OVP: Actress (2002)

OVP: Best Actress (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Salma Hayek, Frida

Nicole Kidman, The Hours

Diane Lane, Unfaithful

Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven

Renee Zellweger, Chicago

My Thoughts: I've said repeatedly in the 2002 lineups that these are some of the best acting quintets that Oscar has assembled this century, and that holds true for Best Actress.  It wasn't just that 2002 was a good year for movies...Oscar had strong taste this year, and it came out in a variety of ways.  That being said, as you're going to notice in the precursors, Best Actress was kind of playing with the answer key for the nominations.  These five women totally dominated the awards season, and it was not a surprise at all when they were announced as the official ambassadors to the Kodak in early 2003.

At this point, Julianne Moore's acting in Far from Heaven is talked about in the way that cinephiles discuss Brando in On the Waterfront or Jane Fonda in Klute...it's so celebrated that it's hard to grasp that there was once a time that it was new.  The real genius in Moore's work (cause she is, true to reputation, wonderful) is that she's so fully-commited to this style of acting.  There are a lot of easy moments in Far from Heaven where she could break, where she could bust the ode to Douglas Sirk that Todd Haynes is crafting, and instead give herself a gigantic Oscar moment, but she doesn't.  That's what makes it so special, and keeps the film glued together even as others around her are faltering from her idealization.

Nicole Kidman's Oscar win has not aged well for reasons that are alien to me, because this might be my favorite performance of hers, confirmed by a recent rewatch of the movie.  In a movie as strong as The Hours, it's hard to single out a favorite and yet it's always Kidman's Virginia Woolf for this watcher.  I think it's the way that she's both (literally & figuratively) in charge of the story, bringing each new character in like a gleeful, sadistic narrator.  There's also the way that she embodies someone who is fed up with what's easy.  She knows that her old life is dangerous, and this new time in the country is where her health might recover, where she can last forever...but all she wants is to live.  "Richmond is death" is spit out like a bullet, her speaking aloud the truth that she knows every day but no one around her seems to understand.  I love her work here.

Renee Zellweger, not Moore, was Kidman's biggest rival for the Oscar, and this is a good performance from Zellweger in the brief time where she was one of the most exciting actresses in Hollywood (Tinseltown, not entirely sure what to do with a woman who was so good at a type of screwball comedy that had basically died by 2002, put her in dramas with diminishing results).  I think there's a fine line between "Roxie isn't a good singer" and Zellweger playing her (as Zellweger is not as good of a singer as, say, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Queen Latifah is), and it doesn't quite work for me with Gere, but that's really quibbling over the lobster...this is an excellent movie experience, and she's so good at pulling off Roxie's naked ambition (fame above all).

Unlike the first three women, Diane Lane does not get the benefit of being in a good movie...she's in, in fact, the worst movie of the five (also, it should be noted, opposite Richard Gere).  But Lane is sensational within this terrible picture.  She plays Connie as a complete woman, one that is difficult to pigeonhole even though it's our gut instinct to do so when given the cliche of a beautiful woman in a loveless marriage having an affair (an onscreen cliche if there ever was one).  She clearly feels alive in her affair, but understands that while her old life isn't something that she values, she knows that the handsome, easy life she's leaving for this man is of value, and can't part with it.  This is complicated, smart acting, and I'm so glad that Lane, who has yet to be nominated again in the years since, got her sole citation for such a terrific part.

All of this leads to Salma Hayek, an actress of talent & a celebrity who seems genuinely interesting (I love her in interviews), but who cannot make Frida work.  This was clearly a passion project for the likable Hayek, so I feel bad ragging on her too harshly, but this performance cannot compare to the four women with whom she's sharing this field.  She seems to simplify the complicated Frida too much, relying on Julie Taymor's visual hints about the artist rather than placing her own mark on Kahlo, and it shows nothing of the iconic Frida that the world would fall in love with in death.  There's not enough there.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama we nearly went verbatim what Oscar said, only subbing out Zellweger for Meryl Streep (The Hours) with Kidman winning, while Zellweger won Comedy/Musical against Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary), Goldie Hawn (The Banger Sisters), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago).  SAG went with Oscar's lineup exactly, but gave the statue to Zellweger and BAFTA gave theirs to Kidman, skipping both Lane & Moore in favor of Streep and Halle Berry (Monster's Ball, which she'd won for the year before-that used to happen with BAFTA back in the day before awards season became so lock-step).  In terms of sixth, it's Streep, and I'm not hearing any arguments here-one of the few times it was clear that Meryl just missed an Oscar nomination.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Meryl deserved an inclusion here.  It's hard to be angry about it.  Streep was nominated for Adaptation in Best Supporting Actress, Hayek would never be nominated again & is an affable star...who cares, right?...even Meryl probably was fine with it turning out this way.  But if we're basing this solely on what everyone put forward, there's no debate-Streep deserved that nomination.

Oscar’s Choice: A tight race between Zellweger & Kidman led to the latter getting it (they had both been nominated the year before & both had lost).  Zellweger would help eliminate Nicole as competition the following year by starring with her, and getting the Oscar in the process.

My Choice: This is going to maybe shock some of my friends, but I'm going with Kidman, just barely over Moore.  This is one of those cases where an unreal connection with a performance makes it impossible for me to deny.  Lane, Zellweger, and then Hayek follow.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  I know that we aren't all in agreement here even if Oscar & I are happy, so who do you want to give your love toward?  Is there another performance that Diane Lane or Salma Hayek should've been considered for other than these movies (Lonesome Dove wasn't eligible, and therefore doesn't count)?  And is this the only time that Meryl has ever been in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2002: 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, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002

Past Best Actress Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

OVP: Unfaithful (2002)

Film: Unfaithful (2002)

Stars: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan

Director: Adrian Lyne

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Diane Lane)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the things to keep in mind when you talk about the Oscars is that oftentimes, the best movies are not across-the board successes in every category.  The Academy frequently forgets this, nominating a movie for every category it can conceivably be considered for, but most often a film can have, say, average Sound Recording or Art Direction even if it's overall an outstanding picture.  The opposite, though, is true too.  Terrible films can occasionally have jewels embedded in them, and it's weird to notice when Oscar realizes this, saving an otherwise forgettable film from obscurity, or just letting some hidden gem live on in the picture.  In 2002, they managed to do the former.  Diane Lane in 2002 was kind of a "has-been" or at least "someone who hadn't fulfilled their potential;" a promising child actress, her career languished in the 1980's due to the high-profile flops Streets of Fire & The Cotton Club, and while she'd had successes (most notably Lonesome Dove), she was not the headliner she could've been.  That changed, though, with Unfaithful, which won her her only (to date) Oscar nomination, and her first massive hit as an adult leading woman.  The movie in question might have given Lane a well-earned moment of true stardom, but it's also, well, really bad.

(Spoilers Ahead) We're getting ahead of ourselves, though-let's establish what the film itself is about.  Edward (Gere) and Connie (Lane) Sumner live in a posh Westchester home with their son Charlie (Per Sullivan).  The two have a seemingly idyllic marriage, but it's filled with boredom-they love each other, but the fire in the relationship has gone out.  One day (in a near comical windstorm), Connie meets Paul (Martinez), a younger book seller who treats her from an injury during the windstorm, and then comes onto her.  Connie resists, but she's intrigued by him, going back to see Paul, and eventually they start an affair.  Edward begins to catch onto the affair, which Connie begins to question particularly when it becomes clear that Paul is having this kind of relationship with other women.  Edward confronts Paul, and in a jealous rage (after seeing a snow globe he gave his wife & now she gave Paul), he hits Paul on the head with it, killing him instantly...and as he's cleaning up after the crime, Connie calls & breaks off the affair on Paul's answering machine, thus a sense of irony that he just killed a man who is no longer a threat to his marriage.  The remaining act of the film is Connie being a suspect for the crime, realizing that Edward knew about the affair & killed Paul, them reconciling, and then in the film's closing scenes, them making plans in front of a police station, likely just moments before Edward turns himself in.

Unfaithful is a film that at times is so ludicrous you almost think it should be played for comedy.  One of my main issues with movies is when they have otherwise intelligent people behave foolishly to advance the plot, and Unfaithful is just a seemingly continual series of that.  We're somehow meant to believe that Connie doesn't realize she's a notch in this guy's bedpost after she spots him with another women.  We're also expected to believe that Edward, a seemingly miild-mannered man, not only kills Paul in a jealous rage (in a weird scene where it seems like he's going to have a heart attack before he does it), and then somehow manages to lug a body wrapped in a rug in broad daylight (in Manhattan!) into the trunk of his car, brings the body to a dump site (where it's never actually found within the confines of the film)...and somehow still manages to put the murder weapon, the snow globe, back with his wife's snow globe collection, where she'll inevitably figure out that he stole it from Paul & murdered him?  Where is the logic here-it's utterly stupid to assume that he wouldn't discard the snow globe, even if he hadn't figured out how to forgive his wife or not?

Which brings us to the ending.  The film's ending is out-of-left-field.  The police have investigated Connie & Edward, and while she in particular is a suspect in the murder, there's nothing really tying her to Paul's actual death.  Apparently despite Edward's & Connie's fingerprints being in the apartment (proving they had been in Paul's home), they can't get their fingerprints to match them, and there's no body or murder weapon as far as the police are concerned so it's impossible to charge them (though a black light surely would have shown them that Paul had lost an immense amount of blood, and the lack of a body would indicate that he was murdered rather than suicide).  So why, exactly, after they reconcile & decide to have this terrible secret, does he seemingly turn himself into the police?  The logic here is mind-boggling, and the script gives us no hints as to the reason.

All of this is to say that Diane Lane getting a hit out of this movie is a surprise, and entirely resting on her shoulders.  Lane plays Connie as a complete woman, and one that cannot easily be pigeonholed.  She is a woman in her 40's who is still unbelievably gorgeous, a woman who clearly is living her life on autopilot.  You see that in the way she starts to give into Paul, at first tentatively, and then with a recklessness, showing in her relationship a passion she hasn't felt in years.  Even as the film continues, though, her ambivalence toward her old life never exactly tires-Lane plays her as someone who understands that what she has (her marriage, her wealth, her son) is something of value, but it's not something she particularly values.  That's smart acting, and a devotion to a character that the script really can't provide insight toward-she earned this Oscar nomination, and kudos to the Academy for finding this gem under so much garbage.

OVP: A Little Romance (1979)

Film: A Little Romance (1979)
Stars: Laurence Olivier, Theolonious Bernard, Diane Lane, Arthur Hill, Sally Kellerman, Broderick Crawford
Director: George Roy Hill
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Original Score*, Best Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There once was a time, ladies and gentlemen, before child-acting was a sea of precocious tots trying to become the next Jodie Foster or Dakota Fanning.  Children were less about being precocious and pre-naturally smart and relatable to adults, and more about just being children onscreen.  This was one of the first things I was struck by in George Roy Hill's A Little Romance.  Theolonious Bernard (who eschewed acting after this and now is a dentist in Western France) and Diane Lane (in her film debut-as you might be aware, she never took up dentistry) are admittedly precocious and incredibly smart, but there's still a sense of childlike wonder in their performances that occasionally becomes missing in today's films.  It's pitiable that most of the adult actors in the film (save for one) become cartoons, but Bernard and Lane's romance is actually quite sweet and enjoyable, lifting this film even when it doesn't know what to do with itself.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Daniel (Bernard), a cinema-loving French teenager who lives with his cabbie father as he begins to woo Lauren (Lane), an equally brilliant girl who is from a wealthy American family living in France.  Daniel frequently borrows lines from movies and tries to impress her with Humphrey Bogart and Robert Redford and is persistently charming despite being a massive dork, and she falls for it hook, line, and sinker.  One of the cuter aspects about this movie is that we don't see a struggle for them to fall for each other-they're pretty much perfect together, but like Romeo and Juliet (an analogy mentioned multiple times), they're pulled asunder by fate and in particular Lauren's snobbish mother.

The film's best moments are always the two of them together-it's sweet to watch them discover love and kissing and shared interests (as well as interests that are less shared), and the two have mad chemistry.  Lane would make such a huge splash after this film that she ended up on the cover of Time magazine, and while this film occasionally veers into the super cute, sometimes you need that in a movie, and I quite enjoyed it.

The adults in the film, however, leave something to be desired.  Arthur Hill as Lauren's stepfather seems to only be in his relationship to try and be a father, rather than to stick with Lauren's obnoxious and odious mother (Kellerman), who seems plucked out of a Disney movie stereotype.  Neither actor is particularly strong in their role (between this and MASH, Sally Kellerman is not getting a great reputation on this blog as an actress).  Worst of the major actors in the film though is Olivier, who is of course a legendary actor but is pretty dreadful as a sympathetic pickpocket whose accent always feels far too affected and whom Daniel is constantly jealous of despite foolishly acknowledging he's well into his seventies and that it's completely out of character for the teen.  Olivier minces, ticks, and is pretty much every angle of bad overacting in the movie, and though he's always had a penchant for scenery-chewing, this is probably the worst I've seen from him.  The only adult actor in the film who is any fun is Broderick Crawford, who plays a boorish version of himself, and has a great scene with Daniel where he argues over whether he punched Ward Bond or Richard Widmark in Sin Town (of course Daniel was right and it was Bond, not Widmark).

The film received a pair of Oscar nominations.  The first was for Adapted Screenplay, and here I give it a mixed review, mostly because the film's cute dialogue between the two children is juxtaposed against the really awful way that the adults are written and handled, which damn near ruins the movie (and quite frankly the Daniel/Lauren scenes work more due to chemistry than writing).  The second is Georges Delerue's score, which shockingly won the Oscar despite Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek and Henry Mancini's 10 (both considered more iconic today than A Little Romance).  The score is great, but to be honest I'm flummoxed as to how it was eligible for an Oscar considering that the best parts of the score (such as the bike ride scene) are actually by Vivaldi, not Delerue.  Normally when you seamlessly put a classical composer into your score that automatically disqualifies you (look at, say, Alexandre Desplat and The Tree of Life), and I suspect that more people were voting for Vivaldi than Delerue when he topped Mancini and Goldsmith.  As a result, I give this an okay, knowing that while the music fits the film well, it's doing a lot of borrowing from another source to get to that purpose; this is great for a composer (do whatever works best for your movie, and the classical nature of the score works with such romantic scenes), but when you're judging an original score Oscar it doesn't seem an appropriate nomination.

There you have it on A Little Romance-have you caught the film?  If so, what were your thoughts?  Do you think that Delerue's Oscar was inappropriate based on later readings of the score?  Do you find the film cute or cloying?  And what did you think of Olivier in one of his final film roles?  Share in the comments!