Monday Miniatures: Horrors, Both Real and Imagined

Welcome to Monday Miniatures, where I tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been watching in the past week that I wouldn’t otherwise get to share.

The week of Sept. 8-15, 2025:

Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou

How I watched it: Rented DVD from Vidiots

I remember vividly when this film came out in the U.S., having been delayed two years by Miramax. Quentin Tarantino, with close ties to Miramax, lent his name to the marketing, and my high school buddy and I were instantly drawn in by that. “Quentin Tarantino presents Hero” really meant something to a couple of 16-year-old boys. We talked about wanting to see it but never did make it to the theater.

Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower was the first movie I saw after I moved to college. It was playing at the local theater the week before classes started freshman year, so I went and saw it, then brought home a postcard-sized version of the poster to sit on my desk for the rest of the year. I thought the movie was just okay, but I liked having a souvenir from my first cinema experience in a new land.

Now that I have finally seen Hero after 21 years of dragging my feet, what did I think? It was fine. There are some interesting storytelling choices and the production design, like all of Yimou’s films, is gorgeous. But, let’s be honest, everyone’s here for the fight scenes, and as beautifully rendered as they are (with the exception of those corny CGI arrows), they’re a little same-y and wire fu has never much appealed to me anyway. I also feel the film is a little politically muddled and much prefer the director’s more potent character study, Raise the Red Lantern.

Escape Room, directed by Will Wernick

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

I may have mentioned it on the site before, and if you follow these Monday Miniatures columns long enough, you will start to see a pattern emerge. One of my can’t-sleep, go-to moves is low-budget indie horror. They’re usually short, they’re engaging enough, and sometimes you find a gem. This one, sadly, is not a gem.

Credit where credit is due, as Wernick was at least at the forefront of the trend of late 2010s movies about people trapped in dastardly escape rooms. These include the cleverly titled Escape Room (that’s this movie), Escape Room (2017, which came out the same year as this movie but stars Skeet Ulrich apparently), Escape Room (2019, the big-budget one you might be familiar with), No Escape Room (which despite its title is, in fact, about an escape room), and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (a sequel to the 2019 one). That’s just to name a few.

I understand the appeal of the premise: trap a bunch of people on a spectrum of likable to unlikable in a puzzle box and kill them in amusing ways. Yet, somehow, none of these movies is very good, though I haven’t seen the Skeet Ulrich one. Saw pretty much got there first a full decade-plus before and didn’t need a hipster trend to attach itself to in order to stay afloat.

This movie at least gets points for having a believable-seeming escape room setup, not like the stunningly elaborate rooms of some other films. All of the characters are unlikable, and the acting isn’t great to boot, so when the deaths get going in the second half, despite a couple clever setups (again, ripped straight from the Saw franchise), none of it really matters much. Actress Elisabeth Hower gets the worst of it, spending 70 percent of the film fully nude for exactly zero reason.

A Cry in the Dark, directed by Fred Schepisi

How I watched it: Rented DVD from Vidiots

I knew what this movie was about, and I knew the iconic line, mostly from Seinfeld. Still, I was unprepared for the cognitive dissonance required to reconcile the American need to mock a funny accent (“Maybe, the dingo ate your baby.”) and the shattering reality of this story. It’s about an Australian couple who swear up and down that their infant daughter was killed by a dingo during a camping trip and a nation that would rather brand them murderers and how their story plays out in the media of the time.

I believe that Sam Neil, due to the Jurassic Park franchise, is underrated as an actor, and in this, he delivers an absolutely stellar performance as a pastor trying to reconcile his faith with both the death of his daughter and the torturous way his story plays out for all the world to see. Meryl Streep – very good, Oscar nominated, decidedly neither Australian nor Kiwi, as the real Lindy Chamberlain was – plays the mother accused of slitting the throat of her 3-month-old baby.

I had never heard of Schepisi, though he’s done a number of popular films, some of which I’ve even seen, and I would not say the direction is this film’s strong suit. It’s paced too slowly and takes way too long to get to the most interesting part of the story. That would be the trial that takes up this film’s final act, and I will say the courtroom sequences are well handled.

What is most shocking about this film, nearly 40 years on, is how little has changed in regard to the way we treat the accused, particularly women and even more particularly those accused of murdering their children. The world wants perfect victims, perfect mothers, perfect sorrow, and anyone who does not fit this impossible standard is judged guilty in the public sphere long before they get their day in court. Anatomy of a Fall made this point quite clearly just recently, and it is disappointing how far we have not come. If anything, in the age of social media, it has only gotten worse.

Galaxy Quest, directed by Dean Parisot

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

I had seen this film a couple of times before, so this time, I watched it with commentary provided by the Blank Check with Griffin and David podcast. It remains an eminently watchable sci-fi spoof that is, admittedly, a little lost on me as someone who can count on one hand the number of Star Trek episodes I have seen from any series. I’ve not seen a single episode of The Original Series. I believe I’ve seen seven of the 13 movies – the first two Kirks, the last two Picards, and all three of the reboot series.

I don’t think you have to be a Star Trek expert to enjoy this movie, but it probably helps. The characters are pretty closely mapped onto those of The Original Series, and Tim Allen is doing a pretty clear William Shatner impression. Politics aside, it’s interesting Allen was never able to parlay his fame into a movie career outside of the Santa Clause series because he is quite good in this. Then, of course, you look at his résumé of films, and it’s possible he doesn’t have the best taste in projects. Remember Redbelt, though? That was good.

The Grey Zone, directed by Tim Blake Nelson

How I watched it: Criterion Channel

This is a tremendous piece of work that feels quite underseen and underdiscussed. There is one tragic flaw in it that keeps it from being a masterpiece, but other than that, this is a morally complex, handsomely mounted Holocaust film that deserves more respect and a wider audience.

Adapted from Nelson’s own play, itself based on a memoir by a Jewish doctor at Auschwitz, the film explores the personal conflicts and inner turmoil of the Sonderkommando, Jewish prisoners selected to aid in the execution of their fellow internees. It covers similar territory to the 2015 Best International Feature winner Son of Saul. Both films deal exquisitely with the moral and ethical dilemmas facing these prisoners. 

If they don’t do it, someone else will, but that doesn’t make it right. Is it murder if you don’t pull the trigger yourself? Each man has his own line that he will not cross, and what makes The Grey Zone such a rewarding experience is the way we come to discover where each man or woman draws his or her line.

The performances by the cast are uniformly excellent with a single exception: David Arquette, who tries his damnedest but is not up to the task assigned to him. Making matters worse, he shares scenes with a then-relatively unknown Michael Stuhlbarg, who has five to 10 lines in the movie and absolutely knocks it out of the park. Swap those two roles and I think you have a nearly perfect movie.

The Long Walk, directed by Francis Lawrence

How I watched it: In theaters (AMC Burbank 16)

For my full thoughts on this excellent film, check out my in-depth review posted here. In brief, this is a thrilling, timely story, well directed by Lawrence and with superb performances by the entire cast. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are particular standouts in a movie that is unrelentingly bleak and brutal but with a purpose. 

Drifting Clouds, directed by Aki Kaurismaki

Rocky VI, directed by Aki Kaurismaki

How I watched them: Criterion Channel

Checking in once again with my favorite Finnish master, Kaurismaki’s Drifting Clouds is another beautiful little dark comedy about getting beaten down by the world, dusting yourself off, and trying again. I thought this movie was lovely, and the leads, Kati Outinen and Kari Väänänen, have magnificent chemistry as a married couple who lose their jobs at the same time and struggle to stay afloat in a world that mostly doesn’t care if they drown.

I was charmed by how much this had in common with the director’s later Fallen Leaves, which made my top 10 list in 2023, right down to a brief comic bit about seeing a Jim Jarmusch movie in theaters. Jarmusch and Kaurismaki are friends whose films have much in common, but I have always gravitated more toward Kaurismaki. There is something about that bleak, Northern European sense of humor that just appeals to me.

As a little treat, I followed that up with Rocky VI, a music video for the Leningrad Cowboys, who are like The Monkees of the Kaurismaki world – a fake band made up for a movie but which ends up making real-world waves. Rocky VI is a parody of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV, following a small man in American flag trunks preparing to fight a very large Russian. The song is great, the video is hilarious, and I would encourage everyone to go check out the feature-length Leningrad Cowboys Go America.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, directed by Cristi Puiu

How I watched it: Rented DVD from Vidiots

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a masterpiece about the way humanity gets subsumed into the morass of bureaucratic systems and how those systems conspire to prevent even good people from doing the right thing. Based largely on a true story, Puiu’s film follows a 63-year-old man’s harrowing journey through the Romanian healthcare system, which dismisses him, judges him, and dehumanizes him until there is nothing left.

The film is told nearly in real time as ambulance driver Mioara (Luminita Gheorghiu) ferries Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) through streets of Budapest like they are crossing the River Styx, visiting hospital after hospital and finding each to be its own circle of hell. Mr. Lazarescu is an ulcer patient who still enjoys alcohol, a fact for which every doctor he meets will chastise him and to which they will attribute his symptoms. His ills also coincide with a major bus crash in the city, which has overwhelmed the hospitals.

Everyone is tired, overworked, and at the end of their rope, seeing Mr. Lazarescu as just another problem to deal with and lamenting why he must be their problem. But of course, the point of Puiu’s film is that the problem of Mr. Lazarescu belongs to all of us. It is a reminder that when we allow ourselves to dehumanize another, we also allow our own humanity to slip from us. 

Roger Ebert makes the point in his review that in Romania, at least, Mr. Lazarescu is never once asked for his insurance card. One can imagine the nightmare he would face in the U.S. This movie was made 20 years ago, and still, two decades on, we continue to dehumanize the poor, the unhoused, the underinsured, and every day, it wears a little more on the soul of the nation.

Scare Me, directed by Josh Ruben

How I watched it: Shudder

A fun deconstruction of horror storytelling tropes, starring Ruben and Aya Cash as two writers who end up in the same rented cabin when the power goes out and they decide to scare each other. It has the setup of a more traditional horror omnibus, in which they would tell each other spooky stories and we would see those stories play out. Instead, we never leave the cabin. Ruben and his team use shadows, sound, and the power of suggestion to build the sense of terror, as it would be if we were truly in the cabin with the characters.

It’s a neat gambit that I think mostly pays off. There’s an interloping pizza delivery man played by Chris Redd who is funny but a step too far in the reality of the story. Ultimately, Ruben wants to suggest that the scariest thing in the world is not the horror we invent but rather the weakness within ourselves, as personified here by the classically fragile ego of Ruben’s character. Cash plays a successful writer, and he is a hack who can’t stand it.

With its single location, small cast, and October 2020 release date, it has the feel of a pandemic production, but it actually premiered at Sundance before the pandemic (or if we’re being honest, amid the pandemic but prior to our awareness). That’s not meant as a dig at the film but rather an acknowledgement that Ruben makes a lot out of a little here, and while it doesn’t entirely stick the landing, it’s a good time getting there.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actress

Emma Stone is nominated for Best Actress for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Actress

The nominees are:

Isabelle Huppert for Elle

Ruth Negga for Loving

Natalie Portman for Jackie

Emma Stone for La La Land

Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins

One woman wants to act, and another just to sing. One is burdened by the shattered dreams of a nation, while another is held down by that nation’s history of prejudice and injustice. Another seeks to explore her deeper self after a brutal act uncovers hidden desires she never knew. In a Hollywood system that often marginalizes women and trivializes their stories and experiences, it is refreshing to celebrate a list of films that put their female performances front and center. 

Among this group are five wonderful performers all at different stages in their careers. Streep is of course a living legend with three Oscars to her name and an inspiration to anyone who dreams of acting. Portman is the Oscar winner and former child star who has grown up before our eyes and now delivers the performance of her career in the role of a lifetime.

Huppert and Negga are both first-time nominees, but while Huppert is already a goddess of world cinema, Negga is only now beginning to garner the recognition she deserves. Finally, there is the ingénue, Stone, who is just 28 but made her feature film debut a decade ago and has an Oscar nod under her belt already. It is a remarkable group, among the best the Academy has ever put together, and the only shame is that one must be declared the winner above the others.

Emma Stone for La La Land – For whatever else the Academy looks for in performances, members really love to see themselves on screen, or rather, their ideal selves. The character of actress Mia Dolan is nothing if not an actor’s ideal self. She is young, pretty, talented, motivated, and devoted. She dreams big and chases those dreams with the kind of tenacity we all wish we possessed. She tries and fails, tries and fails, and tries again because for her, there is little else but the dream.

How perfect then that the character is portrayed by Stone, who is about as close to those ideals as a real person could comfortably come. She has been magnificent before in films like Irrational Man or Birdman, for which she received her first nomination, but this is a more challenging and abstract role than she has ever been asked to play. In many ways, Mia is hope come to life, optimism incarnate. Her experience is what we imagine it is like to dream so big. We know it cannot be easy, or always fun or rewarding, but if we dream for the right reasons, then we do so because it is necessary.

Stone is tasked with portraying all of this, and while the ups and downs of being an actor must be very close to her heart, she must also be all things to all people in this role. She is not only what we think of the character but what we think of ourselves. It is truly an unfair burden to place on a performer, to ask that she embody the character and the audience, but Stone is up to the task. She encounters hope and despair; she loves, and she loses; she laughs, and she cries; she sings, and she dances; but most of all, she dreams.

Natalie Portman for Jackie – As an actress portraying a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, Portman carries the weight of history on hers. There is no easy way to step into the shoes of one of the 20th century’s most famous and influential figures. It requires the actor to disappear, as all great performances do, but it also requires the subject to emerge. It is not enough for the actor to hide behind a costume or an accent or a physicality. Oh, all of these are parts of the performance, but it takes a special act to embody the full nature of someone like Jacqueline Kennedy. If there is one thing Portman is and always has been as a performer, it is special.

I have written at length about Portman’s performance, which is one of the great screen portrayals of a historical figure. I will not go on much here, then, except to say that for an hour and 40 minutes, Jackie becomes a living, breathing person again, and that is all thanks to Portman’s performance. This is not some dryly historical interpretation of a famous person but rather a complete abstraction, as Portman removes the associations and clichés and cultural baggage, beginning anew with the raw portrait of a grieving woman who summons the strength to persevere and to thrive.

Portman earned her first Oscar nomination in 2004 at the age of 23 for Closer, but she was thereafter mostly associated either with her role in the Star Wars prequels or as cinema’s preeminent manic pixie dream girl in Garden State. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010 for Black Swan and has remained mostly out of the public eye since, apart from a few choice roles and her supporting appearances in Marvel’s blockbuster Thor movies. Jackie, then, marks a triumphant return to the Oscars for Portman and serves as a reminder she is one of the most talented performers working today.

Isabelle Huppert for Elle – Some nominations inspire spontaneous cheers in my home when they are announced, like Charlotte Rampling last year for Best Actress for 45 Years, Inherent Vice for Best Costumes, In Bruges for Best Original Screenplay, and so on. Add Huppert to that list. For all the complaints – an annual tradition around the Oscars – about the Academy not casting a wide enough net and failing to look outside a certain subset of films, nominations like this serve as proof of the Academy’s willingness to reward brilliant work, no matter where it must be found.

Huppert’s work in Elle is undeniably brilliant. It is also brave, dangerous, and compelling. Huppert plays Michèle Leblanc. When the film opens, Michèle is brutally attacked and raped by a masked intruder in her home, but Huppert never portrays the character as a victim. She is the master of her fate, taking control of a situation that would be permanently scarring for most. This is an attitude she carries in both her personal and professional life, and in her uncomfortable interactions even with friends and family, Huppert shows us how difficult it must be to be this person all the time.

Director Paul Verhoeven’s film gives the character license to be mean, to be angry, to be petty, and Huppert seizes that license and runs with it. Huppert plays Michèle like a woman ready to chew up anything and anyone in her path, despite dealing with the aftereffects of her attack, which are not what the audience expects nor what Michèle likely imagined. It is a supremely confident, consistently surprising performance from one of the best actresses of her generation.

Ruth Negga for Loving – How wonderful would it be to live in a world where such stories needed no telling because such atrocities never occurred? What a beautiful dream that is. The truth, however, cannot be denied that at one time in this country, marriage between people of different races was outlawed. The dastardly things this says about the nation are too many to count. Mildred Loving never wanted to make history by ending this hideous practice. She just wanted to marry the man she loved and live in the state she chose.

Negga’s performance beautifully captures the irony that one need not be a radical person to change the world when simply living your life is a radical act. Negga’s work is more subdued and unassuming than her nominated peers, but it is no less powerful. Mildred is not a meek figure but rather quiet and resolute, which is how Negga portrays her. She knows what she wants, and with righteousness on her side, she sees a path to attain it. These stories need telling because these atrocities occurred, but how wonderful it is that people like Mildred Loving exist to stand up and declare what is right when so many others were so afraid.

The Ethiopian-born, Irish-raised Negga is a celebrated stage actress and is a prominent performer on UK television, and while she has cropped up in films like World War Z and Warcraft, she is probably best known to American audiences for her role on the TV show Preacher. It is my sincere hope this recognition and this performance allow her to scale the highest peaks of the industry and bring her the kind of prominence she deserves.

Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins – Sitting on the coffee table in front of me as I type this is the latest book on Streep, covering her early years in Hollywood. Written by Michael Schulman, it is aptly, and cheekily, called Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep. In accepting her Best Actress Oscar for 2011’s The Iron Lady, her third Academy Award, Streep mused half of America must be thinking, “Oh, no. Her. Again.” Whether that assessment was correct then, America has had many more chances to think such things with Streep picking up another three nominations since, including this one. That brings her record total to a nice, round 20.

It becomes easier with each one to dismiss the work. Streep is something of a Hollywood institution and an Academy Awards fixture. Since her first nomination – in 1978 for The Deer Hunter – there have been more years in which she has been nominated than in which she has not. On its face, that seems absurd, and I am sure we will get all the familiar jokes about it at this year’s ceremony. The fact is sometimes the Academy really does seem to nominate her just for doing work and being Meryl Streep, as I complained on this site two years ago. Happily, I can report this is not a case such as that.

Now, Florence Foster Jenkins is by no means a good movie, nor is it worthy of the performance Streep delivers in the title role. Florence is a wealthy music patron with dreams of singing opera. She has no vocal ability to speak of but uses her money and influence to give performances to her friends and hangers-on. If you will pardon the expression, Streep gives a full-throated performance here, diving into Florence’s character as a woman who lacks talent but is gifted with deep wells of breathless enthusiasm and confidence. The movie’s message is objectionable – it wants to say, “Pursue your dreams no matter what,” but instead says, “Rich white people can have anything they want.” However, Streep’s performance is golden and this nomination hard-earned.

The final analysis

It initially seemed like this would be a competitive year in this category with Portman and Huppert earning most of the critical plaudits while Stone carried nearly every scene of the popular Best Picture frontrunner. Right around the time Huppert beat out Portman for the Golden Globe, though, Stone began building steam. She picked up her own Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the SAG award. She will also be rewarded for providing the heart and soul of the likely Best Picture winner. Huppert could play spoiler, but expect this to be Stone’s night.

Will win: Emma Stone for La La Land

Should win: Natalie Portman for Jackie

Should have been here: Viola Davis for Fences

Tomorrow: Best Actor

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Boyhood.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Supporting Actress

The nominees are:

Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

Emma Stone for Birdman

Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game

Meryl Streep for Into the Woods

Laura Dern for Wild

Three mothers, a daughter, and a colleague – those are the characters portrayed by the five women nominated for Best Supporting Actress, not exactly a full range of human experiences, but look closer. Among those you have an all-powerful witch, a strong, resilient teacher, and a brilliant mathematician. Now things are starting to look a little better.

With good reason, the topic of quality roles for women comes up constantly in the Oscar season and beyond. Undoubtedly, there are too few female-led films, too few stories told about the great women throughout history – or even the not-so-great women. More roles, however, do not necessarily mean better roles. What we need are more parts for women that are as deep, complex, and emotionally rich as their male counterparts. That will be progress.

Not all of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress this year fit that mold, which is a shame, considering how many great performances were left on the sidelines in favor of these. However, the two roles here that do require depth and soul are two of the best characters of the year and feature two of the best performances. These are all great actresses, and with the right material, each is capable of delivering stunning work, as proven by the two actresses here who were given some of the best material of the year. Hopefully, the best material keeps coming to all of them.

Patricia Arquette for Boyhood – There is a way of reading Boyhood wherein Arquette is the film’s lead, and I do not think anyone would have blinked had she been nominated in the Best Actress category. While the film ostensibly concerns the coming of age of a young Texas boy, Arquette plays the woman who raises that boy while at the same time figuring out the person she wants to be. Most parents who see the film instantly identify with Arquette’s struggle as she bounces around from being a single mother to an abused wife to a single mother again, all while striving to do what is best for her children.

Arquette comes from an acting family, and she has been in the Hollywood game almost 30 years. She spent 12 of those years making Boyhood. The dedication alone is enough to impress, but the awards success she has already seen for the film goes deeper than that. Reflecting back on Boyhood, it is her character and her journey that stand out as pivotal to the film.

Writer-director Richard Linklater and Arquette collaborate to make the character more than a mom. She is a wife, a lover, a student, and a teacher. She is a real person with real regrets and real fears about where her choices in life are taking her and where they have brought her. When she wonders aloud toward the end of the film what dedicating her life to her children has brought her, we cannot shame her for feeling that. We can only empathize with a woman who has given so much in life and received so little.

Emma Stone for Birdman – Sam, as played by Stone, is the voice of her generation, but it is not meant to be a flattering portrayal. As washed-up actor Riggan Thompson’s (Michael Keaton) daughter, Sam is all self-absorption and self-importance. She has an answer for questions she has not yet been asked and opinions on topics about which she knows nothing. She is the social media culture incarnate and a dire warning for where a generation raised on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be headed.

Stone is perfect in the role, bringing the energy and anger of youth with a hint of deeply buried vulnerability. About midway through the film, Stone delivers a monologue so brutal and so cutting that it threatens to take the character beyond the point of redemption, but with the subtlest change in her facial expression, Stone brings us back around, if not to her side, then to the middle. Wordlessly, she expresses regret about her tirade but resolutely refuses to admit she may have been wrong. It is a moment that relies entirely on the actress’ face, and Stone nails it.

Meryl Streep for Into the Woods – You all know Meryl Streep. You know what she has accomplished – three Academy Awards and 19 nominations, more than any other actor in history. She has tried everything and been everybody – a factory worker, a prime minister, a singer, a druggie, an adventurer, and a nun, among countless other roles. She is a legend who could show up to work and earn a nomination for her safe driving, if such an organization existed to hand out awards. Ultimately, that is part of the problem.

Streep is good in the part of the witch. There is no denying it, but the kneejerk reaction to Streep piling on the makeup or putting on an accent is to nominate her for an award. I am saying that should probably stop. If Academy members really think this performance, this year, is one of the five best performances by an actress in a supporting role, they need to see more movies. Royalty is royalty. The prize is being such. We do not need to weigh her down with more accolades just for showing up, donning a wig, and belting out a few songs, however ably. Let’s think outside the box once in a while.

Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game – Not yet 30 years old, Knightley is a two-time nominee who has shown a facility for transitioning from epic blockbusters to period dramas to low-budget indies. In 2014 alone, she appeared in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Imitation Game, and Begin Again. She is an immensely talented actresses with many years of strong characters and great performances ahead of her. The Imitation Game, however, will hopefully be just a footnote to her career.

As capable as Knightley is, she is given little to do as Joan Clarke, Alan Turing’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) colleague, wife, and confidante. Though we are briefly shown Clark’s talent for mathematics and code breaking, the film serves as an ode to the greatness of Turing. As such, Clark is written merely as another character to stand in awe of Turing and bear witness to his greatness. Knightley does her best, but she is hamstrung by a part that as written, lacks complexity or emotional depth.

Laura Dern for Wild – Speaking of good actresses with minimal characters to play, Dern makes little more than a couple cameo appearances in Wild, despite being the whole reason for the story. Dern plays Bobbi, Cheryl Strayed’s (Reese Witherspoon) mother. We see her only in flashbacks as Strayed hikes up the Pacific Crest Trail. We learn more about Bobbi from Strayed’s voiceovers and conversations with other people than we do in the precious little screen time Dern actually has.

Some of this is due to the script and some is due to director Jean-Marc Vallée’s impressionistic style, which requires that actors in small roles have a big impact. Vallée has cast the right actress for the task in Dern, but her passivity only serves to undercut any strength Dern would have brought to the part. The character mostly serves as a sounding board for Witherspoon’s more assertive Strayed. None of this is to say Dern’s performance is bad, but awards worthy it is not.

The final analysis

When it comes to the win, there is Arquette and no one else. She has won every conceivable precursor award, including from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the British Academy of Film and Television. She will win the Oscar in a walk, and it will be as much for her performance in Boyhood as for a lifetime of turning in strong work in film and on television. She is a deserving actress, and I look forward to her acceptance speech.

Will win: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

Should win: Emma Stone for Birdman

Wish she had been here: Katherine Waterston for Inherent Vice