Her Best Role Yet

Emma Thompson won Oscars for her work in Howards End and Sense and Sensibility — very dignified stuff. Yet Thompson's performances always have an appealing lightness. She is one of the world's best actresses, but she is also game, smart, funny and self-deprecating enough to know that neither she nor her work need be taken too seriously. And if one measure of movie greatness is how a star acquits herself in the worst piffle, then Thompson is a giant. Take Junior, her 1994 collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger, now California's governor. Emma and Arnie starred in a movie built on the cringeworthy...