OVP: Best Actress (2005)
The Nominees Were...
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
My Thoughts: There are a lot of years you could claim is the "worst" lineup ever assembled for Best Actress. 1949 comes to mind, so does 1975 & 1994. But this century, few have been so maligned as 2005, a year where admittedly the choices were slim (we'll get to precursors below). None of the Best Picture nominees had what we'd consider a proper leading actress in them (the closest we get is Sandra Bullock in Crash, and she was definitely campaigned in supporting). Sometimes these lineups have hidden gems, other times they truly deserve the stench surrounding them. Today, we'll delve into this lineup and see if popular opinion is unjustified or well-earned.
We'll start with arguably the actress whose career has most changed since 2005, and that's Charlize Theron. At the time, Theron was considered someone who had de-glammed to an Oscar, and was either an actress who had basically just tricked the Academy (a one-trick star) or had found an unconventional way to highlight her massive talent. It turns out that Theron, through action & comedy, would have a great knack for stardom & do well in the next 15 years, but that wasn't evident by her paltry work in North Country. I found her turn in North Country to be paint-by-numbers, the sort of "bait-y" role that Oscar regularly cites for Best Actress but doesn't have enough depth, and oftentimes feels like she's asked to elevate a film, but a film so devoted to her that it's kind of the lead performance's fault for the film sucking. Theron's ability to play straight drama is stretched-to-the-limit here, and she doesn't succeed in convincing as an average woman in a unique situation.
Judi Dench, at the very least, could not be accused of playing against type (or her skills) in Mrs. Henderson Presents. I'd say this was the peak of Dench's time with Hollywood, but she'd get two more nominations after this and even headline her own franchise, so she was just in the midst of her decade of fame. This is the least of Dench's nominations, for my money, though it's hard to actively dislike the work and of the lesser performances nominated here, it's the most forgivable as it's a fun little movie. There's just nothing there-this was basically a nomination simply for Dench-being-Dench, and while that's great for a moviegoer, that doesn't necessarily equate to fine acting, which Dench is more than capable of achieving.
If Dench got this nomination as a continued acknowledgement of her power and Theron as a "we were right!" then Keira Knightley's nomination, more than the other first-timers, has the aura of a down-payment on future successes. Knightley is also a brilliant actress, and has done some truly splendid (and atypical) acting in the years since, but I don't love her Elizabeth Bennett. This is a part that's hard to screw up (the "rooting for her" is baked into the script), and I don't feel like Knightley elevated her enough. It's a bit unfair to task Knightley with this because hindsight shows we knew she could be this charming and watchable onscreen (at the time she was known to most simply for the Pirates movies), and that we know she can do better, but this is a "good but meh" piece of work, even if we just take it on its own merits.
Reese Witherspoon's win in a lot of ways felt like Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Oscar giving in to popular opinion about America's sweetheart (Sandra Bullock would bookend this trio four years later for The Blind Side). That said, this is the one performance here that feels like it belongs in a list of their great work, even for Witherspoon (who between Wild and Big Little Lies has been doing her best work in recent years). June Carter Cash is a fully-onscreen persona. There's no need to keep her true to real-life (though Witherspoon does), and she crafts a real character that adapts to the realities of moviedom in a way that even Joaquin Phoenix doesn't in the movie. This is not Witherspoon's most challenging part, but she rises to it, and gives it her all, and comes out the other end with a better movie because of what she's bringing.
The final nominee is Felicity Huffman. Huffman's professional reputation has been trampled in the past year with her involvement in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal (this is her own doing-I don't have sympathy on this one even if I'm willing to forget), but at the time this was the peak of her career, not only winning the Globe but also starring in the biggest show on the planet, Desperate Housewives. Huffman's a favorite of mine (Desperate Housewives is one of my all-time favorite shows, and one I'm ecstatic to be revisiting this fall), so it pains me to point out that I cannot stand her work in Transamerica. Putting aside that the entire concept of her taking on this role has soured (a conversation I'm more forgiving on than others, even if I get the point, but that's a conversation for a different day), her Bree is just a series of ticks, low vocal cadences, and feels like she's relying upon "deglam" herself to win this nomination. There's none of the sturdy demeanor or hard-earned tenderness that are hallmarks of Huffman's best work, and, honestly, the role needs these exact skills to flourish. A big miss for AMPAS, and a crime considering what Huffman can be capable of that this will surely be her only Oscar nod.
We'll start with arguably the actress whose career has most changed since 2005, and that's Charlize Theron. At the time, Theron was considered someone who had de-glammed to an Oscar, and was either an actress who had basically just tricked the Academy (a one-trick star) or had found an unconventional way to highlight her massive talent. It turns out that Theron, through action & comedy, would have a great knack for stardom & do well in the next 15 years, but that wasn't evident by her paltry work in North Country. I found her turn in North Country to be paint-by-numbers, the sort of "bait-y" role that Oscar regularly cites for Best Actress but doesn't have enough depth, and oftentimes feels like she's asked to elevate a film, but a film so devoted to her that it's kind of the lead performance's fault for the film sucking. Theron's ability to play straight drama is stretched-to-the-limit here, and she doesn't succeed in convincing as an average woman in a unique situation.
Judi Dench, at the very least, could not be accused of playing against type (or her skills) in Mrs. Henderson Presents. I'd say this was the peak of Dench's time with Hollywood, but she'd get two more nominations after this and even headline her own franchise, so she was just in the midst of her decade of fame. This is the least of Dench's nominations, for my money, though it's hard to actively dislike the work and of the lesser performances nominated here, it's the most forgivable as it's a fun little movie. There's just nothing there-this was basically a nomination simply for Dench-being-Dench, and while that's great for a moviegoer, that doesn't necessarily equate to fine acting, which Dench is more than capable of achieving.
If Dench got this nomination as a continued acknowledgement of her power and Theron as a "we were right!" then Keira Knightley's nomination, more than the other first-timers, has the aura of a down-payment on future successes. Knightley is also a brilliant actress, and has done some truly splendid (and atypical) acting in the years since, but I don't love her Elizabeth Bennett. This is a part that's hard to screw up (the "rooting for her" is baked into the script), and I don't feel like Knightley elevated her enough. It's a bit unfair to task Knightley with this because hindsight shows we knew she could be this charming and watchable onscreen (at the time she was known to most simply for the Pirates movies), and that we know she can do better, but this is a "good but meh" piece of work, even if we just take it on its own merits.
Reese Witherspoon's win in a lot of ways felt like Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Oscar giving in to popular opinion about America's sweetheart (Sandra Bullock would bookend this trio four years later for The Blind Side). That said, this is the one performance here that feels like it belongs in a list of their great work, even for Witherspoon (who between Wild and Big Little Lies has been doing her best work in recent years). June Carter Cash is a fully-onscreen persona. There's no need to keep her true to real-life (though Witherspoon does), and she crafts a real character that adapts to the realities of moviedom in a way that even Joaquin Phoenix doesn't in the movie. This is not Witherspoon's most challenging part, but she rises to it, and gives it her all, and comes out the other end with a better movie because of what she's bringing.
The final nominee is Felicity Huffman. Huffman's professional reputation has been trampled in the past year with her involvement in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal (this is her own doing-I don't have sympathy on this one even if I'm willing to forget), but at the time this was the peak of her career, not only winning the Globe but also starring in the biggest show on the planet, Desperate Housewives. Huffman's a favorite of mine (Desperate Housewives is one of my all-time favorite shows, and one I'm ecstatic to be revisiting this fall), so it pains me to point out that I cannot stand her work in Transamerica. Putting aside that the entire concept of her taking on this role has soured (a conversation I'm more forgiving on than others, even if I get the point, but that's a conversation for a different day), her Bree is just a series of ticks, low vocal cadences, and feels like she's relying upon "deglam" herself to win this nomination. There's none of the sturdy demeanor or hard-earned tenderness that are hallmarks of Huffman's best work, and, honestly, the role needs these exact skills to flourish. A big miss for AMPAS, and a crime considering what Huffman can be capable of that this will surely be her only Oscar nod.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards. Best Actress in a Drama gave the top trophy to Huffman, besting Maria Bello (A History of Violence), Gwyneth Paltrow (Proof), Theron, and Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha), while Comedy/Musical obviously crowned Witherspoon, here over Dench, Knightley, Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale), and Sarah Jessica Parker (The Family Stone). As a testament to how dire the lead actress race was in 2005, both Bello & Linney would've been considered supporting in a normal year. SAG went with Witherspoon over the Academy lineup save for Knightley (they picked Zhang instead) and BAFTA subbed Weisz & Zhang in for Knightley & Huffman (Transamerica I don't think had been released in the UK though Huffman wouldn't be nominated the following year) while also picking Reese. All-in-all, it's kind of a pity even if her performance was middling that Ziyi Zhang didn't get in, as she was obviously in sixth place & would've made history as the first openly Asian actress nominated for Best Actress (something that to-this-day has never occurred).
Actors I Would Have Nominated: In 1975, the Oscars looked to foreign and independent films to fill out a thin field, and they would've been wise to consider that in 2005, which I'm sorry to say does live up to its "underwhelming" reputation. Juliette Binoche (Cache) and Julia Jentsch (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days) both gave terrific performances, and would've been nice surprises here. If they'd expanded into genre films, Naomi Watts' silent star glamour in King Kong would've been a better way to go for her than 21 Grams. And then there's Joan Allen in The Upside of Anger, a movie that all of the precursors ignored for inexplicable reasons (at the time my favorite blog, The Film Experience, was championing her hard), despite it being an accessible comedy with a star they'd nominated three times (and came close a fourth), who was giving a home run of a performance. This easily could've been a career-capper sort of trophy run for Allen if they'd bought into that argument, similar to Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking or Julianne Moore in Still Alice, but they didn't even give that a shot.
Oscar’s Choice: Witherspoon over Huffman, probably by a medium but not large amount considering Walk the Line missed in Best Picture & Phoenix never took off in Best Actor.
My Choice: Witherspoon by a country mile. Allen, Binoche, or Watts might have made this race something I'd ponder, but when her chief competition is Knightley (silver) & Dench (bronze), you have to go with the only worthy performance in the lineup. Theron and then Huffman round out the field.
Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours! Is everyone on Team Reese, or is someone backing another candidate (I'm genuinely curious who as this feels open-and-shut for me & I'd love to see a different take)? Is 2005 the worst Best Actress lineup Oscar ever crafted, and if not, what is? And why the hell didn't Joan Allen get in for The Upside of Anger? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Also in 2005: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005
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