In a normal Oscar season, you would be able to guess the winning actors now. Think about last year, when the same quartet of Joaquin Phoenix, Renée Zellweger, Brad Pitt and Laura Dern made their way through all the awards shows: The only suspense was whether they could convince us of their surprise when their names were called over and over.
There are some acting races this year that I already feel confident about calling – a posthumous Oscar for best actor for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” star Chadwick Boseman is practically a closed deal. I’m looking out for Carey Mulligan as the best actress, and Daniel Kaluuya is coming strong in the supporting actor race for his work on “Judas and the Black Messiah”. But there is still a category of performance that I cannot decipher. This year’s supporting actress race is an eclectic MMA where almost anyone can win.
Those crazy Golden Globes did nothing to narrow the field, as voters there gave Jodie Foster the supporting actress award for “The Mauritanian,” an act that Oscar didn’t even bother to nominate. But I’m not mad: it’s fun not to know what’s going to happen, and I’m impressed that the open chaos in the category has lasted so long. The Screen Actors Guild Awards can clear things up when it comes out on April 4, but until this big clue comes along, let’s analyze the contestants and keep scratching our heads.
Maria Bakalova, ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’
Look, let’s get real: none of this year’s nominated performances generated more headlines than Bakalova’s. Her meeting in the hotel room with Rudolph W. Giuliani gave the “Borat” sequence its comic climax, but the fearless Bakalova proved indispensable from start to finish, taking every mischievous suggestion from Sacha Baron Cohen as if she were born to play. his daughter. You can feel the film reconfiguring itself around its performance as it continues and, in the end, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” has a spine and a soul because of what this previously unknown Bulgarian actress brought to him.
This is how, I think, how most voters feel; where they differ is whether an act like this can really be considered worthy of an Oscar. An improvised role in a comic sequence is practically unprecedented when it comes to winning an Oscar, let alone an improvised role in a comic sequence in which the character is presented eating a monkey and then offered to Republican politicians as a child bride . (And those are just the plot points that I could quote in a family newspaper!)
It would be completely beyond for Bakalova and “Borat” to triumph in this category, but hey, 2020 was a strange year for cinema. Let Oscar reflect this with the strangest victory imaginable!
Glenn Close, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’
Close is one of the five most nominated actresses in Oscar history and the only one of five that never won. Isn’t it time to just give her the trophy?
Well, that was basically the point when Close was nominated two years ago for “The Wife,” and it didn’t work, either. (She lost to Olivia Colman, who was once again nominated against her this year – that’s a real Bening-Swank energy, folks.) Although Close was excellent in “The Wife”, the film failed to arouse enough passion to put it on top, and critical support is lacking even more for the poverty porn drama “Elegia do caipira”, which currently has 26% of news on Rotten Tomatoes.
Still, I wouldn’t count Close. There will always be a contingent of voters who simply enjoy watching a famous person physically transform into a role, and Close, like the pink-cheeked, wild-eyed mom, is giving it to them in a way that no contestant can really touch. She may be the only Oscar nominee this year to receive a Razzie nomination for the same performance, but voters are likely to ignore it all: they want to see the work that was put into playing a character, and you can’t accuse Close to sell less.
Olivia Colman, ‘The Father’
The supporting actress category is usually where you go to earn your first Oscar, not her second: only four women who already had an Oscar won another in the category of supporting actress, and the last was Dianne Wiest in 1995 (for “Bullets Over Broadway”). Colman is the only competitor in this year’s Oscar run at home, so if voters are trying to spread the wealth a little, it won’t be their first choice.
But this recent victory gives Colman at least one advantage: her role in “The Father” could not be more different than the capricious queen she played in “The Favorite”, and thinking about these films together is to better appreciate Reach out Colman’s breath. She is by far the nicest figure in “The Father”, taking care of the confused Anthony Hopkins and resisting many of his cruel mood swings. You almost want to give her an Oscar just because the poor woman has to endure so much!
Although the actresses were not very lucky to get a second trophy in this race, the men turned it into a recent sport in its own category: Mahershala Ali and Christoph Waltz each managed two supporting actors in a short succession. This provides a kind of precedent for the equally respected Colman, and it also does: “The Father” has received six nominations, and voters clearly like that. If they want the film to win something on Oscar night, the race for the supporting actress is your best bet.
Amanda Seyfried, ‘Mank’
With her role as Marion Davies in “Mank”, Seyfried marks several of Oscar’s favorite boxes: She is a naive (check) playing another naive (check again) in the nominee for best film (ch-check). And while Seyfried is best known for comedies, musicals and novels, “Mank” proves that she can seriously shine in a prestigious drama, the maybe-you-me-underestimated career that Oscar voters swallow.
Still, it is a little strange that Seyfried missed a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild, which added young “News of the World” star Helena Zengel to Seyfried’s supposed place. The Oscar winner in this category almost always wins on the SAG first, and there is rarely a way for an unsigned to prevail: Regina King got it two years ago for “If Beale Street Could Talk”, but at least she got a high profile, Golden Globe televised along the way. A victory for Seyfried would still be entirely inside Oscar’s wheelhouse, but this SAG affront will keep it full of suspense until the last minute.
Yuh-Jung Youn, ‘Minari’
Actors make up the biggest branch of the academy, and his guild chose “Minari” in style: not only did Youn and Steven Yeun get nominations there as well, but “Minari” was the only nominee for best film, in addition to “The Chicago Trial 7 “Also received a nomination for SAG for best cast. And although” Mank “received more Oscar nominations,” Minari “is arguably the strongest film with a representative in the supporting actress category, since it also won an Oscar nomination for key script that escaped the David Fincher film.
Youn’s role as her grandmother in “Minari” is extremely funny and more than a little painful – if you love the movie, you have to love her too – and the 73-year-old artist has collected all the supporting actress season trophies from groups of critics, including the famous Los Angeles Film Critics Association. She was the first Korean actress to be nominated for an Oscar and could become the first to win it. Let’s just hope that Oscar has the good sense to invite his wonderful 8-year-old stage partner, Alan S. Kim, to the ceremony: If Youn wins, can you imagine his reaction to a shot?