With the internet strenuously erecting a ring in which Julianne and Jennifer can mud wrestle, and wondering who could be a surprise snub, let's look at one more imaginary Best Actress Battle with this Oscar category that appears to have six women in it. One too many. Let's call this one the Critical Darling Cha-Cha.
Gone Girl vs. Fired Girl
Two weeks ago when their was a seeming abundance of "fifth slot" possibilities for Oscar's Best Actress race, Marion Cotillard emerged from a non-campaigning overseas cloud to claim Critical Darling status. In quick succession she took prizes from three early-announcing critics group: the venerable New York Film Critics Circle as well as Boston Society of Film Critics and the young New York Film Critics Online group. Some of those prizes were shared with The Immigrant but since The Weinstein Co wasn't backing their early release with a campaign of any kind, it soon it became clear that Marion's worker solidarity drama, the Belgian Oscar submission Two Days One Night was the one. She's such an amazing actor that which film it was hardly mattered...
The goods were there for Oscar consideration whichever one you glanced out. Two Days, which was just shut out of Foreign Film consideration (argh...) making Marion its only real chance at Oscar glory, has just opened in theaters (review & Marion praise) so go see it this week.
But just as Marion's case for a nomination was heating up, two setbacks. The first was Jennifer Aniston (already discussed) swooping in with a hard-working campaign and winning all three of the precursor trifecta nominations (SAG, BFCA, Globes). Then Rosamund Pike began to rise in regional critics awards.
Remember Rosamund Pike? Regional critics groups did. She's now won eight critics awards (the most of all lead actresses) for playing "Amazing Amy" in David Fincher's long-legged October hit. Admittedly these are all very small prizes without much media attention. But that's a better showing than anybody was expecting given that Julianne Moore could've easily done a Helen Mirren royal wave from the campaign trail and taken everything. Remember that super rich Best Actress field 8 years ago when only one American critics groups anywhere thought anyone among several superb candidates was better than her Queen of England? God that was annoying!
Pike's late dominance is enough to make you reconsider her performance. Take this freeze framed gif wall by Lady Sati...
It reminds you that Pike's immense challenge in that movie is embodying a woman who understands how performative she is or maybe has to be... and somehow making her cohesive. I love Pike (in general) and the movie (in many of its particulars) but I'll admit I was a smidge cooler on the performance than I expected to be in October. Maybe she leans a little too hard on the performativity (her early "cool girl" stage being the hardest to warm to when it needs to be the easiest) but what a challenge.
And really thinking of the acting that this 'bonafide psycho bitch' is constantly doing grants a sort of time-lapse hilarity to many of the beats in her scenes. Like this line reading that Lady Sati suggested should be her Oscar clip.
Ha! And I concur.
But where does all this leave Marion?
It's interesting to be faced with this critical battle since the two performances are practically polar opposites. Marion's art is in her total sense of being Sandra, inhabiting her skin. It's acting at its most invisible. Pike's challenge is to delineate her character's performativity. Amy Dunne never relaxes and just breathes. She's always acting a role "Amazing Amy" and otherwise.
Pike's recent critics surge along with LAFCA's irritable mucking with the categories to put Patrica Arquette in lead seem to have crested Marion Cotillard's growing wave. Cotillard needed critical fervor, her most effective and maybe her only booster to make Oscars shortlist for a quiet subtitled drama. Short of going door to door for votes asking for a miracle, what's a girl got to do to return to the Dolby?
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