Almost There: Class of 2021
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 10:00PM 
Another year, another class of actors who got close to Oscar glory but failed to make the cut. Like last year, here are capsules of 15 unnominated but buzzy performances. At the end of the article, you'll get to vote for who you think should get the full "Almost There" treatment. Since I already wrote extensively about Ruth Negga in Passing and Simon Rex in Red Rocket, those two won't be here, though my heart mourns for their dashed Oscar dreams.
First up, let's start with the season's wildest race...
BEST ACTRESS has been a punditry rollercoaster, with presumptive locks dropping in and out of favor for the past few months. Here, at TFE, we love a messy competition, especially when the final results are this delightfully surprising. In the end, the only person who got recognized by all major precursors was left out of the Oscar ballot…
Lady Gaga in HOUSE OF GUCCI
You have to respect the actress's commitment to her role, even if the results lean towards unmodulated chaos. Gaga delivers a maximalist performance here, full of bold choices and erratic stylization. It's an exuberant approach to biopic acting that reminds one of Old Hollywood actorly excess. In many ways, this take on Patrizia Reggiani is reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor's early nominated turns. There's an undeniable intensity mixed with blinding star power that, nonetheless, begs for steadier guidance. Rather than blame the singer turned actress for this performance's shoddier moments, I'd instead point my finger at Ridley Scott. Throughout House of Gucci, he seems utterly uninterested in helping his cast reach a cohesive register, whether within their individual characterizations or collective ensemble work. Also, yes, she sounded more Russian than Italian.
Jennifer Hudson in RESPECT
I confess myself a Hudson agnostic, even though I've admired her work sporadically through the last two decades. She's always a striking presence and sometimes nails a scene so hard the screen seems on the verge of spontaneously combusting. Respect is a mixed bag of fine moments and murkier passages, coming alive during musical performances and then dozing off into semi-catatonia as it goes through the standard biopic motions. Hudson's performance as Aretha Franklin is the same, oscillating between perfunctory strategies and sudden blasts of charisma. That being said, in a contemporary context where mimicry is increasingly at the forefront of what is considered good acting, one must admire Jennifer Hudson's avoidance of cheap impersonation. It never feels as if she's trying to duplicate Franklin. Rather, the actress approaches her as a movie character in her own right.
Alana Haim in LICORICE PIZZA
Some people are just natural-born screen sirens. Such is the case of Alana Haim, who lazily wanders into Licorice Pizza and delivers an effortless star turn of uncommon confidence and unapologetic prickliness. Stepping into a role that was written specifically for her, Haim delineates a contradicting young woman who's both disappointed by her own choices and knowingly running in the general direction of self-sabotaging failure. The discourse around the movie's age-gap romance misses how the central character dynamic is questioned throughout Licorice Pizza, often manifesting in miasmas of guilt and personal disappointment that Haim so beautifully embodies. Still, her portrait of arrested development isn't without its faults, and the performer's inexperience sometimes rears its ugly head. All in all, a splendid, if unperfect, debut.
Rachel Zegler in WEST SIDE STORY
Speaking of debuts, Rachel Zegler got herself a dazzling first time on-screen too. Statistically, she even seemed poised for a locked nomination, having now become the only Best Actress contender to win both NBR and a Globe to get then ignored by AMPAS. As lovely as she is, I can't say I'm mourning her absence. Zegler brings adolescent carnality to Maria, repudiating notions that the character is a passive maiden with no agency or inner desires. However, as the tragedy unfolds, her turn becomes increasingly unsteady, culminating in a finale that's the picture's Achilles' heel. Yet, her voice is divine, and she manages to make an oft dull role into the movie's captivating center.
While Best Actress seemed to be in constant flux throughout the season, BEST ACTOR was another story altogether. It didn't take long before four locks solidified, leaving a highly contested fifth spot eventually won by Javier Bardem. Some of the guys who were vying for the nod include:
Leonardo DiCaprio in DON'T LOOK UP
Adam McKay's latest might be the most brazen display of actorly tics I've ever seen. Amid the all-star cast, Leonardo DiCaprio is the most mannered performer on-screen, though there's a clear purpose to his choices. In short, the actor plays a study on frustration, impotence as the nervous inability to accomplish anything even as apocalyptic doom is upon us. It's not an especially deep portrayal, and, at the end of the day, no choice surprises or defies the audience's first impressions. However, it gets the job done, even though the strain of that big Howard Beale moment is a tad too obvious and inorganic.
Peter Dinklage in CYRANO
We should appreciate how hard it is to make screen love feel palpable, immediate, real. It's something often taken for granted, especially when it comes to male actors. In other words, what Peter Dinklage does in Cyrano, regardless of musical prowess, is remarkable and deserves its flowers. Joe Wright seems keenly aware of his leading man's best assets, often staging scenes around Dinklage's face, the powerful expressivity of his gaze, the lacerating sentiment he can invoke in close-up. Look no further than the musical's reinterpretation of the balcony scene. Dinklage's rendition of "Overcome" is a plaintive marvel, full of yearning in the voice and devastation in the eyes.
Mahershala Ali in SWAN SONG
At first, it seemed like nobody was watching or talking about the second Swan Song of 2021. And then, both the HFPA and BAFTA-nominated Ali in their Best Actor lineups, making the two-time Oscar winner appear like a viable candidate in the race. What's more, he wouldn't have been a bad nominee, though it's rare for sci-fi fare to get acting accolades. Playing a dying man who secretly clones himself so his family won't have to deal with loss, Ali grounds the convoluted plot in painful human reality. Seeing him act off his duplicated self is a spectacle, a formidable actor trying to resolve how to embody an impossibility. However, it's the scenes Ali shares with Naomie Harris that really make the film work and reduce the spectator to a blubbering mess.
Hidetoshi Nishijima in DRIVE MY CAR
Considering Drive My Car's overall popularity with AMPAS, it feels like Hidetoshi Nishijima was closer to an Oscar nomination than some of the more famous contenders. As Kafuku, the Japanese thespian delivers a study on acting as a collaborative art form and as conduit for processing the complications of grief. It's a tour de force in the form of a patient slow-burn, gradually revealing newer depths until a devastating snowbound climax opens the floodgates, setting loose a naked vulnerability that electrifies the film, brings the audience to its knees. Not only that, but Nishijima also nails the theatrical acting contextualized within screen acting. His Uncle Vanya, though only briefly glimpsed, is a heartfelt achievement all in itself.
The snub of the year is Ruth Negga. As far as I'm concerned, that's an absolute truth, even though Gaga's absence was more statistically unprecedented. But of course, as far as precursors are concerned, other people were contending for the unstable BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS slots that ended up going to Buckley and Dench. They were:
Caitríona Balfe in BELFAST
Going into Belfast, my hopes for Balfe were sky-high. After admiring her work on TV and limited film roles, the prospect of a big-screen showcase was appetizing, to say the least. Unfortunately, such expectations were too great, and Branagh's latest ended up disappointing, both as overall cinema and as a performance piece. While the Irish actress has some stellar moments, they never cohere into a solidified vision of Ma. For example, there's little to no consideration to how the figure might be differently perceived in scenes alone with her husband or moments seen exclusively through a child's POV. In the end, her work consists of a series of Oscar clips in search of a characterization. The same thing happens with Jamie Dornan, another Celtic thespian with the potential to be a star, the charisma and beauty too. Both actors are let down by their movie, but they also let Belfast down. In smaller roles, Hinds and Dench managed to provide the project a lived-in quality their younger colleagues never quite grasp.
Ann Dowd in MASS
Grief and loss are popular themes among this season's awards hopefuls. Joining Ali, Nishijima, and the undiscussed Nicolas Cage in Pig, Ann Dowd offers a searing vision of motherly bereavement complicated by the monstrous actions of one's child. The ensemble nature of Mass combined with its limited scope means the actors' work is even more collaborative than usual. Furthermore, each of the leading quartet must convey years of complex shared history through suggestion alone, articulating the visceral reality of a bone-breaking blow when all that's left of it is an everlasting bruise. Even as I love the performance, I can't help but think she was the least deserving of the Mass cast. Though, when the level of talent is that sky-high, saying someone's the weakest link doesn't mean much. All that excellence and no cast nomination? How come, SAG?
Cate Blanchett in NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Of course, the Screen Actors Guild saw fit to nominate Cate Blanchett, whose take on a scheming analyst is the highlight of Guillermo del Toro's latest Best Picture nominee. While Blanchett's portrayal of Dr. Lilith Ritter doesn't hold a candle to Helen Walker's version in the 1947 original, there's plenty to love. Instead of going for thorny psychology, the Australian star chooses the path of deadly glamour and hyper-stylized hunger. Hers is a refraction of femme fatale archetypes seen through a prism of digital revisionism, an interplay of depthless surfaces whose very raison d'être is their unidimensional venom. As someone who prefers Blanchett at her most mannered, the theatricality of this turn tastes like the sweetest ambrosia.
Finally, we arrive at the year's most underwhelming and inconsistent race. The final Oscar lineup for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR is quite solid, but the trio there was full of surprising omissions and dispassionate inclusions, some horrid possibilities, and ultimately ignored standouts:
Jared Leto in HOUSE OF GUCCI
I've seldom felt more respect for the Academy's voting body than when they revealed a reluctance to award Jared Leto's cartoonish take on Paolo Gucci. For months, a nomination seemed inevitable, but a sense of reason and good taste prevailed at the last moment. While I get why some love the chaos Leto brings to his movie, not even House of Gucci's general mediocrity could convince me that he's any good. Disruptive, sure, but that doesn't make it a functional piece of acting. Instead, we have a collection of crude sketches and insulting reductivism, an intersection of opera buffa and SNL-style characterization that I never want to see ever again. While Gaga has moments of brilliance and the potential for camp genius, he is just a disaster. Never confuse shit for chocolate, not even when the HFPA, SAG, and BFCA are feasting on manure as if it was Tartufo di Pizzo.
Bradley Cooper in LICORICE PIZZA
Like many PTA joints, Licorice Pizza features an endless cornucopia of actors capable of making the smallest of roles into the grandest of impressions. Cooper isn't my choice of MVP (that would be Harriet Sansom Harris) but his twisted caricature of Jon Peters is pretty great nonetheless. Intensely Hilarious and hilariously intense, the actor walks into the film with the energy of 10 atom bombs and never loses any of it. It's the perfect approach to the part, considering such a mad register can only exist in small doses. Sustaining such a thing through an extensive character arc would be impossible. In other words, the actor makes the roles' limitations into blessings. I haven't had this much fun with the obsessive repetition of a mispronounced word since Alden Ehrenreich couldn't say his line in Hail Caesar.
Ben Affleck in THE TENDER BAR
George Clooney's latest directorial effort is a tedious, visually inert, piece of tobacco-stained sentimentality. Some dimensions of memoirist metatext give it some interest, though the overall thing is lackluster. Inoffensive and dully enjoyable, The Tender Bar comes alive whenever Ben Affleck's on-screen, delivering one of the best performances in his career. With this and The Last Duel, one can say the actor's on a hot streak. He's found a level of confidence in front of the camera heretofore unexplored in his many movies. Here, as the protagonist's mentor uncle, Affleck is a magnetic presence, relaxed and effortlessly cool, able to negotiate warm feeling and familial nostalgia without falling into maudlin territory.
Mike Faist in WEST SIDE STORY
If you'd told me, months ago, that Riff would end up being the best part of the new West Side Story movie, I wouldn't have believed you. While Mercutio is one of the best characters of Romeo and Juliet, the same can't be said of his counterpart in the musical that transfers its forbidden love premise to midcentury New York. Russ Tamblyn's quite good in the '61 movie, but he still couldn't make Riff into a standout. Mike Faist, however, reinvents the role with the help of Spielberg's direction and Kushner's updated script. Athletic and with a feral predisposition, there's a desperate quality to his character. With Tony, one can almost feel the homoerotic anguish of a jilted lover. With Bernardo, there's an edge of existential panic to Riff's racism. None of this makes the character more likable, though. If anything, he's thornier than ever, a ferocious anti-hero who's a dead man walking way before he steps foot in the salty stage of his final stand. He can also sing and dance like nobody's business. What a star!
And now, it's time to vote.
You can vote until Sunday night. I'll write about the winning actor, and then this series will go on a short hiatus until the end of this awards season. Hope you've been enjoying reading the "Almost There" series as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
Reader Comments (36)
The more her chances grew, I felt intrigued by Alana Haim’s shot at an Oscar nod. And then I saw the movie last weekend, and found myself really rooting for her to be nominated. She stole the movie, sure, she’s rough around the edges, but she was magnetic and captivating, despite playing a thorny loser of a character. I was obsessed w her - despite how much I wanted to slap some sense into her!
I’m interested to see what she does next in the acting world.
because i'm curious i voted for Alana Haim. also we haven't had enough LICORICE PIZZA coverage.
Funny moment: I started eagerly reading this article without checking the byline and about halfway through I said to myself, "Whichever member of the team this is, (s)he's on fire tonight." I should have realized that "Almost There" is Cláudio's beat, duh. So bravo Mr. Alves, good job.
Anyway, I'm most interested in reading your take on Faist, Ali, Blanchett or Cooper, so I hope one of them wins the popular vote. (There are about a half dozen options I'm not interested in hearing any more about.)
I must say that I don't understand what you're talking about with Belfast. Grand miments are what Balfe earns in Belfast. There is no way Dench is in her space.
Where's Jamie Dornan?
The intense hyperbolic reactions to Leto's performance was and is baffling to me. I was actually looking forward to it being so OTT and crazy and yes he certainly made...choices and was very BIG but I was kind of let down it wasn't as bad as people on the internet would have me believe. I mean I certainly wouldn't give it any awards or anything but the Academy has certainly acknowledged and awarded worse. I also think as usual there was a disconnect between the extremely online crowd and the normal moviegoing crowd as judging by my theater audience they seemed to respond with laughter to his antics which I'm guessing was what he was going for.
Poor Catriona is trailing here, but I'm dying to hear more about your fascinating take on this performance and film!!
"Still, her portrait of arrested development isn't without its faults, and the performer's inexperience sometimes rears its ugly head."
While that may be true, the reason it never bothered me is because I feel that inexperience is exactly what PTA wanted, and this is exactly the reason why I love Licorice Pizza. It is unapologetic about being exactly what it wants to be. It's one of those times when, even though I love the movie, I get why a lot of people couldn't get into it.
I was really hoping Alana Haim would crack the Best Actress list, particularly because I was dreading what the lineup would look like with Lady Gaga most likely leading the pack and Kristen Stewart snubbed. However, since not only was Gaga left out (for doing the best she could, but noticeably lost at sea in a film that should not have been as boring as it wound up being), but Stewart was included and even Penélope Cruz made it to the list (for working once more with the filmmaker who brings out the absolute best in her), then I ultimately didn't need Haim on the list (though I still would have loved to have her in it).
I also full agree with you on Hudson. I only saw the film the night before the Oscar nominations just in case she got nominated, and while I didn't find her bad, there was nothing special about it and I found the film around her quite dull. I compare it to watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye, since both films have very obvious similarities, but Tammy Faye had Jessica Chastain's electrifying performance keeping me invested, even as the film fell into its episodic biopic traps. No such luck with Jennifer Hudson in Respect.
Speaking of Ben Affleck, I was really surprised to see him get a Razzie nomination for The Last Duel. I thought he was the best thing about that movie, though someone did point out that his presence in that film was just like Jared Leto's in House of Gucci, disruptive. Only I feel in the case of Affleck in The Last Duel, it worked (though others disagree with me apparently). I preferred him there than in The Tender Bar anyway (which I found dull overall, and while Affleck was fine, he couldn't elevate it enough for me to feel he stood out).
Always a treat to have Cláudio discuss performances like this, thank you!
I have a theory. It's a crime mystery, so the audience wants a villain. The movie's lack of flash and 1990 setting give the audience the impression that it's very old-fashioned, and the kind of film Hollywood used to make, but there's really not much there. I'm glad that the Academy didn't fall for it. Beautiful blog. I really enjoyed reading this essay writing article.
Hugs and thanks for all the inspiration you provide!
To think that Lady Gaga deserved a nomination is sheer industry infantilism.
There is nothing special about her performance, other than it being maximalist, as you say. It's overacting. It's culturally insensitive. It's stereotypical. She was rightfully ignored. I love her as a musician, but I've come to despise her as an actress. All her recognition seems to stem from social media's anger that she didn't win the previous time, which she also didn't deserve.
Lady GaGa a full bloodied star turn and I am not a mega fan,if only Scott had made it flashier and glossier it might have made more sense and be more fun,each actor was on a different wave length in group scenes,no camp.
Leto is simply abysmal with that Miaow Miaow voice,it was like first time at a Brunch Ball.
DiCaprio hated the film he was ok but not a nom worthy role.
Hudson never Aretha but once other contenders failed to impress I liked her take a lot more.
Balfe is fine but she could not sell that going back to the supermarket scene,I got no passion from her and felt her best scenes were just well written but not elevated.
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Dowd I wish she'd played some parts in a different register,I don't feel she changed much during the film,she has a good last scene but for me the fabulous Plimpton was the 1 left out
Richter Scale - what you said about wanting Haim to crack the lineup once you saw the direction Best Actress was going in, but being ok w the outcome cuz there was no Gaga and they managed to nominate Stewart AND Cruz (but you still would’ve loved to see her nominated) — is *exactly* my feeling. lol. I feel seen!
I voted for Faist but Haim would be a close second.
Jamie Dornan and Nic Cage deserve consideration as well...
Gaga sounded more Russian than Italian because the real Patrizia's voice sounded just like that. The proof is on YouTube.
Apart from Lady Gaga and Caitriona Balfe, none of these snubs were very shocking, honestly. Gaga is definitely the one who deserves the full the write-up.
Balfe is surely the one I felt the sorriest for in not getting a nomination. She's worked for years in roles that have used her charisma but really haven't given her a lot of different notes to play. I worry that her time is winding up and a nomination would have really helped her career and possibly propelled her into playing different parts. I wonder what she would have done in something like House of Gucci. I'm serious.
Beyond her, I don't think Mike Faist was necessarily snubbed, but I find myself imagining where his career might go to next. Can people use his potential or will they consider him a one off?
I'm loving the Mike Faist voting surge. In all likelihood, given a divided field with much better known performers and a weaker response to West Side Story, he probably wasn't really "almost there," but his performance in this part is definitively worth a close look.
Cate Blanchett's Dr. Lilith is quite different from Helen Walker's portrayal of the same character.
It's both a very memorable turn and flawless casting.
10 years from now it'll be glaringly evident how much her performance stands out in comparison to at least two of the nominated five in Supporting Actress.
The real weird thing about Jared Leto in House of Gucci is that they put him on a fat suit and prostheticsto play someone who seemed average sized in real life! Like, the only thing they actually had to do was cast an older actor that could look the part, like Woody Harrelson
Both him and Gaga are sometimes entertaining as their characters but the real problem for me is that the script is a vacuous mess. It's such a wasted opportunity of a movie
Cláudio, what you said about Leto is absolutely killing me, I literally lol'd. Best thing I've read all week!
I'm tired of seeing Blanchett repeatedly play the same morally repugnant glamour-puss.
Claudio, thanks for this. Enjoyable the whole way and I particularly liked the "explanation" why Affleck didn't hit. I thought he was a pleasure to watch. Perhaps because his character was like the Good Will Hunting one all grown up.
jules--thank you for my new favorite word--glamour-puss. Delicious!
I'm with Guardian and Sarah above. I LOVED Jared Leto in THOG. Don't get me wrong -- it's not that I think it was good acting. But part of what was so fun about the movie was the same thing that was fun about "Doubt" several years ago -- get a group of A-list actors, put them in the hands of an incompetent director (odd to say that about Ridley Scott, but there you go), allow them to each decide they're in a different movie, and let them loose. Sort of like acting Mad Libs on the big screen. Watching the acting anarchy was the only thing that kept me entertained for 2 hours 40 minutes, and I can't imagine making it through the film without Jared Leto. Yes, of course he shouldn't be nominated for acting awards, but I like to think he showed up on set, quickly realized the mess he was in, and proactively decided to entertain himself and the audience. Boof, indeed.
I really didn't care for Cate Blanchett in Nightmare Alley, where she was not only totally inferior to Helen Walker but actively made the dynamic with Cooper and plotting unbelievable.
Haven't seen Affleck yet in The Tender Bar, but I rooted for him to make it for The Last Duel, even as I recognize it's kind of the easiest performance in that movie (and he had a great, generous screen performer to work with).
I've come to discover that I don't particularly like PTA's nostalgia for the '70s in California. I didn't love Inherent Vice either. But Alana Haim is genuinely magical in Licorice Pizza.
Agree that Plimpton vastly outshines Ann Dowd in Mass.
House of Gucci is a turd but I don't really blame any of the actors for it. The script, direction, and editing are a total mess. Of the biopic contenders, I kind of prefer Gaga to Kidman and Chastain. She's less technically precise, perhaps, but also more alive than Kidman and seemed to have an actual "take" on her character as compared to Chastain (who overdoes the naivete and showed no interest in implicating Tammy--which I vehemently disagree with).
I keep looking at this list and, other than Negga, I'm mostly fine with all of these folks missing. Most of them were rewarded with noms and wins elsewhere throughout the season and none of these performances are so towering that it feels like they're robbed. I also don't think a nomination would have done anything for their career. And, in the case of Gaga's wild campaign, it might actually preserve some of her dignity and not make her sound zany/like a handful.
I've been all over the place on HoG but I think it's awards run is pretty wild, and points to just how starved we are for adult-oriented hits. It was fun, but not as much as it could have been ,and not really award worthy. The reward for being a movie star is the residuals and the next big role, not an Oscar.
I'm not quite sure I get all the Faist votes. I don't think he was ever going to seriously happen - his film flopped when he needed to ride in on a POTD type of wave.
I voted for Ali, who had a slim chance given that the academy likes him (even though he was in a tiny genre film), but I'd also love to see a write-up of Blanchett, just to get a sense of how you're thinking about Nightmare Alley. I thought she was great, but I wonder if, at 7 noms at such a young age, it will take more for her to get her next nomination. The academy seems comfortable putting their favorites on ice every once and a while (e.g., Meryl in the early 90s and now, Denzel in the mid-90s, and Bette Davis in the late 40s).
I was so excited by some of the unpredictability of the nominations that it tempered my annoyance of a few of the snubs. Quick thoughts:
I knew "Mass" was not on the academy radar, so no outrage there.
And as much as I'm going to love "Swan Song" and "Cyrano," nobody has really seen them yet.
I hated, hated "No Look Up." Not since "Sophie's Choice" has Queen Meryl been treated so poorly on screen.
I appreciate Diaz's movies more than I adore them. Love the chances Cooper is taking though.
I completely agree about JHud. Even her Oscar-winning performance in "Dreamgirls" was thanks to one beyond incredible scene. Take that away and it's a good performance.
My only real disappointments were Balfe, Dornan, and Negga. I didn't even register Gaga's snub, so happy I was to see Cruz and Stewart nominated. When I realized it hadn't registered, that was a true moment because I was thrilled with that category.
Balfe has been doing truly incredible work in "Outlander." A nomination for this would have really cemented her outside that show, and she looks gorgeous.
Dornan was so good in "The Fall." And then went the Hollywood route with the 50 Shades movies. Between "Belfast" and "Barb and Star," he has a new confidence that is exciting to watch. Plus the man is just insanely hot.
Side note: it's exciting to see actors post genre films. He and Dakota are racking up great reviews, Stewart and Pattinson are knocking their post-"Twilight" careers out of the park. And Daniel Radcliffe continues to be a gold standard in breaking away from an iconic role.
Finally, Negga. Rebecca Hall is just insanely talented. And "Passing" is a beautiful, well-acted movie. Actors like Negga live and breathe on their last roles and a nomination would have kept her more easily in the game. But I do think there are other nominations in her future.
So of the ones you mentioned, Balfe is the one I'm most curious about. Although I know the answer. Never underestimate the power of a Dame.
@jules
how many times has Cate Blanchett played "the same morally repugnant glamour-puss" ?
Yavor - Her past three major projects, Mrs. America, Nightmare Alley, and Don't Look Up, have all featured the same kind of vacuous rich lady villain she played in Cinderella, with diminishing results each time. I don't even think she found anything interesting in her 2021 characters - it was pure affluent villainy. I agree that Helen Walker's take on Dr. Lilith Ritter was much more complex and even empathetic.
I'd like to see Blanchett play a complicated working-class woman like Winslet's Mare Sheehan, but I also wonder if that type of role would even interest her.
@ jules, I'd hardly call her Phyllis Schlafly vacuous. The woman created a successful conservative movement that halted a lot of the progress of the feminist movement. I thought Blanchett played her as a brilliant operator and tactician, making trade-offs to get the position she believed she deserved. She had to play quite a few contradictions in that role.
@jules - if I'm reading your response correctly you're saying that Blanchett in Mrs. America (9 episodes including evident character development) is "diminishing results" compared to Blanchett in Cinderella (1h 45m movie). Logically, we must be living on different planets.
Negga is the biggest omission this year.
I really like JK Simmons, but I was completely underwhelmed by his William Frawley performance. I would like to have seen Affleck get in.
I'm also disappointed to see Mass ignored. Plimpton and especially Isaacs deserved recognition. I like Dowd, but I could really see her ACTING while the emotions and grief of the other actors were far more authentic.
Whatever you think about Cate Blanchett, her performance as Maria Abramovic in Documentary Now! is a comedic achievement. It kind of left me wondering how iconic it would have been had the episode been a feature film. And diluting what she did in Mrs. America to a 'rich lady villain' is really dishonest. Her character work as Phyllis Schlafly was utterly magnificent.
Hard to consider Leto or Hudson as snubs. Neither give performances worth considering.
I have a hypothesis. It's a wrongdoing secret, so the crowd needs a scalawag. The film's absence of glimmer and 1990 setting give the crowd the feeling that it's exceptionally antiquated, and the sort of film Hollywood used to make, however, there's truly not much there.