she was not a good actress.
The Fearmakers Blog
https://thefearmakers.blogspot.com/

She's also in Downton Abbey, if you want to see what she's doing these days.

She's wonderful in "Ordinary People" and she was decent in "A Shock to the System" which is a fun movie with Michael Caine anyway. And "Racing With The Moon" isn't a very great movie, but she's beautiful in it. I think she does have a detached way about her, but not in "Ordinary People". Check out some of her older stuff.

Yeah, I don't recall seeing her in other movies, but she seemed pretty bland as an actress in this. She never sold me on being in love with Kevin Bacon, and maybe that's mostly the scripts fault, but she did nothing else noteworthy imo.
I would like to see her in another starring role, just to see if she has more charisma than this.

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That was intentional, look at the way the unmarried people their age are portrayed - drunk, rude, selfish, a little lost. Look at Elizabeth McGovern's matronly hair cut and unflattering clothes - she dressed like a middle-aged woman in her early twenties. She begrudgingly went to a club (not that everyone has to like clubs, but they were young with no kids and never went out, hung out only with older neighbors etc). She is there to "make" Jeff grow up (like working full-time, buying a house, and mowing your lawn every Sunday isn't sufficiently adult, you also need to spend countless hours arguing with your spouse about interior decorating to REALLY cement that maturity).
I don't know, I kind of wanted to run off to NYC with Alec Baldwin lol.
They're coming to get you, Barbara!

I think she was chosen for the role because she's just beautfiul. Both she and Kevin Bacon look so young and fresh and ATTRACTIVE in this movie. Other women tend to look kind of slutty in comparison to Elizabeth McGovern in this film.

I can see what you mean about the writing and I do get that the movie is from his POV and focuses in him but that aside the actress just seems creepy and weird and even when they do show her in scenes she is oddly devoid of any emotion or expression at all.
It wasn't me who was murdered, was it?

I think that this all falls on the writing. The entire film is driven by Jake/Kevin Bacon, and that it was purposely unfocused on Elizabeth McGovern's character.
I admit, I do wish that there could have been at least one instance in the film of Kristy's point-of-view, but then again, it wasn't "WE'RE Having a Baby."

Yeah, what a horrible wife she wasshe supported him uncomplainingly, working
overtime so he could try to work on his writing, even though they were struggling
on just one salary. She always defended him to her domineering, opinionated father
(even when the father had a point). She did her best to make meals for him (and
got sarcastic comments in return). She put up with her husband's creepy friend
and his nasty, boorish girlfriend (not very well, but then who
could
stand
having those two sleep over?). She had to put up with Davis' putting the moves on
her, but refrained from making a huge stink out of it in order to protect her
husband's feelings (meanwhile, the husband was having fantasies about another
woman). She was better than Jeff deserved.
I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!
Hewwo.

Glad it's not just me. I found everything about her very, very odd.
It wasn't me who was murdered, was it?

Haha! I'm currently watching the movie for the first time myself and wondering the same thing.