OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2005)
The Nominees Were...
Amy Adams, Junebug
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
My Thoughts: There are a few of these contests where I am sluggish about doing the writeup because the winner is so obvious to me in my brain, it feels like I'm not going to find something new to write about the victor. The 2005 Best Supporting Actress race, though, I'm nervous about for a different reason-I genuinely don't know who is going to win. I have wrestled with this race for years, and while I picked a winner at the time, I've sort of just chalked it up as a "good year" rather than committing since whom I would select (if I had "tie" cards to play in this series, this might be one of the times I'd pull one out). However, the whole point of this project is to get officially on the record, and to pick even in tough races, so I'm going to do just that. But first, I'm going to buy myself some time by writing about the two women that won't be winning.
First off is Frances McDormand. McDormand is a great actress, and while her curmudgeonly offscreen persona has started to seep into her performances as of late (in many ways she reminds me of Meryl Streep in that regard), she's a fantastic presence. The problem here is that that star persona is really all she has going for her-her work as Glory Dodge is all grit, but not enough substance, and there's not enough there for us to really vest in her character and her role in Josey's tale. In a lot of ways this should mirror Cher's work in Silkwood, but unlike Cher, McDormand doesn't give us enough hiding behind the surface to make this character compelling, and thus this feels like a coattail nomination for a popular actress.
The other nomination that is going nowhere in terms of the win is Catherine Keener. Keener's work is better than McDormand's-she gives Harper Lee a sense of understanding & patience that feel like genuine character assets. My favorite part about great supporting performances is that they are small, but feel like they could carry their own movie they have so much backstory in their reactions. Keener has that, but the script isn't interested in her journey as we continue on, totally devoted instead to Truman, and while that isn't Keener's fault, compared to three movies where the actors are doing best-in-career work, it's hard to compare the two. Still-a solid piece-of-work from an actress that always elevates her movie.
Which brings us to the big three, starting out with Amy Adams. Her Ashley is so good; Adams had been teetering toward stardom for years when this film was released (particularly with her showy role in Catch Me If You Can), but this brought her to a new echelon. Ashley is a difficult part, as she's so earnest & forthright that it'd be easy to play her for laughs, or to make the audience feel like they're in on a joke against her. Adams doesn't do that-Ashley is a real human being, someone who understands pain, but doesn't feel it needs to discussed in the sort of hushed tones we expect from film character's experiencing heartbreak and tragedy. Adams' work is occasionally marred by Junebug's lack of focus with its other characters-she's giving 110%, but the inconsistencies of the other characters are not overcome by the script, and thus she occasionally feels a little out-of-place, but that's just looking for faults-this is possibly Adams' best work 15 years later.
Michelle Williams' Alma has the smallest amount of screen-time of the three women I'm considering for this trophy, but she makes every second count. Williams plays Alma as the sort of woman who was trained to be a wife-and-mother, the pretty girl who never assumed that she'd be in a situation where her husband wouldn't worship her. Her big showdown later with Ennis is building off of that anger, that he took away a "simple" life from her, and how he did so in a way that she can't discuss with another soul. Alma is an introverted character, someone that has to hide everything, and those are difficult to play while still landing a punch with the audience. That Williams is able to do that is a testament to how this is also her best work in the past 15 years. About the only complaint I have here is that Alma's performance occasionally feels unfinished-we don't get to have that last understanding of what she thinks of Ennis' life or Jack's death, and thus she feels ancillary even with Williams' work demanding attention.
Weisz's work is oftentimes maligned or dismissed in part due to the passionate fanbases for Williams & Adams, and in part because unlike those two actresses, this isn't her best work (that would be either The Deep Blue Sea or The Favourite depending on whom you ask). But that doesn't mean that she isn't on-par and exceeding them in what she brings to Tessa Quayle. Tessa is so complicated in this film, having to use her sexuality to get to what she needs, and thus because Weisz has her playing a part, she's difficult to understand. If it weren't for the groundwork that Weisz gives us in the first half, when so many other actresses would have dropped easier hints as to Tessa's true feelings but Weisz doesn't, the back-half of the film wouldn't be a proper mystery. We aren't just trying to figure out why Tessa died, but who she was. That's a really tremendous task for an actor, and she nails it. The only knock I have on Weisz is that this does border on a lead performance, and so it's questionable whether she should lose a star for that (in which case she'd lose as these are three 5-star portrayals).
First off is Frances McDormand. McDormand is a great actress, and while her curmudgeonly offscreen persona has started to seep into her performances as of late (in many ways she reminds me of Meryl Streep in that regard), she's a fantastic presence. The problem here is that that star persona is really all she has going for her-her work as Glory Dodge is all grit, but not enough substance, and there's not enough there for us to really vest in her character and her role in Josey's tale. In a lot of ways this should mirror Cher's work in Silkwood, but unlike Cher, McDormand doesn't give us enough hiding behind the surface to make this character compelling, and thus this feels like a coattail nomination for a popular actress.
The other nomination that is going nowhere in terms of the win is Catherine Keener. Keener's work is better than McDormand's-she gives Harper Lee a sense of understanding & patience that feel like genuine character assets. My favorite part about great supporting performances is that they are small, but feel like they could carry their own movie they have so much backstory in their reactions. Keener has that, but the script isn't interested in her journey as we continue on, totally devoted instead to Truman, and while that isn't Keener's fault, compared to three movies where the actors are doing best-in-career work, it's hard to compare the two. Still-a solid piece-of-work from an actress that always elevates her movie.
Which brings us to the big three, starting out with Amy Adams. Her Ashley is so good; Adams had been teetering toward stardom for years when this film was released (particularly with her showy role in Catch Me If You Can), but this brought her to a new echelon. Ashley is a difficult part, as she's so earnest & forthright that it'd be easy to play her for laughs, or to make the audience feel like they're in on a joke against her. Adams doesn't do that-Ashley is a real human being, someone who understands pain, but doesn't feel it needs to discussed in the sort of hushed tones we expect from film character's experiencing heartbreak and tragedy. Adams' work is occasionally marred by Junebug's lack of focus with its other characters-she's giving 110%, but the inconsistencies of the other characters are not overcome by the script, and thus she occasionally feels a little out-of-place, but that's just looking for faults-this is possibly Adams' best work 15 years later.
Michelle Williams' Alma has the smallest amount of screen-time of the three women I'm considering for this trophy, but she makes every second count. Williams plays Alma as the sort of woman who was trained to be a wife-and-mother, the pretty girl who never assumed that she'd be in a situation where her husband wouldn't worship her. Her big showdown later with Ennis is building off of that anger, that he took away a "simple" life from her, and how he did so in a way that she can't discuss with another soul. Alma is an introverted character, someone that has to hide everything, and those are difficult to play while still landing a punch with the audience. That Williams is able to do that is a testament to how this is also her best work in the past 15 years. About the only complaint I have here is that Alma's performance occasionally feels unfinished-we don't get to have that last understanding of what she thinks of Ennis' life or Jack's death, and thus she feels ancillary even with Williams' work demanding attention.
Weisz's work is oftentimes maligned or dismissed in part due to the passionate fanbases for Williams & Adams, and in part because unlike those two actresses, this isn't her best work (that would be either The Deep Blue Sea or The Favourite depending on whom you ask). But that doesn't mean that she isn't on-par and exceeding them in what she brings to Tessa Quayle. Tessa is so complicated in this film, having to use her sexuality to get to what she needs, and thus because Weisz has her playing a part, she's difficult to understand. If it weren't for the groundwork that Weisz gives us in the first half, when so many other actresses would have dropped easier hints as to Tessa's true feelings but Weisz doesn't, the back-half of the film wouldn't be a proper mystery. We aren't just trying to figure out why Tessa died, but who she was. That's a really tremendous task for an actor, and she nails it. The only knock I have on Weisz is that this does border on a lead performance, and so it's questionable whether she should lose a star for that (in which case she'd lose as these are three 5-star portrayals).
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes threw in an expected curveball (Scarlett Johansson was a huge favorite of HFPA at the time, and thus was an easy option for Match Point) and an unexpected one (Shirley MacLaine in In Her Shoes, the 2005 movie I'm most bummed I didn't catch before commencing this OVP run), to go along with McDormand, Williams, and the victorious Weisz. SAG also favored Weisz, here against a carbon copy of the eventual Oscars lineup, while BAFTA did their own thing giving the trophy to Thandie Newton (Crash), bumping Weisz to lead, and tossing out Adams in favor of Brenda Blethyn in Pride & Prejudice. In terms of sixth place, I can't quite tell who it was. I think there's an argument to be made that it was none of these women, and instead Maria Bello (A History of Violence), particularly after she'd been left out in 2003 despite an expected citation, but upon reflection I have to assume it was Newton, as Crash ended up doing very well with Oscar and she was probably close to beating out Keener or Adams had she slightly more momentum from HFPA or SAG.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: As you can imagine, three of these nominees would definitely stay in my book. I'd add in Bello, who gives her career-best work in History of Violence and is so good as the woman who has carried many of her suspicions about her husband for so many years. I'd also give an early nod to Anne Hathaway, who while not in the same league as Williams, brings a different, more knowing perspective on what her husband's sexuality is to her performance, and is intriguing as a less sympathetic counterweight to Alma.
Oscar’s Choice: Weisz clobbered throughout the awards season, and won in what really wouldn't have been that competitive a race despite us rewriting it to be so in hindsight thanks to the trajectories of Williams & Adams' careers.
My Choice: We'll go backwards-McDormand is in fifth, Keener in fourth. I'll give the bronze to Amy Adams, if only because of the problems I have with Junebug not always gelling as a film. For the win, I'm changing my mind from what I said in 2005. I think Williams does more with less, and Weisz, while not lead enough for me to totally dock a star, at the very least is central enough to the plot that it's hard for me to pick her over Williams considering the size of their roles & the similar impact that they have onscreen.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? On a different day, I might pick a different performance, but today I'm on Team Williams-are you with me, or are you smarting from me snubbing Weisz? Would this race be on the all-timer's list if you could snub McDormand for Bello? And do you think Thandie Newton will be able to parlay her Westworld credentials into a long-delayed Oscar nomination at some point? Share your thoughts below!
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