Supporting Actress 2015

I think I've said it before but I always write this category first, so I go backwards to Best Picture so it's in order on the blog. So this is my first taste of 2015's nominations which literally just came out yesterday as I write this right now. This is basically my immediate reactions to the nominations since I finished watching all the films the day before nomination day. I'll revisit some of the films to get a better grasp on my thoughts but I'd say a lot of them are just going to be what I thought from my first watch. It's still all so very fresh so might as well get it out into the blog! This actually is a lot of fun because it's like I'm one of the first to respond in the blogosphere, even if I'm shouting into a void.

2015 Best Supporting Actress

Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl

This was a breakout year for Vikander, who appeared in a few films this year and no doubt got attention based on her ability as much as her frequency. There was talk she could be one of the very few double nominees with her Ex Machina performance and that would have been quite impressive since she's still fairly young and new to Hollywood. While watching her in this film, the very first thing I noticed was how vibrant and energetic and refreshing her performance and character were. Certainly it had that artistic, free spirited feel since that was what her character was essentially, a painter who was enjoying life and love. It was refreshing because you expect a period piece drama about sexual identity and one's place in the world to be real stuffy, yet here was Vikander livening up every scene she was in during the early part of the film. I thought for sure she was going to run away with being my choice for the winner but then the film happened. It got in the way of Vikander and became all about Redmayne and turned a lively artist into a scowling, joyless, worrier. Yes, she was losing her husband and lover to his identity crisis but the film did an abrupt 180 and completely changed her character on a dime. To me, it felt too quick of a change and too harsh of a change, at that. I can understand your husband wanting to become a woman would be jarring for anyone but it didn't quite match up with the earlier version of Vikander's character. Maybe I expected too much out of the character from the beginning that it couldn't live up to my own hype but I was really disappointed they just made what was a fierce female role into this cliche, sad about love, kinda mess of a woman. Vikander did well with what she was given and she earned the nomination on the strength of all her other performances combined so while this may not be her best representation, I'm glad she was nominated. Oh, and this is basically category fraud like Mara. Vikander is without a doubt the lead in The Danish Girl. Would have much rather seen her turn in Ex Machina here.

Rooney Mara - Carol

This is category fraud straight up. You could argue that Mara is co-lead with Blanchett but the whole film is about Mara and her search for what makes her happy! Blanchett is better suited as the Supporting nomination. I'll never get over category fraud and how the Academy routinely let's it happen. Watch Carol and tell me Mara is Supporting. There's nothing Supporting about it! I actually somewhat like Mara in this film, even if it is ultimately about nothing. She's a shopgirl at a department store who finds an older, wealthier Blanchett intriguing and sexy. It snowballs from there and they get together a lot and Blanchett is all like whatever, I'm an adult and like women but I'm also divorcing my husband because I'm not sure? Point is Blanchett seems to swoop in and then wine, dine and 69 these girls like Mara to get back at her husband or at least to exert her wealth and power. Mara's character falls for it because she is young and hot and likes the attention and scandal of it. Mara plays her Therese (pronounced Terez, mind you) like a young, hot, curious gal who is figuring out who she is and what she likes and is intrigued by the fanciful instead of her lame station in life. She's enamored by Carol and can afford to give up everything in her life to ride off to a motel and get hurt. Because she is so young she rebounds almost immediately and the whole thing just feels like a waste of time or like a notch on someone's bed post. Mara is quite good as Therese and plays up the naivete of her character very well. Her performance is almost like a 1950s city gal. Like a Woody Allen girl or a Noah Baumbach girl or a random NYC indie movie with a girl who is still figuring out her life. It's a kind of interesting contrast since it is the 50s but the comparison has to be made. Mara is also similar to those characters in that she's not very expressive. Things seem to be matter of fact to her and she doesn't go into hysterics like Blanchett's character. It's almost a meditation on a confused woman in the 50s who is only trying to figure out what she likes and how to deal with the world that is coming at her. I think it's a very melancholic performances that I would have rather seen in Best Actress. She would have been better suited for that category and I'd have a little more love for it, too. It's a good, strong, worthy performance to be nominated - just not in this category.

Jennifer Jason Leigh - The Hateful Eight

I'll be honest and say I was expecting a hell of a lot more out of this performance for all I had been hearing in the lead up to this film finally coming out. All the prognosticators were saying this might be an easy winner, definitely nominated, and a great female character from Tarantino. Maybe I let the hype get to me again but I was really thinking Leigh was going to be this tough ol' Annie Oakley type of character. Just a ballsy, take no shit, tough as nails broad that would dominate the men in this film. I also didn't really know the plot of the film so maybe if I had known I could have tempered my expectations. Leigh plays an outlaw who is shackled to Kurt Russell's character for almost the entire film and gets slapped around by almost everyone at some point. Leigh's character does have some of the qualities I thought I was gonna get as stated above but I wanted something other than a woman who takes the brunt of the violence throughout the film. Leigh is a coarse, haggard, crazy woman who is able to hold her own with the men but never really gain the upper hand. There's times when she seems kind of forgotten about while Tarantino focuses on the other characters and I think Leigh's performance leaves me wanting more, wishing QT would come back around to see what she can do next. I guess it's supposed to be somewhat funny in a black humor kind of way when she gets slapped around and calls Samuel L. Jackson the N-word a lot, but I was hoping for more than that. Only towards the end do we really see Leigh get to stretch her legs and start to open up her performance and let us see what she can do as Daisy Domergue (a great name, by the way). But it's too little, too late. We start to see what I thought we were going to get for the whole film but it's gone just like that to Tarantino's bloodlust. There's something there, but we don't ever get to fully see it, which is a shame for Leigh.

Rachel McAdams - Spotlight

I was really happy that McAdams was nominated for this role and for this film. Both are tremendous in how honest and straightforward they are. There is nothing flashy about either one, just a performance and a film doing yeoman's work. McAdams plays an investigative reporter for Spotlight which is the Boston Globe's serious investigative journalism team. That's pretty impressive as she's the only female but what I liked so much about the performance and film is that nothing calls attention to that fact. There's no montage of her being the working woman or at home juggling kids and husband and housework and blah blah. There's no one pointing out that hey, she's a woman! The whole team is treated as is. They are journalists doing a job that they've been doing well for awhile. McAdams plays the role perfectly and is really good at the no-nonsense delivery of her character. She gets across to us the audience that this is her life and what she does and that's that. She's a great investigative journalist and an equally important member of the team as the men are. It's not flashy, like I said, so her performance could be seen as boring or not having much there there. But I feel she's a big reason as to why Spotlight is so good. There's a scene where she's going door to door for information and leads and she talks with a priest who admits he molested kids but says it wasn't for gratification so it doesn't really count. This is a bombshell moment in the film and could easily be overacted by McAdams realizing she has a huge piece of information. She instead looks incredulous but amazed and determined and professional all at once. It's great acting and you come to realize her performance throughout the entire film is the same way. It's nice to see some great acting that's just solid all the way through instead of showy or gimmicky. McAdams is my easy favorite for this year.

Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs

So yes, I'm not a big Kate Winslet fan. I know I've alluded to that on here before. I've explained it's because I hate all the super fans online and elsewhere who say anything Winslet does should get nominated. This nomination sort of lives up to that idea for me. It's a juicy role for sure. Playing opposite a wonderful Michael Fassbender in a film written by Aaron Sorkin directed by Danny Boyle, how can you go wrong? I think because of all those things, and because it's Winslet, is why she got nominated here. I don't think it's a particularly good or great performance. It's just kinda there in the film for me. The biggest knock against it was that I had no idea until the second product launch (which is my big beef with the film, focusing on product launches and nothing else) that Winslet was playing a character that was Eastern European. Fassbender's character makes reference to that fact and only then did it dawn on me that she was speaking with a vaguely Eastern European accent. The accent was so hit or miss through the entirety of the film that I wondered how exactly didn't anyone correct her or tell her hey, you're accent sucks. And I'm sure you're reading going well who cares about accents mehhhh and okay not really a valid point but is her acting any good? She essentially holds a clipboard and rolls in to either keep Jobs on task or to chastise him about something and then get talked at by Fassbender in one of Sorkin's tete-a-tete's. That's my big issue is that I never see her do anything Oscar worthy. She won the Golden Globe but they are star fuckers so I don't take much stock in that, but I'm a little worried she might win for a very underwhelming role. One that does absolutely nothing to highlight everything great about Kate Winslet. Thing is, she's a very competent actress in Steve Jobs if you forget the accent thing. But nothing stands out and I'd rather reward a standout than a couldn't find anyone better so we went with a past winner deal. I know, and you know deep down, that Winslet could have given a way better performance than this and that's the frustrating part.

So my favorite is Rachel McAdams. I mean watch Spotlight and not get giddy at how real her performance is. Mara is second but that's because she is blatant category fraud, which is why I put her first because I can see the Academy rewarding that. I definitely like her in Carol but it's just not Supporting. Same goes for Vikander in The Danish Girl. She's the lead but they put her in this one for a better chance to win. Ex Machina might have won so maybe they should have done that instead. Then I'd say JJL for her potential and then Winslet for her wasted potential. I'll leave the Oscar winner blank until that's announced but I will edit it eventually. One day for this category is pretty good. It's not an awful category, either, which is at least something nice I can say about it! Not the worst, not the best.

Oscar Winner: Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl
My Winner:  Rachel McAdams - Spotlight
Rooney Mara
Alicia Vikander
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Kate Winslet