It has been McDormand all the way. There really hasn't been any competition once the real award season started. Hawkins was a front runner way back in the early days but she fell quickly to the wayside. Ronan was a possible challenger but for whatever reason, the Academy hasn't rallied around her like they did with Jennifer Lawrence, and Ronan is a million times better as an actress over Lawrence. So, this will be McDormand on Oscar night barring some sort of miracle.
2017 Best Actress
Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Frances McDormand is on pace to win her second Best Actress Oscar for this role. She has cleaned up every other awards show and if anyone else wins, it will be a huge shock and upset. So I am comfortable in saying she will be your winner. And I feel like she definitely earns it. Whether or not you favor someone else, you can't deny she is very good in this role. She also comes off as being herself. Maybe that's from me seeing her at awards show and she seems to be very serious and not smiling but it seems like no one else but her could pull this role off. Try and think of any other actress who could carry this whole film and give a great performance. I struggle to think of anyone else. She is a mother who is angry, furious, hellbent on getting the police to fully investigate her daughter's rape and murder. You can feel her anger and frustration through the screen and she's probably one of the best actresses at showing those emotions. She just seems perpetually unhappy, even though it is just her character. But she's fed up with the incompetence and doesn't care anymore about not doing things the usual way. She wants answers now and yeah, she'll firebomb a police building in anger to try on spur on some development. If they won't take it serious, she'll make them. That's what McDormand is great at showing us. Her little rants to the news lady, the priest, the cops where she calls everyone out is great because McDormand can make her calling someone a cunt or motherfucker or whatever into not just a laugh, but into a very believable action for a hurting, grieving mother. She does have these sad, emotional moments that really show the depth of her performance and of her character and just how badly she aches and hurts. We see the last time she is with her daughter and she tells her she hopes she gets raped. She is dealing with a lot of guilt and shame and anger at herself for putting her daughter in a position to be abducted, raped, and murdered. She blames herself just as much as she blames the police for being an inept bunch. I mean seriously, I'm trying to figure out who else could display that raw hatred and anger that McDormand does and I'm drawing a blank. The role was written with McDormand in mind as the only real actress who could portray the character and it results in her probably winning her second Oscar. That should tell you just how impressive she is as an actress. This is also a really strong Best Actress win and one that will definitely be remembered when trying to rank the winners.
Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water
Hawkins was actually the front runner at one point very early in the race. She got glowing reviews out of Venice and then she became the one to beat until the other films came out and then front runner status changed to being just another runner up. This is a pretty difficult role to pull off and I feel like if Hawkins had faltered, the film wouldn't have been as good. We first see her naked and masturbating in the bath before work. Then we learn she's a mute, so she barely speaks in the film and relies on the other actors to translate for her or she signs with subtitles on the screen. And then we see her fuck a fish man. So yeah, pretty tough role for any woman and yet Hawkins does a great job of allowing us to know who Elisa is as a person. She never over emotes, even though it can be hard for her to communicate and she makes it completely believable that she is a mute. I like that she never went overboard in trying to show something or say something. She just repeats herself like anyone else would and stays true to her sort of shy, meek persona. I also like that when she gets mad that she's not being heard, she effectively gets her point across without getting hammy or with it seeming unnatural. My point is that Hawkins gets you to stop focusing on the fact that she can't speak and has to either sign or rely on others to communicate. You start paying attention to her as a person and reading the emotions on her face and body language. You start seeing a woman who is different that wants to be loved and wants to fall in love. Hawkins has great chemistry with all her supporting cast and that's important that she seem like old friends with both Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer. Their relationships are already set up and they never feel like characters just thrown together for a story. The most important part, however, is that she has great chemistry with the fish man, which does indeed sound weird to say. But the film hinges on you believing in their romance, because if you don't, it's just a creepy horror film then. But you do, so their relationship feels real and even when they have weird sex, it's still a tender (albeit strange) moment. And of course we see Elisa grow happy and she even stands up to the evil Michael Shannon character. Maybe if this film came out later, Hawkins could have stolen some of the front runner thunder and be the presumptive winner. I think it's a very good performance once you get over the fish man relationship and really fits into the film perfectly. Is it my favorite, though? That remains to be seen yet.
Margot Robbie - I, Tonya
I'm actually a little surprised this didn't make it into the Best Picture category because I feel it is strong enough to be there. Robbie is the only nominee here whose film isn't in the Best Picture race. When I was watching this film, that was my first thought: why isn't this in Best Picture? It seems to tick off a lot of what the Academy would like. My only guess is that it ran a little long? I don't know. What I do know is that Robbie is frigging fantastic as Tonya Harding. She has a really tough role because not only the whole having to skate thing but she portrays Tonya at a couple different times in her life. She first portrays her as a teenager with short hair and braces and she looks and sounds and acts just like a teenage Tonya would. Maybe there is CGI involved there, I dunno, but she looked the part even from the very beginning. But when I was watching, what really struck me was how earnest Robbie was in the role and performance. She went all in. And she really did because she also helped produce the film, which is pretty amazing. This is the case of an actress giving her all to a performance and getting rewarded for it. I think we all knew after The Wolf of Wall Street that Robbie would be a major actress gunning for Oscar nominations, but I don't think we knew she would deliver such an involved performance. She plays the skating Tonya at different times, but the plays the current Tonya who is recounting all of these details for us. So she plays a whole bunch of different Tonya's without missing a beat. I don't know how to fully explain just how impressive Robbie is in this film. Maybe comparing her to the wins of like Marion Cotillard or Helen Mirren in recent times as bellwethers? She fully embodies Tonya and becomes our representation of her. This is simply a really strong performance that came out of nowhere to get nominated because no one was tracking this a couple months ago. One thing about the role is that it's hard to really sympathize with Tonya because you just don't know what is real and what isn't. What involvement with Kerrigan did she have? Should she have had the book thrown at her and been banned from figure skating or no? The scene in which she is in court is really well done by Robbie and she gets you close to tears before you remember she may not be so innocent. This is tremendous work by Robbie and I really hope we see a lot more like this from her in the future because she is an up and coming star.
Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird
I am a huge fan of Ronan's and feel like she should have beat Brie Larson for the Oscar a couple years ago. I even really liked her first nomination when she was a young girl back in 2007, even though there was some stiff competition there. She's also my only real Hollywood crush and that is mostly because of her acting (and because she's gorgeous, duh). But I do stay impartial despite that and go in to her reviews objectively. I never really have to worry about liking her performances, though, because almost everything I've seen of hers has been good to flat out amazing. This is no different as she plays the titular Lady Bird, a high school girl living in Sacramento who wants to go to college in NYC. She's self absorbed and thinks she knows everything and is a typical teenage girl. She's a little quirky and a little flighty but she's mostly a normal girl dealing with boyfriends and best friends and her mom and her dad and trying to get into a college she wants. What helps make the performance so good is the writing, which is incredible and allows Ronan to create a fully fleshed out character. It's like a real portrayal of a high school girl. It's not all melodramatic hysterics, it's not all super mature and wise girl who is smarter than everyone else, and it's not the teenage girl who is 17 going on 37 cliche. Ronan delivers a real performance that is full of confusion and frustration and happiness and sadness and all the emotions in between. She kinda acts like a brat at times but she also realizes that she's thankful of her loving mother and her best friend. She has her delicate, emotional moments as well as being a pretty level headed girl at times. I like the scene where her mom unexpectedly picks her up from her boyfriend's house after she loses her virginity and then Ronan breaks down because it wasn't what she expected and Metcalf empathizes as only a mother can. It's a beautiful scene in a very sweet and amazing film made great in part because of Ronan's wonderful performance.
Meryl Streep - The Post
Just when I thought I was done, they pull me back in with another Streep nomination! This is number Twenty-One! That's just completely mind blowing and she probably isn't done getting nominated. I wouldn't be surprised to see her win a fourth Oscar in the next ten years. Seriously though, Streep is precious. In this film she plays the owner of The Washington Post. In the beginning of the film she is taking the newspaper public so they can make money since they are cash strapped and not a major player nationally. But then the Pentagon Papers start getting leaked by The New York Times and Nixon and the White House sue them to stop them printing the papers due to national security concerns. The Post reporters are on the scoop and get a hold of more of the papers and Streep has to decide whether to publish or face possible lawsuits. I like Streep here because she gives a real person performance. It doesn't survive on her movie star quality and is more quiet than a lot of her recent performances. She's kind of nervousy and unsure about the direction her paper is going and doesn't seem too confident. But she realizes the gravity of what her reporters and people have worked so hard to uncover and knows that this is a pivotal moment in US history. She rises to the occasion in a way that doesn't seem contrived or made to build her up as a hero because it's Streep. So, it's a typical good Streep performance, the kind we are more than used to and probably take for granted as being just another Streep performance. Yeah, it may rank in the middle of her twenty-one nominations, maybe slightly above average but when you watch her work, you can see how dedicated and amazing she truly is. I do wish that the Academy would go with some other actresses unless Streep delivers something that is amazing by Streep's standards. Give some other women a chance to get nominated. But it does feel like they are trying to get her another Oscar and she deserves it, but it needs to be for something that is worthy and not just another token Streep nomination.
And no surprise here, it's McDormand with her second Oscar. A boring race because it was never going to be anyone else. Streep wasn't going to challenge for giving a typically good Streep performance, though not amazing by her own inflated standards. It was nice to see her acting opposite Tom Hanks and in a Spielberg film. Hawkins was an early frontrunner but that faded quickly and even with the success of her film overall, she just didn't have enough to get over the top. It's a mostly mute role and the other actors do the talking for her so it never fully worked for me. It's possible if you ask me in a couple weeks or months, she might even drop down to last place. Robbie has a lot of passion that is evident in her performance for her character and it was a fun film to watch. It's awesome that she also helped produce it. Maybe in a bad Best Actress year she would have had more of a chance but not with Ronan and McDormand out there. I had a hard time choosing who my winner is, though. On one hand, I love Ronan to death and think her performance has a lot of realism and honesty in it. On the other hand, I like McDormand's take no shit attitude, get justice your own way kind of thing. But McDormand already has one and while this one was fun to watch, there's just something about Ronan. It's possible she may finally get her Oscar next year as she has a big juicy period piece drama about Mary Queen of Scots, I think. And I think she has another that people were looking at as a possibility, so things will be good for Ronan's Oscar chances in the future but she gets my vote today. A decent year that could have been better but of course that means we need better written female roles and a lot more of them. We also need the Academy to stop going to the same few ladies and pick someone else for a change.
Oscar Winner: Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
My Winner: Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird
Frances McDormand
Margot Robbie
Sally Hawkins
Meryl Streep
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