I find myself disturbed, annoyed, perplexed by Betty. She is written and played in ways that break all rules of 'leading lady' handling. She is not always sympathetic, she's portrayed as consciously, almost purposefully shallow and devoid of a single thought outside her own small claustrophobic world ... and them bam, we see her knocked for a loop, sometimes self-induced, often from outside -- and working hard to hold onto sanit and some personal integrity.
And I think Jones masterfully underplays her -- as beautiful as she is, there's no attempt to turn the role into a traditional young star turn. Even the glamour is muted -- never the type that distracts. The sometimes babyish voice, the blankness, the sustained silences -- it all adds up to a groundbreaking view of a suburban woman losing her grip and terrified she is totally alone and rudderless.
If she's a distant cousin of the role Julianne Moore portrayed in FAR FROM HEAVEN, she's tonally in a different world. She's almost humorless, and often without much empathy for others. Fascinating! I never know what she'll do -- the episode where she took her rifle outside? And the broken dining room chair? A boldly original character who might've been a mere stereotype. But that's an insult to Wiener; he works hard to keep all the women separate and distinctive and entirely unpredictable.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
