Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Fresh off her Best Actress Oscar win for Monster, Charlize Theron decided to join the low-rated Fox comedy Arrested Development to play Rita, a mentally challenged British woman who liked to wear her clothes inside out and jump on beds for fun. You know, as Oscar winners do. But it turned out to be one of the show’s absolute greatest achievements.
The five episodes she spent on the first half of season 3 were totally weird. Let’s just state the obvious there. It gave Arrested Development its chance to do a bizarro Bond scenario that ended up delivering some of the smartest and silliest jokes of the show’s entire run. And most important, her appearance was a total win-win for the show and for her: she got to show off her comedic chops, and the show got some major credibility (well, despite the fact that they were cancelled by Fox at the end of the season). The quirky comedy remains a playground for the who’s who of comedy players, but rarely welcomed guests so game, especially of Theron’s caliber.
As the gorgeous, British gal named Rita, Theron dropped her serious actor side in favor of a seemingly ridiculous woman-child that kept you guessing until she really, really didn’t. Turns out, she wasn’t some slick spy, or Olympian, or a woman simply playing hard to get: she’s a MRF, and not a Mr. F, but a mentally retarded female. That’s right, once the big reveal is made that she’s mentally challenged, it all clicks into place. If it’s been a minute since you’ve enjoyed season 3 of Arrested Development, you’ll be happy to know that the not-always-PC program actually wasn’t as inappropriate in handling this storyline as you might expect.
This is partially due to the fact that Theron embraced the role so damn hard that she dissolved right into it. You would have to frequently remind yourself that you were in fact staring at Oscar winner Charlize Theron with an animal backpack on. Very few other actresses could pull off such a clashy wardrobe in a way that makes it seem…fashionable? And for such an athletic actress, one that’s never afraid to kick ass in her films, she expertly applied those skills to her physical comedy here, from rolling down hills to skipping around to awkwardly clapping, and especially in the scenes that called for her to take a giant bite out of plastic fruit. Theron seamlessly switched gears from a shy gal to a tantrum-throwing diva, in a role that also let her get her own AD-themed blue paint joke in. And for the record, the joke that includes flashing an image of her Monster character, is one of the all-time greatest references the show has made.
But what the role of Rita truly excelled at was pointing out the fact that Michael (Jason Bateman) was as stupid and clueless as all the rest of his family members. Oh, and they aren’t the only ones: we’re all a bit dumb when it comes to aggressively attractive people. But he really only saw what he wanted to see. The real doozy of the situation is that the rest of the Bluth clan seem to be thinking clearly and wisely in the moment — this gal sure did turn things upside down. Rita also afforded George Michael (Michael Cera) one of the first opportunities to truly stand up to his father, to break the news of Rita’s disability and insist that he wasn’t being unsupportive, but rather factual.
Theron was exceptionally fun in Arrested Development, and it’s a wonder that we haven’t seen her take more breaks from driving fast cars and kicking butts to return to quality comedy. But for this appearance, Arrested Development very much earned their golden-wrapped chocolate star.
