The whole awards season belonged to Laura Dern. She swept everything as it was for every acting award this year. It was more of a coronation than anything else and this is more of a does she really deserve it? Let's find out! kind of thing.
2019 Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern - Marriage Story
This was Dern's Oscar all the way so I was eager to see if it lived up to the hype it built up through the awards season. I've become more of a Dern fan recently. I for some reason didn't like her even though she gave great performances throughout her career and even ran for Academy President. I think it was a bit of entitlement or she's just getting awards love because of her parents. I mean her nomination for Wild was a joke. But I think she is fantastic in this film. She is a smarmy, slimy divorce lawyer in LA who will one minute praise Adam Driver's character for being a brilliant theater director and then tell him how bad of a husband and father he is the next minute. It's those moments that stick out to me like when she is representing Scarlett Johansson and being ruthless but then all the sudden raves about some local diner and their food or greets Ray Liotta with well wishes for his wife and all that. She is cold blooded and merciless and that is quite evident in the court room scenes which is probably where Dern wins her Oscar. It's a polished performance that quickly flips between normal good natured person to a nasty divorce lawyer using every bit of scandalous information to make her client look better. I do think it's a perfect role for Dern as she looks the part of an LA attorney as well as is literally a super nice person in real life. So yeah, this is an earned Oscar that just didn't have much competition this year, sadly.
Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell
This is a frustrating nomination. I like Kathy Bates and think she's a great actress, but there is nothing here that is really worth a vote. This smells like the older Academy members loving Clint Eastwood and going to see his film and noticing that Bates is in it and she's a previous winner so why not vote for her? She's the safe vote. She's an afterthought because members couldn't be burdened to actually watch anything out of their comfort zone. So instead of actresses from The Farewell or Parasite or any of the indie films, the old guys go to the same well they go to over and over and vote for Kathy. Nothing against her but watch this film and ask yourself if it's award worthy. She plays Richard Jewell's mother and is very loving and concerned for him during the events. And that's honestly about it. You can't say she really has an Oscar moment other than her little press conference and even that wasn't all that amazing. Bates could do this role in her sleep and any other actress could have done just as good, if not better. So this isn't a slight against Bates, but the Academy for never branching out and watching all different kinds of films. And yeah, I say that knowing Parasite just won Best Picture, but it had no acting nominations. There were a lot of other very deserving women that could have been here instead of throwing Bates another nomination. It's one of those things about the Academy that I loathe. I'm hoping that this will change in the future but it will probably take a lot longer than it should.
Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit
Scarlett Johansson with the rare double nomination and the equally rare double nomination with no win to show for it. The 12th time that has happened in Oscar history and 6th time going home empty handed. Clearly the Academy loved her this year and it's very easy to see why. She is way more than just a Marvel superhero and has been delivering some wonderful and varied performances for a while now. In this one, she plays the mother of Jojo who is constantly away, presumably helping Jews or doing something along those lines. When she is home she looks after her son even though he is a staunch Nazi and she hates the war and everything it sands for. She is also hiding a Jewish girl in the walls of the home, so we see she is a very strong person defying her country for what she believes to be right. The performance is a tender, loving, funny one. She plays the motherly role very well but also gives it some much needed familial humor. I enjoyed the scene where she enters the home late and kinda does the robot upon seeing Jojo and then turning and miming opening a door. It's almost blink and you miss it, but that shows her dedication to the humor and the role and it's a sweet, touching, humorous moment. Her standout scene is probably the dinner scene where she dresses up as her husband who is away (we don't know if dead or captured or coward) and scolds Jojo but then quickly talks to herself as both the mom and the dad and then starts dancing. It seems like an on the fly moment we happened to be privy to and it shows her love for her son. Johansson is easily the soul of the film and director Taika Waititi said that he modeled the character after his own single mother and that's why she's so strong and brave and idealistic. It's a good performance that really grounds the film to the real world and keeps it from going off the rails as some kind of ridiculous funny Nazi film.
Florence Pugh - Little Women
I will admit right off the bat that I've never read the book but I have seen parts of the other couple of Little Women films. So I'm no expert on this beloved tale by any means. And I honestly thought that Pugh's character, Amy, was the third youngest daughter for the entirety of the film and didn't learn this until way later. Which is due in part to my biggest gripe of this performance/casting: Pugh looks way older than supposedly being like 12 years old and then a little older in the non-flashback scenes. It really confused me when I learned it after the fact, but the spirit of a child performance is their for Pugh. When she is supposed to be playing the youngest daughter, she acts emotionally and irrationally at times and we see that child like behavior. The good thing is that it's not done in any sort of babyish way or trying to draw attention to a look at me I'm 12 years old type of performance. Pugh just plays it naturally with the emotions and feelings of a child. She acts like a younger sister who wants to come along with the older ones and act impulsively and without thinking of any consequences. I do feel that Pugh shines better when she's playing the older version of her character because it is inherently more believable and we see that growth from when she was a child. She seems wise beyond her years and like a fully grown woman. I did like how Pugh would dominate her scenes, both in the flashback and the present, by just being the character. Young Amy is bratty and immature, but has a strong personality to go along with that. Older Amy is more in control of who she wants to be, aspiring for greatness and not wanting to be merely good. Also not wanting to be a trophy wife. By all accounts, this was a fresh reinterpretation by Greta Gerwig and Pugh of just who Amy was as a character. I think Pugh brought that modern sensibility to the role while still maintaining the classic feel of the young character. She was an enthralling part of this film, more so than the other actresses - including my favorite, Saoirse Ronan. She steals the film and it's because she gives us an honest portrayal of Amy. I would almost rather the film focus strictly on Amy and her trip to Europe and everything after but that's the mark of a good performance. I'm excited to see what else Pugh does as her future is very bright.
Margot Robbie - Bombshell
There's a number of reasons Robbie was nominated here. She had this film and her work in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that caught the eye of the Academy. She's been an up and coming actress who has now established herself as a woman who seeks out interesting roles and goes all out for them. She has her own production company that gave us I, Tonya so she is in tune with many of the Academy members. She also quite obviously is gunning for an Oscar. You can tell she wants one badly and is going out of her way to try and win one. There's also the factor of the older men of the Academy (and probably everyone else, honestly) that just want to fuck her, so they vote for her. In a way, it's just like this film. Actors doing whatever it takes to get an Oscar and members that like them doing so for ulterior motives. Robbie plays a composite character of what a typical Fox News woman would be. She's blonde and thin and hot and bubbly and conservative. But really Robbie is just a plot device in this film used to humanize and personalize the story for us as we go through it with her in a truncated version of events. I don't feel like the performance is exceptional at all. I think her strongest scene is when she's in the office with Roger Ailes and he asks her to lift her dress up higher and higher. Her disgust and confusion and terror and complacency are all swirling around her face and it makes us just as uncomfortable as she is. But I didn't buy this perfect Republican princess would go and sleep with another female coworker. It felt inauthentic to me and it's like her character gets in the way of the film too much. She's supposed to be our conduit to care about what's happening, but I wanted more of Nicole Kidman or the investigation, not Robbie. She's a talented actress but I just wasn't all that into this performance.
Yeah, easy win for Dern who I imagine did have some Academy love because her parents are Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd and she tried to become Academy President two years ago and she's been a huge supporter of film history and all that, so yeah, Dern was winning in a weak year. I say weak year because who else was gonna win? Bates is a distant 5th who should probably never have been nominated. Robbie gets in because the old men want to fuck her. Johansson actually does give us something interesting but she's gone quickly. Pugh is so energizing to her film and the story that in any other year, I'd vote for her. I think if she continues down that path, she'll be nominated again and probably soon. But Dern does smash this one out of the park with little competition. It's no contest and the Academy gets it right no matter the reason they voted. An alright year but at least we got a new winner.
Oscar Winner: Laura Dern - Marriage Story
My Winner: Laura Dern - Marriage Story
Florence Pugh
Scarlett Johansson
Margot Robbie
Kathy Bates
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