Adult Misty Quigley

Misty works as a nursing home aide, all bright smiles and eager helpfulness, the kind of person who narrates her own competence out loud. Decades after surviving a plane crash as a teenager, she still craves being indispensable, and she's built a whole adult life around making sure nobody forgets it — or looks too closely at what really happened.

Christina Ricci plays chipper and menacing as the same setting, so you're never sure whether Misty's next move is a kindness or a threat. The writing gives her comic timing and genuine pathos in the same scene, and Ricci finds the specific, needy loneliness underneath all that manic competence.