Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actress

The Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars is your guide to the Academy Awards. We will cover each of the categories in depth, talk about history and what the award truly means, and predict some winners. Check back all month as we make our way to the big show, one category (each as important as the next) at a time.

Best Actress

The nominees are:

Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter

Penélope Cruz for Parallel Mothers

Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos

Kristen Stewart for Spencer

We saved the best for last, as far as these acting categories are concerned. For once, a truly wide-open race. I have spent almost 4,000 words talking about the acting categories already this year and have mentioned the BAFTAs over and over again. If it wins the BAFTA, it wins the Oscar. Well, we cannot rely on that here. Why? Because not one of the performers nominated for the Academy Award this year was also nominated for the BAFTA.

Going back to 1990 – before that, eligibility deadlines just don’t line up in a way that makes the data useful – this has never happened. Not once. The closest approximation is 2003, when the organizations matched just one nominee – Naomi Watts in 21 Grams. That year, the BAFTA went to Scarlett Johansson for Lost in Translation, while the Academy went with Charlize Theron in Monster (Note: At the BAFTAs, Theron was not eligible until 2004, when she lost to Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake). 

We are not flying blind, per se – Jessica Chastain won the Screen Actors Guild award and the Critics’ Choice – but we are missing our most significant bellwether. As a result, the predictions are all over the map, with support spread out across three or four of these nominees. For our purposes, what this means is one fun race right down to the end. By the way, for those curious, the BAFTA this year went to Joanna Scanlon for her work in the British drama After Love.

Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye – Tammy Faye Bakker, as portrayed in this film, is an enigma for our times: a completely sincere person. It would seem her love of people is surpassed only by her love of god. Her desire to spread a message of acceptance and understanding (through Christian faith) runs up against the money- and power-hungry men in her life, including her husband. It is a fascinating story in a film that could have been better, but what is not in question is Chastain’s commitment to the role and passion for bringing it to life.

Though she had been around for a while before, Chastain broke onto the scene in a big way in 2011, when five films in which she had a role were released. Most importantly, she starred in the Palme d’Or winning The Tree of Life, the critically acclaimed Take Shelter, and the popular hit The Help, for which she earned her first Oscar nomination. She is a remarkable performer who brings intensity and drive to everything she does, and here, she applies that intensity and drive to a role that requires every ounce of her talents. She proves more than up to the task.

Penélope Cruz for Parallel Mothers – A four-time nominee who previously won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cruz has never been better than she is in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film. She plays Janis, a single pregnant woman who befriends a younger unwed mother-to-be. I will not reveal more than that since the movie’s secrets are among its great pleasures, but suffice it to say, Janis is presented with a moral dilemma no one should ever have to face.

Cruz plays this conflict wonderfully, showing the depths of Janis’ moral questioning with little more than a shift in her tremendously expressive eyes. One thing that has defined some of Cruz’s most memorable characters has been the sense of energy and motion the actress imbues them with, particularly in her previous Oscar-winning role. For Almodóvar, she drops all artifice and affectation, utilizing stillness and silence in ways we are not used to seeing from Cruz. In this silence, however, Cruz is able to speak volumes.

Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter – Colman delivered one of the most memorable and rewatchable Oscar acceptance speeches in recent times when she won Best Actress for The Favourite in 2018. Among the standout lines from that speech was when she addressed her children watching at home, saying “This is not gonna happen again.” Little did she know. Now, after a Supporting Actress nomination last year and another leading nomination here, it seems almost inevitable that it will happen again, if not this year, then someday.

For my money, her work in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s stunning directorial debut is the best of the nominated bunch. She plays a woman on holiday, haunted by her past and beset by dread of the nefarious characters around her. She is not without sin, and there is never a moment in Colman’s performance that belies that fact. She is wounded but also capable of wounding. While her actions may on the surface seem inexplicable, Colman makes us understand what could drive this woman to do the things she does and hurt the people she hurts.

Kristen Stewart for Spencer – What a wild ride this awards season has been for Stewart, who after getting close on a couple of occasions, now has her first Academy Award nomination. As we talked about with Will Smith in King Richard, sometimes a performer and a part just seem to add up to an Oscar. That was the feeling around Stewart playing Princess Diana when the first trailer for Spencer dropped. Then, she won handfuls of critics awards, and the buzz would not die down. That was until she missed out on a SAG nomination and a BAFTA nomination. After that, it was an open question of whether she would even be Oscar nominated, let alone in line for the win. Now, here we are.

To her credit, Stewart has remained mostly nonchalant about the whole thing, blasé when it seemed she might miss out but humble and grateful when she made the final list. Her work in the film is sometimes uneven, but the longer you watch, the more she forces you to get on her wavelength. This is not the Princess Diana we all knew from the papers and the pictures, but rather a private Diana, dealing with demons and devils all around her. For bringing us into the world of the unseen Diana, Stewart deserves this recognition. 

Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos – If you enjoyed Being the Ricardos, I am sorry if it seems like I am down on the film. The truth is I really feel nothing about it one way or the other. The film is not engaging enough to have strong feelings about, which is a fatal flaw of a different kind. It seems Kidman was always going to be nominated for this performance, which has the patina of something like Renée Zellweger’s recent Oscar-winning turn in Judy. Like that performance, this is a serviceable imitation of life, but it never really goes deeper than that.

The biggest problem, though, is that it just isn’t funny, and Kidman does not have the comedy chops to make the material funny. Lucille Ball is famously one of the funniest people in the history of television, so casting a talented dramatic actress in a bland day-in-the-life story does no one any favors, least of all Lucille Ball. Kidman is too cerebral, and to some degree, that is what the movie asks her to be, but it is wrong for the character and frustrating to watch.

The final analysis

I try not to read too many other sites when I am writing my pieces and making my predictions. Just enough to stay informed but not enough to be influenced. I confess, however, that I have read a lot about this Best Actress race, and what I have read has left me more confused than when I started. So, let’s reason this out together.

Who won what? Kidman won the Golden Globe, which was meaningless this year. Colman and Stewart each won a handful of minor critics awards, while Cruz won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award and the National Society of Film Critics award, two of the biggest around. Then, there is Chastain, who as mentioned, has won the SAG award and the Critics’ Choice. The signal is all over the place.

It would be foolish to discount how helpful making a big, televised speech can be, which tips things in Chastain’s favor. Stewart is probably too young for the Academy to go that direction, and she will have other chances. The only arguments I am seeing for Cruz and Colman – other than the obvious quality of the work – is that they are both well liked by a broad selection of Academy members. But, perhaps the similarity of their narratives works to cancel them both out, which brings us back to Chastain.

With everything I have witnessed this season, I just don’t see a compelling enough argument in any other direction, and some of the buzz around the other performances could really just be boredom with the frontrunners leading to wild second guessing. I will be okay if I get this wrong, but for now, I am sticking with Chastain.

Will win: Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Should win: Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter

Should have been here: Rachel Sennott for Shiva Baby

Next time: Best Director

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Fences.

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 Supporting Actress

The nominees are:

Viola Davis for Fences

Naomie Harris for Moonlight

Nicole Kidman for Lion

Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures

Michelle Williams for Manchester by the Sea

I promised yesterday I would rail against the obvious category fraud taking place here, so here it goes: Anyone who thinks Rose Maxson (Davis) is a supporting character in Fences is objectively, demonstrably wrong. Not only that, but to consider Rose a “supporting” character is to miss the entire point of her character and in many ways the point of August Wilson’s play, one of its many points, anyway. She is the heart, soul, and center of the story. The version of Fences in which Rose is a “supporting” character is not a version I wish to see.

So how does this narrative form, that Rose is a supporting character and Davis’ a supporting performance? It starts with the studio and its awards campaigners, who believe Davis’ best chance for winning an Oscar is in the Supporting Actress category. In truth, yes, the day it was announced Davis would be campaigned in Supporting Actress, the competition ended. Everyone else was playing for second place. But I cannot believe the critics fell in line with this absurd ruse, that the actors, who honored Davis at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, could not break her out of this box. It boggles the mind.

Now, I will stand up and cheer loudly and vigorously when Davis’ name is called out and she collects the Oscar statue she so richly deserves. Imagine, though, what it would have meant for the world to see the Academy, for just the second time in its 89-year history, to award a black actress Best Actress. It would have been one of the greatest moments in the history of the Academy Awards. Her victory, which is all but assured, will be sweet, but think how much sweeter it could have and should have been.

Viola Davis for Fences – In naming Davis’ work here the best performance by an actress in 2016, I called her a national treasure. This is no exaggeration. When given the kind of material she deserves, the kind that requires depth and honesty and truth and beauty and all of that, Davis delivers every time a performance of depth and honesty and truth and beauty and all of that. Rose Maxson is the role of a lifetime, and Davis, who won the Tony Award for this role when it played on Broadway – in lead actress for those keeping score at home – does not let it pass her by.

Davis is a three-time Oscar nominee, the first time in Supporting Actress for an actual supporting role in Doubt in 2008 and the second time for Best Actress for The Help in 2011. She was the prohibitive frontrunner for The Help but lost to Meryl Streep, who is of course Meryl Streep, so what can you do but tip your cap. There will be no such shock this year. Davis will win. She will receive a standing ovation. And it may just be the best moment of the night.

Naomie Harris for Moonlight – It may seem I am disrespecting the other performances nominated here by suggesting everyone else is playing for second. It is not meant as disrespect but as a show of my overwhelming respect for Davis. The other work cited here is all phenomenal, and Harris in particular delivers a performance of great range and complexity as a drug-addicted mother whose own son seems unknowable to her.

Harris famously had reservations about playing the crack-addicted mother Paula in Moonlight, fearing the trap of playing into obvious stereotypes and caricatures. She was convinced by writer-director Barry Jenkins’ investment in the character and by Paula’s complete emotional arc throughout the film.

The glory of Moonlight is that none of the characters is just one thing, and Harris takes this mission statement as an invitation to explore the rich nature of Paula’s past, present, and future. She strikes a deep vein of emotional truth, eliciting empathy even in Paula’s darkest moments. Were Davis properly cited in the lead category, Harris would be a good bet for the win here and a deserving winner without doubt. As it is, the nomination is likely the reward.

Nicole Kidman for Lion – Kidman may have one of the most difficult careers to pin down of any Hollywood leading lady. The perception of Kidman is that she is an A-list celebrity and movie star of the highest order. She already has won a Best Actress Oscar, for The Hours in 2002, and she has appeared in blockbuster-type films like Batman Forever and The Golden Compass, the relative success and quality of those films not being the point here. To dig deep into her list of credits, however, is to dig into the career of one of the most fearless, experimental, and versatile actresses of our time.

In Lion, she plays Sue Brierly, the adoptive mother of the Indian orphan at the center of the story. Her joy is palpable in offering a second chance at life to a lost child, as is her anguish when she feels that child growing up and slipping away from her. The role of adoptive mother is a thankless one in some ways because no matter your connection, the child has an instinct to know his real mother. This is particularly true in Sue’s case, since her son’s real mother is out there looking for him and never meant to lose him. Kidman plays this inner conflict to perfection, and through her, the audience understands the emotional stakes of the film.

Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures – In some way or another, each of the women nominated in this category plays a character suffering through the pain of circumstance. There is a wife whose husband gets another woman pregnant, a single mother living in the slums, an adoptive mother losing her grip on her family, and a young mother who suffers a terrible tragedy. Finally, there is Dorothy Vaughan, played by Spencer, whose circumstances may be the most unfair of all. A brilliant mathematician, it is her unfortunate luck to be born a black woman into a segregated world.

What makes Hidden Figures and the women whose story the film tells so inspiring is that they do not allow their obstacles to define them. They define themselves by the ways in which they overcome those obstacles. Vaughan is the supervisor of the black women’s computer unit at NASA, but she is neither treated like a supervisor nor paid like one. Rather than be defeated or retreat into anger, she goes about making herself and her team indispensable, demanding to be noticed for her work simply by doing her work. Spencer, an Oscar winner in this category for The Help, is a joy to watch, playing Vaughan’s moment of triumph as a well-earned relief. Finally, she says, and we all agree.

Michelle Williams for Manchester by the Sea – Williams’ screen time as Randi in Manchester by the Sea is brief, limited to just a couple scenes, but her impact is tremendous. In a film built largely around emotionally devastating moments, Randi’s short, awkward, painful reunion with her ex-husband (Casey Affleck) may take the cake for most heartrending.

Randi is a woman whose new life is built on the ashes of unimaginable tragedy, and Williams shows us how she is always a word, a glance, a moment from everything crumbling into dust again. Watching her try to hold it together in the face of this knowledge is a marvel, and Williams is expert in conveying her fragile foundation. Affleck’s character demonstrates what happens when we bury grief too deeply, allowing it to become a part of who we are. Williams’ Randi is the other side of that coin, what happens when the grief is always right there, just under the surface.

The final analysis

Two words: Viola Davis. Four, if you prefer: Viola Davis, Oscar winner.

Will win: Viola Davis for Fences

Should win: Viola Davis for Fences

Should have been here: Judy Davis for The Dressmaker

Tomorrow: Best Foreign Language Film