OVP: Best Actress (2003)
The Nominees Were...
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
My Thoughts: I sometimes feel like an old man (which depending on your birth certificate, I may well be) when I talk about old Oscar races, but it's hard to impress how wild of a ride 2003's Best Actress race was. Even compared to recent fields (like this year's crazy, frontrunner-less year), 2003's nominations got bonkers with only two names showing up in most of the precursors (and not a single name landing in all of them), and the remainder feeling totally influx throughout the season (just wait until we get to the precursors below). We'll start with the two names, though, that never felt in doubt with Oscar all year long.
Charlize Theron, it's hard to remember in 2003, was not considered a particularly compelling actress. Beautiful, yes, but she had largely stuck to "girlfriend/wife" roles until that point, and when she saw her break playing totally against type in Monster, she took it. Theron has been called one of the great performances to ever win this award, and to some degree I find that to be hyperbole. I think she's excellent, inhabiting Aileen Wuornos & humanizing her in a way that probably works better in fiction than in a biopic (the sympathy for serial killers angle always feels like a tightrope considering the lives they ended up destroying even if they started out from sheer horror like Wuornos clearly did). I don't think she lands the romantic arches with Christina Ricci (there's not enough chemistry there), and I also feel like some of her shock appeal is the makeup doing heavy-lifting because we know what she really looks like, but this is a worthy nomination, even if I don't think it's an all-timer.
Diane Keaton was having yet another comeback in 2003 (her last, to date, with Oscar), and like Theron, there are moments where it doesn't quite work. I don't know that she had enough chemistry with Keanu Reeves late in the movie for my taste, never quite making it work the same way as with Jack (and there are moments it feels like she's playing Diane Keaton more than her character). But this is minor quibbling about a terrific performance. Playing a woman who has found immense success in every avenue of life except love, and then having that be a bumpy, fraught, vulnerable journey for her rather than a simple rom-com...Keaton sells a woman who had settled for her life, even if she always knew there could be more. It's great stuff from one of the best of her generation.
I feel a little bad ragging on child performers, particularly since I know my brother reads this blog & will be guarding his beloved Whale Rider with mama bear arms, but Keisha Castle-Hughes doesn't work with me. There's naturalism in a performance, and then there's just not emoting enough, and I think she's more in the second half. It doesn't help that her script is hackneyed and filled with coming-of-age cliche that even the most skilled of performers wouldn't have been able to bring to life, but I wasn't into this the way that so many were...bonus points to the Academy, though, for putting her in the correct category as this is 1000% a lead performance.
Samantha Morton is better with naturalism in In America. She plays her mother as a real, complicated figure, someone who can have horny sex with her husband (strong chemistry between Morton & Paddy Considine), while also having great anger toward him later in the movie & still make it feel believable. Morton's work is informed by grief, her Sarah knows that she can never fill the void left by the death of her son, and just wants someone to blame because blaming no one is the worst punishment. Morton was capping off a truly impressive run in the late-1990's & early-2000's with this her second (and final) nomination, and while it was a surprise, it was a pleasant one from Oscar.
Our final nomination cannot get the same compliment. Naomi Watts has been nominated for a My Ballot Award before for King Kong and was in sixth place for The Painted Veil-I consider myself a fan. But she is actively terrible in 21 Grams and I will never understand why Oscar chose this as the moment to honor her, one of the worst performances of her career. She is constantly screaming, constantly angry, acting as if there's nothing underneath her hostility toward the world, nothing that existed prior to the confines of the movie. This, like her nomination for The Impossible, feels like they're nominating the role more than the actress, and that these movies (and not something unique & film-fitting like Kong) are where she got her nominations will never not confuse me.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have eleven women nominated for these awards. For Drama it's Theron besting Cate Blanchett (Veronica Guerin), Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Volume 1), & Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), while for Comedy/Musical it's Keaton over Jamie Lee Curtis (Freaky Friday), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Diane Lane (Under the Tuscan Sun), & Helen Mirren (Calendar Girls). SAG gave us Theron as the winner over Keaton, Watts, Wood, & Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) while at the BAFTA Awards it was Johansson (Lost in Translation) winning over Watts, Johansson (for Girl), Thurman, & Anne Reid (The Mother) (due to release schedule issues, Theron wasn't eligible until the next year with BAFTA, which used to happen a lot more there than it does now, and she was nominated but lost that season). All of this is to say-who the hell knows who was in sixth place...there are thirteen names just listed and only three of them made it with Oscar, and that's not counting that for much of the race Jennifer Connelly (House of Sand and Fog) was considered something of a favorite. If I had to guess, thanks to Johansson's campaign being royally botched, it was probably Wood, but this was a bizarre race & one that I still can't figure out.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: Similar to our comments for Return of the King, it's hard to know where to put Uma Thurman's work in Kill Bill exactly since it's one great performance split in half, but it's a darned shame that Oscar didn't make room for her in either 2003 or 2004.
Oscar’s Choice: There was no beating Theron-that trophy was undeniably hers...Keaton didn't stand a prayer, and she was obviously in second.
My Choice: I'm going to go with Keaton, who gives the stronger character arc without the need for prosthetics to enhance the performance, against Theron (I also, to be fair, like Keaton's movie way better as I didn't like Monster at all and in a close race, that matters). Morton is third, with Castle-Hughes & Watts falling behind.
Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours! Are you with Oscar & Theron, or do you dare to be different with Diane & I? Why do you think that Oscar has the worst taste in Naomi Watts movies? And who the hell was in sixth place here? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Also in 2003: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003
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