A fairy-tale princess, a regal queen, an Alzheimer’s patient, a famous French chanteuse, a disapproving sister, a lovelorn debutante, a dutiful daughter, a pregnant teenager and a few more … we line up this year’s candidates for Best Actress.
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Who would have thunk playing an animated fairy-tale princess turned into a real person when she’s thrust into the cruel real world would garner so much Oscar attention? It sounds crazy, but that’s Amy Adams for you. Not only does the actress manage to give her lovely alter ego Giselle all the charm and sweet effervescence of a true fairy-tale character, she also does it without ever once making you feel nauseous. It just proves Adams’ first Oscar nomination for her similarly optimistic performance in Junebug wasn’t a fluke. [PAGEBREAK]
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Of course Cate Blanchett is going to get nominated for the second time playing Queen Elizabeth I. Would you expect anything less? Blanchett embodies one of history’s more legendary–and toughest–monarchs with a kind of fragile humanity. In The Golden Age, Elizabeth is a middle-aged woman now, and Blanchett plays it to its full potential. But wait, there might be dual Oscar fun for Blanchett. The actress also turns in an amazingly unique interpretation of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, which already has Oscar prognosticators hailing her nomination a shoo-in. Go, Cate!
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Playing someone with Alzheimer’s has been an Academy favorite before (Judi Dench in Iris, for example), but it’s the way Julie Christie handles it that makes her a strong contender. Guided by freshman writer/director Sarah Polley, the veteran British actress infuses Fiona with an elegant grace, like a grand dame, but who is also impulsive, approachable and grounded. Fiona’s sense of fun and joy is clear from the sparkle in her eyes. But when that sparkle starts to dim, you feel its loss. The Oscar-winning actress chooses her projects carefully nowadays–and she’s hit it out the park with this one.
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Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
The Academy loves biopic performances. They also tend to reward those first-time Oscar performances in which the actor or actress fully embody their real-life character to the point you can’t recognize them. This year, we have French actress Marion Cotillard–best known to American audiences as Russell Crowe’s love interest in A Good Year–playing Edith Piaf, one of France’s more illustrious singers whose life ended tragically. Those are the best parts, aren’t they? From Piaf’s unique look to her deep-throated vocals, Cotillard simply nails it. Not to mention, the actress will look stunning on Oscar’s red carpet.
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Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
And here’s another stellar biopic performance. Although the real-life story of journalist Daniel Pearl’s abduction–and ultimate execution–is powerful enough, A Mighty Heart focuses on Daniel’s pregnant wife, Mariane, as she deals with the her husband’s predicament. In someone’s else hands, this role could have been somewhat thankless, but Jolie ever-so-subtly makes her presence known, displaying Mariane’s inner strength while trying to maintain her sanity–that is, until the moment Mariane realizes Daniel has been killed. Then Jolie pours out one of the more gut-wrenchingly emotional scenes ever. Let’s just say, if the actress gets nominated, that’s the clip they’ll play over and over.
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Nicole Kidman, Margot at the Wedding
The Squid and the Whale’s writer/director Noah Baumbach knows how to write complicated women, so it’s only befitting he casts Ms. Kidman as his lead in Margot at the Wedding. As the divorced Margot, Kidman easily slips into the persona–a savagely bright, razor-tongued short-story writer who creates chaos wherever she goes and who decides to try to break up her sister’s impending nuptials to a man she finds unsuitable. It’s definitely a part Kidman could play in her sleep, but that’s why we love her. She manages to makes these difficult women so intriguing–and gets Oscar nominations for her effort.
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Keira Knightley does love a good period piece, doesn’t she? Maybe it’s because she excels at capturing whatever time period her character is in while still infusing the role with her own spunky and modernistic personality. She certainly did in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, as well as last year’s terribly romantic Pride & Prejudice. In Atonement, she follows suit, once again teaming up with her Pride & Prejudice director Joe Wright. Set in the 1930s, Knightley plays Cecilia, a headstrong woman who is separated from her one true love by unsavory circumstances but sees that love endure through the next decade. Yep, right up Knightley’s alley–and Wright might just guide the actress to her second Oscar nomination.
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Much like Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, too, shines when she’s playing solitary and complex women. In The Savages, she’s a struggling New York playwright, who takes odd office jobs to make ends meet and is having an affair with a married man. But when she gets the word her father is deteriorating into dementia, she has to reunite with her estranged brother (Philip Seymour Hoffman)–and confront what her family has become. Again, not necessarily a stretch for this two-time Oscar nominee, but it’s all in how she executes the minute details of such a life.
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Playing the angst of teenage pregnancy isn’t a new thing, either. But again, it’s all in who’s doing the delivering, figuratively speaking. The 20-year-old Ellen Page, who already proved to audiences she has the chops with her taut performance in 2005’s Hard Candy, is a knockout as the title character, Juno, a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy and finding the right set of parents to adopt the unborn child. Page’s quirky take on familiar theme might just get her name on the Oscar list for the first time.
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Russell is unfortunately a long shot at this point, since Waitress came out months ago, but we still have to give her props for turning in one of the year’s freshest performances. As Jenna, the former TV star (Felicity) plays the put-upon wife of a real creep, who isn’t at all thrilled about having her first child and bakes any number of delicious pies as a way to deal with her sucky life. Russell does it with such flair, one wonders why it took so long to the actress on the big screen. She should stay there.
And for Supporting Actress contenders, we have:
Along with the aforementioned Cate Blanchett for I’m Not There, there’s also: Tilda Swinton’s twitchy yet ambitious corporate climber in Michael Clayton; Meryl Streep’s conflicted journalist in Lions for Lambs; Helena Bonham Carter’s murderous accomplice in Sweeney Todd; Julia Roberts’ rich Southern belle in Charlie Wilson’s War; Jennifer Jason Leigh as the happy bride-to-be in Margot at the Wedding; young Saoirse Ronan as the perpetrator of broken hearts in Atonement; and Amy Ryan as the trash-mouthed yet damaged single mom in Gone Baby Gone.
