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.
Also in 2013: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2013
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