Friday, October 10, 2014

OVP: Actress (2013)

OVP: Best Actress (2013)

The Nominees Were...


Amy Adams, American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County


My Thoughts: We are nearing the end of 2013 (appropriate, considering that it’s almost 2015), and that means that with just three categories left, we need to get into the women of the year, and boy did Oscar bring it.  We have four former winners and an actress enjoying her fifth nomination (but first for Best Actress).  Overall, it’s hard to deny that these are five  of the most important actresses of their generations, and quite frankly five of the most important actresses working in 2013, so it’s a particular treat to write about them (this is, it’s worth noting, the only category where I had tags already for all five women, so click below if you want to see my myriad thoughts and articles on these women). (I don’t normally throw a spoiler alert on OVP Write-ups, but I feel I get particularly spoiler-y in this list, so make sure to see these films before you get into the article, but bookmark it to read/comment later!)

Dame Judi Dench is a treasure of the cinema.  If you look at her filmic trajectory, it’s pretty much unprecedented for a woman to get her first Oscar nomination in her late sixties and then go on to score SEVEN more nominations in the next two decades.  It’s worth noting that Dame Judi, at least until Philomena, was able to get all of her nominations in back-to-back pairs-had she been nominated for Skyfall or Best Exotic Marigold Hotel last year (she got precursor love for both) that trend would have continued with Philomena.  Considering her last nomination was in 2006 we will be discussing her many more times in the OVP in the coming year or two (as you may have been able to tell from this past week, getting more of the OVP posts out the door and onto the site is a goal of mine in the coming months and throughout 2015, so hopefully you’re enjoying because they’re going to happen more often).

Dench’s work in Philomena is not what you’d consider her most challenging performance for the Oscars, but I don’t want that to be confused with bad.  Though she’s not getting her bizarrely wonderful turn in Notes on a Scandal on here, there’s more than just a dotty old woman journeying through the countryside.  I had a lot of problems with the script and plot of this movie, but Dench’s performance wasn’t one of them.  I love the way that she cultivates a very strong surface-level persona-this is a woman who spends so much time craving attention, but shunning it for certain aspects of her life.  The way that she constantly wants to share her inner-world is a textbook case of loneliness, and Dench never turns Philomena Lee into a fool-she’s always someone who is human, desperate for comfort, but very aware of the hypocrisy of the church that stole her child from her and the pain that she’s experienced as a result of this.

Cate Blanchett is also an actress who has made a giant splash in the same years as Dench (though she’s one nomination behind her Notes on a Scandal costar).  Her Jasmine is a triumph, and deserved the many plaudits that it received upon reception.  While the rest of the movie is not worthy of her work (in a similar way to Dench and Philomena), her performance shouldn’t be punished for that.  There’s a tremendous amount of being self-aware that Blanchett does in her acting, finding the tics that are starting to infiltrate Jasmine’s exterior, frequently finding the space between what Jasmine is oblivious toward and what Jasmine is smart enough to know but too self-aware to admit (compare her affair with Peter Sarsgaard and the surprise that it fell through to the constant drinking and putting upon her sister).  That she manages to pull off those final moments, giving us the dread of knowing that if she hasn’t become a mentally ill homeless person, she’s about to become one, it’s both comedy gold and petrifying for anyone in the audience (this could happen to you!)-Blanchett sells this for all its worth.

Meryl Streep is an actor that we’ve discussed quite frequently in these OVP write-ups (this is her third appearance), though we have a long way left with Ms. Streep (she’s been nominated fifteen more times so far, and I’m confident she’s not quite done yet).  Thankfully, Meryl is almost always awesome, and this is the case with August: Osage County.  This is clearly a part that other actors could have played (Jessica Chastain has a slight point, and we’ll get to that later today), but Meryl is the one who got the part and knocks Violet out of the park.  She knows how to land all of the jokes, consistently keeping her Violet competitive and winning even when she should be beat (those final moments with Barbara, when she’s metaphorically digging her own grave, but she still won’t relent even as her final daughter abandons her-it’s a killer piece of work).  I honestly have nothing bad to say about this performance except that she’s hampered down by a bad film and doesn’t have the benefit of universally great costars-only Margo Martindale is bringing it in the same fashion as Streep, and that means that Meryl occasionally feels out of place opposite Juliette Lewis and Julia Roberts (strong actors giving weaker work).

If there’s one woman who probably wanted this Oscar more than any of her fellow nominees, it was surely Amy Adams (you saw that in the Cate Blanchett speech, when Adams’ got particular respect paid to her despite being further down the totem pole than Meryl).  Adams has been trying with all of her might to win an Oscar while simply getting nominated (we’ve also profiled her three times now in the OVP), and this is definitely the closest she has gotten.  However, I don’t think it’s the closest she should have gotten, as this isn’t a piece of work that I’m particularly impressed by.  I do think that she outperforms Bale, but that’s not really saying much (clarification: it’s not saying anything).  Her Sydney is a complicated woman, and probably the sort of part that you’d be dying to play as an actress.  I liked her character decision to not give her an accurate British accent, but too many of her character choices seemed jumbled (particularly her weird attraction to Bale/lack of attraction to Cooper).  I also feel like she faded into the background too often whenever Jennifer Lawrence was onscreen, and while she’s never been sexier in appearance, her performance frequently forgot to capitalize on that whenever Rosalyn was a competitor.  Overall, a disappointing citation from an actress that has done much better.

We’ll end with Sandra Bullock, an actress we’ve also discussed previously, but the only one who doesn’t have a pre-2009 nomination left, so we’re not guaranteed to discuss her in an OVP again.  I was absolutely blown away by what Bullock was doing onscreen.  The casting director deserves some plaudits for choosing her for this role, as she manages to instill a sense of fear because she’s an “every-woman” that someone like Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have been able to accomplish.  There are scenes where she physically exhausts the audience by showing the constant struggle, and manages to own the movie for so many scenes and keeps us interested in her Ryan’s survival.  I love the way her bitterness to the world starts to spew out before the calm-how she says the things she clearly needs to be said before she might perish.  It’s a wonderful labor-of-love performance from an actress that is frequently underestimated.

Other Precursor Contenders: As was acknowledged with the leading men, the Globes separate their categories between Comedy/Musical and Drama.  And has was also acknowledged, they really need to be a little less prone to genre bias.  This is particularly true for Comedy/Musical where Amy Adams won, and beat Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said), Streep, and Julie Delpy (Before Midnight).  I would have given that trophy to Delpy, quite frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that that movie is CLEARLY a Drama, and that nomination should have gone to Bullock or Melissa McCarthy for The Heat (weird caveat-why can't Melissa McCarthy get a Golden Globe nomination-she's missed for Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Mike & Molly now-can someone explain a conspiracy theory here?).  The Drama category was a bit closer to their genre, with Blanchett trumping Bullock, Dench, Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks), and Kate Winslet (Labor Day).  The SAG Awards went with close to a carbon copy of Oscar’s lineup (same winner), but substituted Emma Thompson in place of Amy Adams.  The BAFTA Awards also found a place for Thompson, skipping Meryl Streep (they aren’t as enamored with her as other awards bodies, though she does have a fair share of citations), though they went with the consensus on rewarding Cate Blanchett.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: This is actually a pretty strong list, all things considered (it’s easily the best acting lineup of 2013). That being said, I probably would have liked a little more attention given to ingenues Brie Larson in Short-Term 12 and Adele Exarchopolous in Blue is the Warmest Color.  I’m not going to chastise the Academy too much here though, as looking through those precursor contenders (with wonderful work that is already starting to feel classic like Louis-Dreyfus’s or Delpy’s), there were a lot of choices and only five slots last year.  The world is round, Hollywood-if you gave more parts to women, we would have years like this always!
Oscar’s Choice: Blanchett continued her domination and finally picked up her second trophy, and a lead one at that.
My Choice: I’ve been torn for weeks between Bullock and Blanchett.  I know the popular choice is to go with Blanchett, and that’s what I’m going to do, but I really loved what Bullock did with this part and I think she was vastly underestimated, but cannot quite compete with some of the insights and timing that Blanchett is able to pull off (Bullock had the better movie though).  Follow that with Streep, Dench, and Adams at the back.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Anyone side against Blanchett (and if so-with whom?)?  Anyone wonder why we don’t have Best Actress fields like this all the time?  And who was your favorite lead actress of 2013?  Share in the comments!


Past Best Actress Contests: 2009201020112012

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