Welcome to this year’s edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, where we will break down each of the 23 categories, analyze the films, and make some guesses at their awards prospects.
Best Supporting Actress
The nominees are:
Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple
America Ferrara in Barbie
Jodie Foster in Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers
Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer
Blunt is a very talented actress who has been very good in a lot of things. I am a particular fan of her take on Mary Poppins, and I think she’s pretty pivotal to the success of Looper. So, I don’t begrudge her any accolades or recognition. That said, this is a bad performance and, along with the terrible way Kitty Oppenheimer is written, the worst part of an otherwise fabulous movie. We’ve seen the long-suffering wife of a great man in movies countless times. In a fun twist, this time, she’s a drunk, and Blunt plays the character’s alcoholism in the most paint-by-numbers way possible. It’s like drunk wife bingo.
There’s been a lot of talk about the “great scene” when she turns the tables on the lawyer attempting to railroad her husband in the kangaroo court that forms much of the spine of the movie. I don’t see it. Her victory, if that’s what you want to call it, is pedantic and petty. She calls him out on a point of grammar, which okay, is kind of fun, but there’s no substance there. We’ve been building to this moment, and it just fizzles out.
This is Blunt’s first Academy Award nomination, and as a flashy role in a major Oscar player, it makes sense. With four individual film nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, her peers obviously like and appreciate her work. So, it stands to reason that she’ll make it back to the big show, hopefully for work more befitting her talents next time.
Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple
If you watched Orange Is the New Black back in the early days of Netflix getting into original series, then you were already aware that Brooks has the goods. For everyone else, let The Color Purple serve as your notice. This is a performer we’re going to be talking about for a long time. Brooks brings to the screen her Tony-nominated work as Sofia in this musical adaptation of the Alice Walker novel. Brooks also won a Grammy for the role originated by Oprah Winfrey in the Steven Spielberg film from 1985.
Brooks’ Sofia is full of passion and fire and humanity, and damn can she sing. When she busts out “Hell No!” you just want to stand up and shout along with her. This is a major talent doing starmaking work, and one hopes this nomination leads to more of the kinds of roles she deserves.
America Ferrera in Barbie
From her screen debut in the wonderful Real Women Have Curves to her Emmy-winning work on Ugly Betty to today, Ferrera has been an absolute force in the industry. She has used her platform to lift up fellow Latinx performers, to speak out on national political issues, and to be a voice for women in the industry. She brings all of this intelligence and fearlessness to the role of Gloria in Barbie.
When she delivers the big monologue toward the end of the film, we know she comes by these thoughts and feelings honestly, and the film is better for that knowledge. Her speech about the expectations placed on women in modern society has been much praised, discussed, and debated. Only a great speech can stand up to so much scrutiny, and only a great performer can make a great speech work this well.
Jodie Foster in Nyad
It has been 29 years since Foster’s last Academy Award nomination, which came for Nell in 1994. Before that, she had already won two Best Actress statues, for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and The Accused in 1988. And, of course, there’s her Supporting Actress nomination for Taxi Driver at the age of 13 in 1976. She’s a brilliant performer and talented multihyphenate who has had one of the most enviable careers in Hollywood.
And, you know what? She’s pretty damn good in Nyad, a movie built solely to showcase the performances of two remarkable actresses (we’ll get to Annette Bening later on in this series). Nyad is a mid-tier inspirational sports drama that falls into a category of something I call “do as I say, not as I do” movies. This is any movie where the main character is presented as an inspirational figure for doing something that is objectively ill-advised. See also: Free Solo and this year’s The Deepest Breath.
Foster plays Bonnie Stoll, the friend who coached Diana Nyad in her attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida – do as I say, not as I do – and their relationship is the heart of the movie. Foster plays Stoll as a strong, intelligent woman who will only take so much of her friend’s crap. It is a necessary counterpoint to the single-minded determination of Bening’s Nyad. There are supporting performances I liked better this year, but it’s hard to be too upset about Foster making it back to the dance.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers
I have covered some years with juggernauts, just unbeatable performances that immediately announced themselves as that year’s Oscar winner and never looked back. Helen Mirren in The Queen comes to mind as the slam dunk of all slam dunks. Well, to stick with the basketball metaphor, here’s your 2023 Slam Dunk Contest winner.
The second Randolph shows up on screen as Mary in The Holdovers, we understand fully everything we need to know about this woman. Randolph gives her a spark of life and truth. She feels real, so we invest in her story, and Randolph’s performance pays off that investment tenfold. I thought she deserved to be nominated back in 2019 for her lovely performance in Dolemite Is My Name, but sometimes, it’s hard to break through. This performance is the definition of a breakthrough, and it’s about time.
The final analysis
You may have noticed this year I am not digging into the stats and the history as much as I have in past years, particularly with the acting categories. Well, some years, the writing is on the wall, and you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Randolph has won every conceivable award up to this point. There is no runner up. She will have her moment in the sun.
Will win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers
Should win: Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple
Should have been here: Claire Foy in All of Us Strangers
A note about my favorite snub: One of the absolute best scenes of the year is when the main character in Andrew Haigh’s queer romance comes out to his mother, played by Claire Foy. The mom loves her son, but she is a woman of her time, so she is filled with fear, confusion, concern, and even a little bit of disgust. Foy embodies all of this beautifully, never stepping wrong in a sequence that plays like two performers waltzing through a field of landmines. It could all blow up at any time. That it doesn’t is a testament to Foy, as well as her scene partner, whom we’ll get to soon.
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