Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticBryan Cranston has played his share of fuddy-duddy straight arrows, and when you see him in “Jerry & Marge Go Large,” you may just think, “Oh, he’s doing it again.” But Cranston is too fine an actor to merely phone in another nerd.
As Jerry Selbee, a cereal-factory middle manager in Evart, Michigan, who’s getting ready to begin his (forced) retirement, Cranston wears big wire-frame glasses, the kind of short-sleeve plaid shirts that come in shades of lavatory yellow-green, and a bristly conservative haircut that lends him a droid-like reserve.
The character is every bit as wholesome, square, and aw-shucks genial as he looks. Cranston makes him a dry-voiced dweeb without edges or demons; he might be George H.W.
Bush’s mild-mannered Midwestern cousin. Then again, we know there’s got to be some dimension to the guy or Bryan Cranston wouldn’t be playing him.
Read more on variety.com