OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2017)
The Nominees Were...
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
My Thoughts: Best Supporting Actress of 2017 is the rare lineup that actually features five supporting performances. Usually when I judge the supporting categories I will dock a star off of my ratings if a performance is clearly lead just to level the playing field, and in the 2010's this has become as common as "slow news day" jokes on Twitter, but 2017 blessedly gives us five performances from true character actors (well, four character actors and a hip-hop icon) and all of them are judged solely on their merits, not having to adjust the grading scale.
We'll start with Octavia Spencer, the only one of these women who had been nominated prior to 2017. Spencer has adopted the guise of a modern-day Thelma Ritter, frequently getting cast as some version of the same role (though Ma and Luce show that she's stretching & indulging her acting muscles with this newfound celebrity). This works so well in The Shape of Water. She takes what could be a trope (the Black best friend to the white protagonist), and fleshes it out, giving the role a warmth and depth that honestly no other supporting character in the movie has, and to Spencer's credit, isn't entirely in the script. A true actress who understands her director's vision, but also knows how to lift it when it's slacking.
Allison Janney costarred with Spencer in her Oscar-winning role in The Help, and is another actress who has spent much of the past twenty years elevating everything she's in (though Janney's work has been more so in television). Janney is a blast in I, Tonya, totally owning every inch of this movie, and it's hard to begrudge an actress this good (who based on every interview she or her coworker's have ever done, seems to be a genuinely nice person offscreen) a win. I will quibble, though, in saying that most of her work is surface-level. Splendid surface-level, but up against a couple of her co-nominees who are doing more work, it's hard not to think Janney should've done more. Particularly from an actress as good as she is, this is a bit like giving Maggie Smith her Oscar for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel instead of Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
One of those nominees is another sitcom veteran, Laurie Metcalf. Metcalf has not had the lead work in TV that Janney has, but has been synonymous with a certain kind of frazzled aunt/mom/coworker for most of her career. But Metcalf is a brilliant actress, and she owns this role as a mom stuck as both the breadwinner & the one with the most foresight in her household. There's so much depth-of-feeling in the way that she clearly adores children & being a mom, even if Lady Bird drives her into consternation (look at the way she gets over-excited about every baby in the film, perhaps the only time she seems to genuinely lighten her metaphorical burden). Metcalf makes an easy part complicated & real.
The same can be said for Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread. In a perfect world this would be Manville's second Oscar nomination (she was unreal in Another Year seven years prior, and got my silver medal in this category that year), and it's worlds apart from her work with Mike Leigh. The way that she has to deal with her egotistical, ridiculous brother, manipulating him to always get his way, frequently without him realizing how she's in charge, is breathtaking. Think of the scene where they're having breakfast and he tries to "handle" her before she breaks the facade, wanting to let him know exactly how much she will not be taken for granted...it's specific, delicate character work that adds dimensions to the movie's best performance.
Our final nominee is Mary J. Blige, which is the one performance in this lineup that I didn't get. Blige's character work might've worked in a better movie. Playing a Black woman who is forced to take care of another woman's children even though she doesn't want to...there's a lot there. But Blige doesn't flesh out her character, and though this is an angle that might work (as written, her Florence isn't a woman that would ever let her guard down), it hurts the story, which is so reliant on Florence being something more than just the sturdy backbone of her family.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes favored Janney, besting Metcalf, Blige, Spencer, & Hong Chau (Downsizing), while SAG went the most against Oscar's type by picking Janney, but only keeping Metcalf & Blige for Oscar, adding in Chau & Holly Hunter (The Big Sick). BAFTA added Manville to the mix, with she, Metcalf, Spencer, & Kristin Scott Thomas (Darkest Hour) all losing to Allison Janney (I'll say this in probably all four acting write-ups, but the lockstep races for all of the acting prizes made 2017's ceremony one of the dullest in a while). In terms of sixth place, I predicted both Chau & Hunter at the time (I assumed Blige's limited screentime & the at-the-time new advent of Netflix in the Oscar race wouldn't sell, and no one saw the Phantom Thread love-in coming this far out). Either of these women (or honestly, Tiffany Haddish in Girls Trip) would make sense, but I'm going to guess it was Hunter that was in sixth place given The Big Sick got in for writing while Downsizing missed everywhere.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: I for sure would've included Hunter. Holly Hunter is one of our best screen actors, always good, but that doesn't mean we should ignore when she takes a prickly character, fleshes her out, and manages to in the process give us one of the 2010's best rom-com's, an increasingly tough genre to navigate.
Oscar’s Choice: It was an easy call for Janney, who dominated all season & who always felt like the kind of actress who would eventually win an Oscar.
My Choice: I will go with Metcalf over Manville, as she has the tougher part to land & has more dimension (both will be showing up next week when we get to whom I would've picked for the nominees, though). Following them is Spencer, Janney, & Blige.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you joining me with Team Lady Bird or are you still enamored with Janney & that bird? Where do you think Octavia Spencer's long run with AMPAS will end (can she come close to Thelma Ritter's unparalleled six nominations)? And was it Chau, Haddish, or Hunter in sixth place? Share your thoughts below!
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