In this odd awards season, predicting the acting categories with accuracy was a difficult task. Many contenders seemed to vie for the limited spots and several actors garnered support from important precursors. The amount of legitimate "Almost There" cases is truly immense, especially when one considers such unexpected nods as that Supporting Actor citation for Lakeith Stanfield. In any case, with such a wealth of potential case studies, here goes an unusual entry in this series, one focused on multiple actors…
These short analyses of each performance are focused on 15 possible contenders who failed to make it to the end of the nomination race. I'll not be adding Sophia Loren or Ellen Burstyn to this bunch, considering I've already written about them. If you're interested in reading my thoughts on those performances, check out my review of The Life Ahead as well as this piece I did about Burstyn's Oscar history and record-breaking hopes.
BEST ACTRESS
Amy Adams in HILLBILLY ELEGY
For an actress whose work is usually a feast of subtleties, careful nuance, and studied discipline, this performance is both shockingly atypical and an overall misfire. Sometimes, the friction between an actor and their role can be productive, but you'll need a more risk-taking director than Ron Howard to pull it off. As it stands, Adams feels like she's playing the idea of her character more than the real person, crushed by transformative business that does nothing but distract the audience from what should be an achingly complex matriarch.
Yeri Han in MINARI
Director and screenwriter Lee Isaac Chung shows some difficulty in presenting Monica's POV, sidelining her so much that it's tricky to decide if Han should be considered a lead or supporting actress. Nonetheless, the performer more than makes up for any textual or directorial lacunas, constructing the most interesting person on-screen and nimbly suggesting what this mother, wife and daughter, hides and shows to each member of her family. The scenes where she argues with Yeun are lacerating stuff, the kind of marital discord that's so informed by bottled feelings one can feel the burn of lived-in authenticity.
Michelle Pfeiffer in FRENCH EXIT
It's no secret that I'm a fan of Michelle Pfeiffer, not after writing about her in White Oleander. Still, being a fan didn't prevent me from surprise, even a bit of shock, at her work in French Exit. This adaptation of a Patrick DeWitt novel asks the actress to negotiate the mysteries and contradictions of an enigmatic protagonist, someone so prickly we don't know whether to laugh or recoil at her behavior. Instead of sanding off the edges of the characterization, Pfeiffer sharpens them and lets her brightest hints of softness appear only when the tragedy of the flick has been unassumingly decided. Self-annihilation has never looked so glamorous.
Rosamund Pike, I CARE A LOT
Repurposing her voice full of money and murderous intent from Gone Girl, Pike depicts another master manipulator with a sardonic twist. Her American accent feels more secure this time around as does her willingness to find the grotesque side of villainy. While the beginning of the movie showcases an actor savoring the venom in her lines, the later developments betray Pike. She's incapable of solving the conundrum of a villain becoming an anti-heroin, which is surprising considering her resume. Then again, almost nothing and nobody in I Care a Lot manages to survive its wild tonal shifts.
BEST ACTOR
Delroy Lindo in DA 5 BLOODS
As an avowed admirer of Spike Lee's cinema, I've long grown to love Delroy Lindo. By my count, he should already have a couple of Oscar nominations and it was with great joy that I saw him earn support throughout this awards season. Unfortunately, the industry's tepid response to Da 5 Bloods was impossible to overcome, even with Lindo's apparent momentum. His is a feverish performance, full of curdled rage and the asphyxiating hold of grief, guilt, and self-recrimination. The pièce de résistance is a furious direct-to-camera monologue that would have stumbled many great actors, which Lindo tackles with equal parts gusto and mastery.
Mads Mikkelsen in ANOTHER ROUND
As if portraying the highs and lows of a drinking binge from start to finish, the Danish actor balances the euphoria of intoxication with the pitfalls of perpetual drunkenness. Even as he breathes life into the picture's dark midlife-crisis humor, Mikkelsen allows us to see the deep wells of pain that exist behind his captivating gaze and architectural cheekbones. When he explodes with anger, I jumped in a startling scare. When he dances, I wanted to stand up and clap. Just when you think Mads Mikkelsen has shown us all he can do, he manages to surprise.
Tahar Rahim in THE MAURITANIAN
The Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations weren't enough to catapult the French-Algerian actor to the Oscar lineup. It's a pity since, despite his movie's middling quality and milquetoast approach to its politics, Rahim shines bright as its single point of undiluted excellence. Earning our sympathy in early scenes, he shows us the humanity in a character whose internal machinations and allegiances are left deliberately unclear. His scenes with Foster manage to be electric pas-de-deux of complicated collaboration, but it's the interludes he shares with another unseen Guantanamo inmate that better show Rahim's skill, his blinding charisma.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Dominique Fishback in JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Many great thespians have fallen victim to trope-laden roles such as the supportive romantic partner of a great man. What surprised me about Fishback is how she investigates and uncovers the personal specificities of her character, working around the rote archetype to find something more profound than a mere collection of beatific stares. Her closeups are some of the movie's most potent images, rich in challenging emotional beats and contradictions. Her tearless resilience during the climactic carnage will stay with me far longer than her costar's flashier performances.
Jodie Foster in THE MAURITANIAN
After that unexpected Golden Globe victory, it seemed as if Foster had a chance at returning to the Oscar race. Her last nomination remains that Best Actress honor for 1994's Nell. While generally liking this actress' cerebral approach to movie acting, her work in The Mauritanian is far from her best. When sharing scenes with Rahim, illustrating a lawyer's complicated assessments of her client, she's remarkable but loses steam whenever asked to share the screen with another castmate. Plays a bit too naïve at times, privileging cheap sentiment over character integrity. It's solid work, but hardly awards-worthy. She's also a lead and the supporting categories have enough of those.
Helena Zengel in NEWS OF THE WORLD
Tasked with the most complicated role in her film, by far, this precocious German performer is mostly able to convey the conflicted intricacies of her sullen character. Watching her gradually open up to Hanks is a beautiful spectacle and the chemistry between the two actors imbues the nihilistic worldview of the movie with a syrupy earnestness that feels earned rather than forced. I'm unsure about her capability to delineate all the facets of this little girl's traumatic backstory, though I found myself impressed at her unwillingness to ham it up. Still, like Foster, she's a lead and does not belong in the Supporting Actress category despite all those precursor nominations suggesting otherwise.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Chadwick Boseman in DA 5 BLOODS
With a good director backing a performer and a text that sustains such an approach, it's possible to play ideas rather than characters. That's what Boseman does in Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, negotiating the fact this bigger-than-life figure is only shown to us through the fog of guilty memories and painful ideals. His final scenes with Lindo are the best in the entire movie, a dramatization of atonement that's calcinating as well as unexpectedly elegant considering the bombast of the whole picture. It's less showy work than his star turn in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, but a trickier role.
Alan Kim in MINARI
There's no denying that Alan Kim has been the most consistently charming and adorable presence in this entire awards season. The protagonist of Minari is a tiny supernova of cuteness that's impossible to resist, whether he's playing a part or crying accepting a trophy. That being said, his performance in Minari doesn't strike me as especially accomplished or necessarily Oscar-caliber. His greatest task is having good chemistry with his costars and he does so brilliantly, but the inner workings of the character's mind express themselves more through formalistic means rather than acting. Lee Isaac Chung makes us feel as if we know the perspective of this little boy, whilst relying on the camera's gaze instead of the performer's ability.
Jared Leto in THE LITTLE THINGS
How this performance got so close to an Oscar nomination is beyond me. Leto's Academy Award-winning turn hasn't aged well but it at least features some impressive moments. His serial killer facsimile in The Little Things is an affected nightmare, more a parade of portentous poses and airy line readings than a performance proper. It's a work of unconscionable shallowness that's all surface-level wrapped around a blank void. That the Razzies saw fit to nominate Glenn Close's perfectly fine performance in Hillbilly Elegy whilst ignoring this catastrophe is testament to their irrelevance, lack of taste, lack of reason.
Bill Murray in ON THE ROCKS
Another arguable case of category fraud that I can almost forgive when faced with his film's clear POV and the performance's sublime qualities. Playing a charming man who's painfully aware of his charm, Murray uses his innate charisma as a weaponized tool, a shield, an obfuscation. Fun and infuriating, he knows how to dissect the person behind the rakish smile, revealing his soft interior, the bloody mess of congealed regret, unspoken affections. The fabulous dynamic with Rashida Jones is just the cherry on top. Honestly, if made to choose, I'd rank this performance in On the Rocks above his nominated work in Coppola's Lost in Translation.
David Strathairn in NOMADLAND
Like McDormand, Strathairn's greatest challenge was to mesh together with a cast of mostly non-professional actors without letting the seams show. To his credit, the actor does so with such ease, it doesn't even register as a challenge until you're trying to analyze Nomadland's construction. Pulling from a treasure of melancholy contained within, Strathairn proves to be one of his leading lady's greatest scene partners, evoking and illustrating what pulls Fern towards him, as well as what makes her want to leave. Without any big Oscar-clip type scene, it's easy to undervalue Strathairn's delicate creation, ignoring what is one of the actor's richest works.
Now, dear readers, it's time to do like Academy members and vote. Next week, I'll be giving the full "Almost There" treatment to one of these unfortunate Oscar hopefuls. You get to pick which one it will be. Will you choose a great performance or a mediocre miscalculation, a sad snub, or an averted disaster?
You have until next Sunday to vote. Drop by every day and leave a vote. Also, don't forget to campaign for your favorites in the comments.