Activate claws. Competition for the Oscar in the Actress in a Leading Role category this year is as fierce as it gets. Frankly, I live for the day when a trans actor gets nominated, forcing the Academy to rethink its gender labels. But onward.
The nominees:
Amy Adams (“American Hustle”). Of the five actresses nominated, none is a newbie nominee, but only one has never won an Oscar: That’s Amy Adams. This is also the first time her nomination has been for a leading role, vs. supporting. Does this give her an edge in playing the sympathy card? Heaping on more sympathy: Two of her previous nominations came for work she did with Philip Seymour Hoffman, in The Master and Doubt (for which Meryl Streep also was nominated). In light of Hoffman’s untimely death, Adams may indeed be touched by an angel. She also is the only nominated actress featured this year in more than one Best Picture nominee (“Her” being her second).
The Academy likes “fresh faces,” and at 39 Adams is the youngest we’ve got by five years — odds may be in her favor. But let’s take a look at her work (not just her cleavage). Playing a hustler looks doubly attractive on her: She’s the beauty and true brains of the outfit. Her tiptoeing dance between vulnerability and vaVOOM, American social climber vs. British financier, con and conniver is phantasmic. Can she hustle one more win?
Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”). She’s the safe bet, but the Woody Allen-Dylan Farrow scandal could truly (unfairly) taint her chances. Final ballots are due the Tuesday before the awards show on Sunday, March 2.
This is Australian Blanchett’s sixth nomination. Her lone Oscar (supporting actress) came her second time out for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in “The Aviator.” (Hepburn still holds the record for most acting Oscars: four.) Blanchett is the only one among the five nominees to have had two nominations in the same year: 2007, for her leading role as Queen Elizabeth I in the sequel to the film that gave her her first nomination in 1998 … and as Jude in I’m Not There — playing a man, a Bob Dylan doppelganger. She certainly wins the chameleon prize.
Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.”
Even though critics say she’s channeling Blanche DuBois, Blanchett seems to be the only one of the five nominees who invented an iconic character in the role she’s nominated for — the Rx-addicted, fragile, fractured Jasmine. (Streep was iconic but only in re-creating Violet.) People in the future likely will say “you know, like Blue Jasmine.”
Sandra Bullock (“Gravity”). Bullock has a perfect batting average, having won her first Oscar the first time she was nominated (2009 for The Blind Side). I especially love her non-flightiness, her groundedness; interestingly, she’s the only brunette in the bunch. She carried this whole movie, elevating some of the most banal lines like an aerialist. Of the five nominees, she had the most physically demanding task — she’s the Matthew McConaughey of the bunch, whittling herself down to dancer form to be suspended and manipulated like a puppet and to lie like Pinocchio. Unfortunately, the movie itself eclipses her achievements, and she likely won’t win.
Judi Dench (“Philomena”). This is the dame’s seventh nomination; she also won her second time out. Interestingly, she won for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I (“Shakespeare in Love”), a character she shares with Blanchett — it’s a royal showdown!
I loved the light that shone through Dench’s Philomena — she delivered grace, piety, forgiveness — all of the values inherent in Christianity playing opposite some pretty unsaintly nuns. Her Philomena was both savvy and a simpleton. I loved how knowing and tolerant of others she was. But I got distracted examining Dench’s upper-lip wrinkles and eye creases and couldn’t always stay with her, preferring to think of her younger self (a rapturous Sophie Kennedy Clark). With all due respect, Dench is the easiest nominee for me to eliminate.
Meryl Streep (“August: Osage County”). Is this the year Streep will tie Hepburn’s record? I think she deserves that and more, plus she’s not getting any younger. This is her 18th nomination, of which she has won three Oscars (Kramer Vs. Kramer, supporting; Sophie’s Choice, leading; The Iron Lady, leading). Like Blanchett and Dench, she first won on her second nomination. Obviously, she killed in this role. Her name is synonymous with star power /acting goddess. I would not be sad at all if she proved victorious.
However, this is a race between Cate Blanchett and Amy Adams. And I think it’s Amy Adams’ year. No justification for that but a gut feeling.
Mommy Tongue 