OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2018)
The Nominees Were...
Amy Adams, Vice
Marina de Tavira, Roma
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
My Thoughts: Unlike Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress has some truly great performances in 2018 (the women definitely outshone the men in both lead & supporting in 2018). The problem here, if we're going to call it one, is the reality of category fraud, which is a topic we discuss a lot on this blog (and they discuss virtually everywhere Oscar discussions happen online). I tend to think of category fraud this way when it comes to the OVP-it's important to level the playing field a bit, so I remove one "star" from a five star rating if someone is committing category fraud to make it in this lineup, because otherwise it's not fair to those people playing in a smaller time slot. However, I don't blanket refuse to give an award to a performance if, say, that bumps one nomination down to 4-stars and no one else is above a three (this has happened in a few races, like our 2005 & 2012 Supporting Actor fields)-category fraud performances can win, but they need to do so on a higher plane.
The reason I bring this up is that there is at least one surefire category fraud performance here, and debatably a second one. The first that is obviously a lead is Emma Stone in The Favourite. I'm not going to get into technical definitions of lead/supporting (while these can be fascinating, they also can border into the silly if you get too literal), but Stone is the lead in this movie-her story is central to the plot, even if Colman might reign as the queen. So I'm taking a star off, which still puts Stone as one of the best performances in this lineup, because this is the best thing I've seen from her to date. Her Abigail is spoiled, calculating, and as the film continues, truly amazing in the way she unfolds before our eyes. It's terrific work from an actress who seems to be doing some of her most fascinating acting after she picked up her Oscar (which gives you the impression that she could well get a second one).
Her costar Rachel Weisz is a slightly different case. I personally think this is a lead performance, though she doesn't have the screen-time that Stone or Colman do. Sometimes movies have three leads, and her story is just as central as the others. Normally for debatable performances I might toe-the-line & not knock down a star, but I don't quite see it that way here and am doing it for Weisz as well. That's important to say again because Weisz is amazing in The Favourite. This is some spellbinding work, playing someone who in some ways is similar to Abigail (ruthless, ambitious, greedy), but in other ways she has a different perspective (unlike Abigail, she cares about, perhaps even loves, the Queen but knows that to play such a hand would be to give a vulnerability she's not capable of). Also, and I know this is an embarrassment of riches, but of the three women she's the best at delivering the film's delicious dialogue.
None of the other performances in the lineup are category fraud worries-the remaining ladies are 100% supporting performances. The one who gives the Favourite ladies a run for her money is Regina King. Her work in If Beale Street Could Talk is relegated to two major scenes in the movie, one with her daughter saying she's pregnant & the other in Puerto Rico. The scene with her daughter, where she defends her child against the baby's other grandmother, is pure acting panache-great scenes, lines, & King aces it. The Puerto Rico scenes are subtler, but they might be the more impressive achievement. You see how her Sharon used to be, before she was a mother, the way that she still understands the appeal she once utilized to her advantage, the ease of a lifted veil when not assigned the responsibility of wife-and-mother. It's technical wizardry from one of our best working actresses.
Amy Adams gets the best-written part in Vice, and probably the part that's the truest to life. By all accounts Lynne Cheney, not her husband, was the "natural politician" and you see that in the way that Adams brings out her ambition from behind-the-curtain, knowing that she'd never be able to claim the mantle for herself because she was born at the wrong time. But Adams can't explain why Lynne wants power, and that hurts the performance. The problem with Vice is that McKay wants us to make these figures evil, but doesn't have the guts to just push that into "we're bad people" territory, thinking it's too easy of an answer. But Adams' performance lacks that awareness, and it makes even the most ridiculous of scenes (like the infamous Shakespearean dialogue fourth-wall breaking) feel ludicrous, and not stylized.
Marina de Tavira is one of the most shocking nominations in recent history for this category, truly coming out of nowhere to get this nomination after no precursors (none) had paid attention to her. She is solid in Roma-of the entire cast, which relies on naturalism, she's the professional actor of the bunch & it shows. I don't buy that "newcomers are the best option" for vehicles like this (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't-we'll get into Yalitza Aparicio next week for my final thoughts), and De Tavira feels best-prepared to encounter some of the more literal aspects of Cuaron's class tale. But she also isn't the focus, and it's not a daring performance or noteworthy one even if it's the best part in a great movie. It's not her fault that she got upstaged by the water on the garage floor, because that's where Cuaron wants your attention...but she did get upstaged by it.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Regina King as their victor, and kept Oscar's lineup intact save for De Tavira (they went with Claire Foy in First Man instead). SAG gave their trophy to Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) of all people, mostly because they skipped both King & De Tavira (their other nominee was Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots). BAFTA also skipped both King & De Tavira, adding in Robbie & Foy, and here gave the trophy to Weisz, so a three-way split on the winners of the major precursors. In terms of sixth place, I know that Foy, Blunt, & Robbie all have their acolytes here, but I honestly think it was Linda Cardellini in Green Book. The film was very popular (it won Best Picture for a reason), she's in the "long-suffering wife" category, and De Tavira getting in makes me think that Oscar just wasn't feeling some of the other precursor options & was willing to go in a totally different direction.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: At some point we're going to need to see Ann Dowd get in with the Oscars. She's been so good so often in the past decade we take it for granted, but the brilliant actress was once again marvelous as the enigmatic Joan in Hereditary, totally owning the screen.
Oscar’s Choice: Though the precursors were spread out pretty wide, I honestly think that King won by more than the range of winners would suggest-Weisz or maybe De Tavira could make a decent argument for second, but King's win feels like one of those JK Simmons/Allison Janney-style victories that happen where everyone's collectively like "oh, sure, she's great-let's make her an Oscar winner."
My Choice: I think there are three five-star performances in this lineup...and this is why I led with category fraud as an issue, because I'm going to give this to King as a result. You'll see all three of these women in the My Ballot in two weeks, but the Favourite ladies will be in lead where they belong, and though Weisz (silver) and Stone (bronze) might be performances I like mildly better than King's, I'm going to stick to my rules and give it to the one true supporting performance. De Tavira and then Adams round out the list.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Is everyone with Oscar & I in giving Regina King a trophy, or do you want to support an additional nominee? What is the fairest way to handle an issue like category fraud? And how often do we have performances like Marina de Tavira's lurking in sixth place, a total shock that we have no idea is sitting there? Share your thoughts below!
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