This was a somewhat interesting awards race where Smit-McPhee was getting awards and all the love in the first half before the tide turned and CODA started to gain momentum to its Best Picture win with Kotsur coming along for the ride. I still have to see if he earned the win or if it was a factor of rewarding the first deaf Supporting Actor ever. Everyone else was just happy to be here.
2021 Best Supporting Actor
Troy Kotsur - CODA
I really enjoyed this film a lot on a personal level. As in, take away my Oscar hat and just let me enjoy a film. It's highly entertaining and is a hilarious coming of age film that is a feel good tear jerker at times. Kotsur plays the deaf father of Ruby, who is the only hearing person in her family and is a teenager in high school who loves to sing. My question from above was does Kotsur bring anything to this performance besides just being deaf. And the answer is yes. He is hilarious and has a distinct personality as any other actor would. He has a deep relationship with his daughter and wants to see her succeed. We see this when he recognizes she is down or not responding in a way that feels right to him. He is supportive and real and just a great character that yes, does rely heavily on the deafness, but he eschews that as a handicap. He is a real person, a real character and we just happen to be reading subtitles like if it was a foreign film. We see his humanity and we see his love towards his family. It's a bit goofy at times like in the doctor scene at the beginning, but I feel like that was set up to endear the characters to us the viewers. Kotsur settles into the role and we get a nice payoff of the family all being lovey dovey at the end and it works. Kotsur isn't a bad winner at all. I enjoyed his performance and feel like it works in the new Academy. I love that a deaf person now has representation and gives a performance that is good to boot. Honestly, can't hate on this one because it's good.
Ciaran Hinds - Belfast
I honestly wasn't sure of what kind of performance I was going to get out of Hinds here because I've seen him in some tough guy or stoic roles, so that's what I was anticipating. But Hinds plays Pop, the grandfather to Buddy who is the representation of Kenneth Branagh from his youth in Belfast. Pop is a sweet, philosophical, heartfelt character that truly loves Buddy and his family. That is the motif of his performance: warmth. Hinds is so good at just embodying that grandpa role and how much patience he has with Buddy. He still has a deep love for Judi Dench as Granny, which I felt should have been explored more, but his effusive love for her and talking about how his heart still skips a beat for her. Honest and cute and that scene just establishes how great he is as Pop. His delicateness with Buddy and encouraging him to do well in math to be seated next to his crush is the same, just the kind of grandfatherly advice you'd want to hear. Everything he does in the film is so good that it's hard to pick a favorite moment. but most touching is when he is in the hospital and asks what Buddy wants and it is so damn sincere that it made me tear up, the hug Buddy gave him after sent me bawling. Yeah, there is a lot of nostalgia probably effecting how the role was formed, but the sweetness of Hinds is undeniable and this might just be my favorite supporting performance in years for just how effective it is at touching a film. Watch Belfast for many reasons, but definitely watch it for Hinds' performance.
Jesse Plemons - The Power of the Dog
It's cool that the kid from Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad has carved out a nice career for himself as not only a supporting character like he is here, but also in lead which I think we will see this year in 2023 with Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. Excited for that one and happy that Plemons was nominated here even if his nomination is the weakest of the four acting nominees from the film. Which isn't really a knock against Plemons, it's just that he doesn't get a lot to do like the other three do. Plemons plays Benedict Cumberbatch's brother who seems to be more of a clean cut, businessman type of figure and not a cowboy/rancher type like his brother. The performance is kind of what I expect from Plemons where it is even keeled all the way through, but the fact that he doesn't even raise his voice or get to do much more than confront his brother or others in an explain yourself kind of way is unfortunate. We know Plemons can be great and do way more than just quietly question what's going on and try to keep everything from falling apart and be the fixer. I wanted a lot more from him and that's just who the character is and while Plemons does a great job in doing that, I need more. I crave it! He's such an interesting actor and we know he's capable of more than this. But there are things to like about the performance, don't get me wrong. I love how his acting is internalized in the film. He reacts to his brother calmly though we can kinda see the disdain behind his eyes for how he is acting like in the restaurant scene. He's loving towards Kirsten Dunst's character (his real life wife) and that scene where the hills are a backdrop as she looks around and he stares lovingly at her and says she is marvelous felt real and already seems iconic. It's solid work overshadowed by three other performers getting to do much more and who deliver on it. I am pretty sure we will see Plemons in this space again soon.
J. K. Simmons - Being the Ricardos
I never understood this nomination. Yes, this is a previous Oscar winner, but this performance got no traction with anyone else, and yet was rewarded. Simmons plays William Frawley, one of the secondary actors on the I Love Lucy Show. One of the main points of contention is that Simmons looks nothing like Frawley, which I had to look it up because my old TV show knowledge is quite lacking. But Frawley was a bigger, heavier, older man and Simmons is just not that. Simmons is jacked, so I guess they gave him oversized suits to wear to try and look like they cared about any authenticity? The one thing Simmons nails is that grumpy persona which I guess Frawley displayed on and off screen. He hated his onscreen wife in real life and while their animosity in the film is shown, a lot of the jokes and quips fall completely flat. Main reason for that is Aaron Sorkin's writing just isn't up to the level you would expect from him and Simmons can't save an underwhelming character that has nothing to offer outside terrible jokes. For whatever reason, the acting branch loved these performances enough to vote for them to be nominated and I can only assume it's because they were playing real life characters they knew from TV and because all are previous Oscar winners and actually nominating outside the box performances is just too much for them. Obviously, not a fan of this performance or nomination and really wish this spot would have gone to someone more deserving.
Kodi Smit-McPhee - The Power of the Dog
This was your initial front runner when awards season kicked off. I thought he could sweep and then all of the sudden Troy Kotsur came out of nowhere and dominated the rest of the awards and won the Oscar. That's the beauty of awards season and why we continue to be invested year in and year out. Smit-McPhee (maybe I should use KSM for brevity) plays the son of Kirsten Dunst's character who ends up marrying Jesse Plemons' character. They go to live with Plemons and are now closer to Benedict Cumberbatch's character who actively torments and antagonizes them. They met Cumberbatch and Plemons when they rode through their town and stopped at their restaurant and Cumberbatch made fun of KSM for being effeminate and making paper flowers that sat on the dinner table. KSM is tall and skinny and has a strange demeanor that Cumberbatch picks up on and makes fun of a lot. There are underlying issues that are never addressed that cause Cumberbatch to act the way he does towards KSM and Dunst and his brother who all bear the brunt of his own personal issues. We see KSM doing odd things like killing a bunny to dissect it, randomly hula hooping outside after being castigated by Cumberbatch, and thumbing the edge of a comb when seemingly nervous. We learn that KSM found his dad hanging dead after killing himself in the midst of alcoholism and see that Dunst is slinking into the bottle to deal with her own issues. The kid has had a hard life and it's easy to write him off as some weirdo, but there is so much more to him that KSM conveys that we don't quite fully grasp until the end. There are scenes like when he walks in front of the ranch hands while everyone is resting and walks to a birds nest and stares at it for a bit while everyone is whistling and calling him faggot before he turns around and sticks his hands in his back pockets and walks back where he came from in almost a confident swagger. It's like he knows what he's doing, the response he elicits, and doesn't care. We don't know if he's gay, though that is my assumption or at least he's confused. That drips from his performance where you can't quite figure out where the story will go with these characters. That also is where KSM excels in just being who his character is, he doesn't waver and he just continues on being his weird self. When Cumberbatch starts being nice to KSM, he becomes more engaging but it also feels like a show to suss out what Cumbatch is up to. In saying all that, you can see how layered and nuanced KSM's performance truly is. There is so much to his character that I feel you have to watch it more than once to fully understand all that he is doing and see that his choices are deliberate. While initially watching, I knew there was more pretense for how KSM acts towards Cumberbatch and it makes sense if you read that *spoilers* (be warned, watch the film first) that KSM played the character as if he wanted to kill Cumberbatch after their first interaction. Which vibes with how his character seems to act and feels like he could become a serial killer. It's a really unique performance that the more you peel back the layers, the more intriguing it all becomes. I genuinely love this performance and it will be tough to decide a winner for me because this is not a typical winner in this category.
This was a pretty good group of nominees. Kotsur being the winner is fine with me and is a great representation for the deaf community. Can't be mad at this win even if I have him right in the middle of the group. Simmons doesn't belong here and his performance feels mailed in, not a fan of it. Anyone else would have been a better addition. Plemons is good, but feels like he could have done more or at least the role could have been expanded on more. Basically, I just wanted more from him. Smit-McPhee was the better of the two choices from the film with a really subtle, nuanced performance that I feel would get better on second viewing knowing where the film ends up. Could have won and been a great winner, honestly. But! Hinds kinda blew me away. Just an outstanding performance full of warmth and love and felt like a real person onscreen. My favorite of the year and I'm sad he didn't ever get any traction because he deserved the Oscar in my opinion. A very good group of guys and ready to move on to 2022.
Oscar Winner: Troy Kotsur - CODA
My Winner: Ciaran Hinds - Belfast
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Troy Kotsur
Jesse Plemons
J. K. Simmons
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