkable Aubrey Plaza is from watching her on Netflix as the devastatingly sarcastic April Ludgate in "Parks & Recreation," you have a pleasant surprise awaiting you. As good as she was playing a perpetually irritated, somewhat mean spirited Millennial in a network comedy, she has vastly more range at her disposal than you might suspect. Though her roles are often at least distantly comedic -- check out Jeff Baena's "The Little Hours," in which she plays a nun in the middle ages who's fascinated with the palace intrigue of her convent -- she is quite capable of digging deeper into emotional dregs. If you need to be further convinced, her considerable abilities are never more on display than here, in Lawerence Michael Levine's meta-within-meta film "Black Bear," in which she plays a striking pair of character variations in virtually the same breath.
If your only experience of the remarkable Aubrey Plaza is from watching her on Netflix as the devastatingly sarcastic April Ludgate in "Parks & Recreation," you have a pleasant surprise awaiting you. As good as she was playing a perpetually irritated, somewhat mean spirited Millennial in a network comedy, she has vastly more range at her disposal than you might suspect. Though her roles are often at least distantly comedic -- check out Jeff Baena's The Little Hours, in which she plays a nun in the middle ages who's fascinated with the palace intrigue of her convent -- she is quite capable of digging deeper into emotional dregs. If you need to be further convinced, her considerable abilities are never more on display than here, in Lawerence Michael Levine's meta-within-meta film "Black Bear," in which she plays a striking pair of character variations in virtually the same breath.
