Tonight the boxing gloves are on Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain.
It looks like Lawrence has it all locked up -- which is going to put her in a position no lead actress winner has been in -- at least in some time. Argue all you want about Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, and Angelina Jolie (which was supporting). None of them was sitting pretty with the second installment of The Hunger Games -- whose box office DOUBLED Twilight -- let alone a stint in The X-Men franchise, and the slew of indie cred she's already amassed. Let alone her -- "coulda been a Whale Rider" nomination for Winter's Bone. This girl is a dynamo.
In the far corner, we see Jessica Chastain -- tour de force in The Debt, Tree of Life, and The Help -- which earned her a supporting actress nomination -- she would lose to co-star Octavia Spencer. Jessica Chastain got stamped with an It-Girl far exceeding Jennifer Lawrence's. However, that all changed with this race.
Jessica Chastain is still a formidable actress who is simultaneously the lead, character role in The Heiress on Broadway while being the tough as nails intelligence lead of Zero Dark Thirty. But odds are she is losing tonight.
So what of the rumors that Chastain's not being part of the raid on UBL's compound lessened her role -- and cut her out of a significant portion of the movie. Frankly -- and I'll write about Zero Dark in its own separate article -- I feel like that's only become the equation because major critics and consequent buzz loosely compared Chastain's performance to that of Jodie Foster's in Silence of the Lambs. A faulty comparison considering we live in a time where that kind of role is a rarity for women. In fact, I'd say there's been nothing better that Clarice Starling since. But that ain't Jessica's fault -- so stop making that comparison -- it only leads to -- "Well, Jodie was really down there in the basement, with the dude in the night-vision goggles, and the swastika bedspread and the whole nine -- Chastain kind hung back." Yeah, she's a CIA agent. Kathryn Bigelow made an accurate movie about "the greatest manhunt of all time." For some reason, society is not taking it for what it is. And that's why Chastain comes across as a tough, angry, durable believer -- whose tone isn't that far off of Brad Pitt in Moneyball. Another role, I'm sorry to say, that doesn't win Oscars.
Which probably means ZDT can forget picture (obviously) and probably screenplay -- Final picks to be posted one more article after this.
So what we're going with the is the strongest element of what I consider to be a quite flawed film, Silver Linings Playbook. I will admit that it harkens back to a type of film that I loved when I was growing up. I will also pronounce that it's not as good as any of them. There's something about it coming out now when the world is devoid of such films -- the closest we're getting is The Family Stone -- which, by the way, was better. Oscar pedigree, however, Silver Linings has.
I will more than likely watch the film again and edit my response. I doubt that will be anytime soon. But I am willing to allow for the possibility of fallibility with this one.
Lawrence, however, hasn't a mark on her. She nailed this thing and she made people rich with another thing. She's a regular Anne Hathaway. They can enjoy posing together at the end of the night. It isn't the first nomination. It wasn't necessarily expected. And it's gone that way -- period.
So what the hell is going on with the fact that Naomi Watts was never even part of the conversation? You could say it has something to do with the fact that The Impossible wasn't really the biggest part of the Oscar conversation this year. That's true. You could also say that it was a year that was so devoid of opportunities for strong female performance, the conversation was already quite narrow. You could also say say. But to you, I'd say that logic gets blown to pieces when you look at years where Jessica Lange won for Blue Sky -- what the hell, guys -- and the Marion Cotillard's La Vie En Rose victory -- deserved, but who the hell really saw it? You at least have to look Stockard Channing deep into a category and see which ponies are in play. Lord knows we're doing that with supporting actor. The only reason we're not with actor is because it was never a question.
But Naomi Watts is remarkable in The Impossible. I don't really know who else I would have wanted to see her go through what she went through and survive. I feel like there are other actresses I care about less and there are other actresses I wouldn't believe had it in them. She takes the brunt of a tsunami like nobody's business in this thing. Ewan McGregor seems like he is just going to smile his way through the fact that he's endlessly involved with Oscar related materials. No Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge!, or Beginners and their only being the question of whether Naomi would be nominated for The Impossible -- sight unseen -- made the "We don't nominate Ewan" policy forever clear.
But are we really not going to sift through the performances to see who's pulling a Burstyn? We haven't always seen all the films, and we know who's going to win -- we're not idiots -- but it seems the sliver that goes to see a film simply because "They heard Judi Dench was amazing in Notes on a Scandal" is dwindling. That's what's going on with Naomi Watts in The Impossible. There's no student sex, no great Phillip Glass, and the breasts are more "punctured" than "buoyant." But the work is unreal.
Naomi rides in to tonight's battle royale stress free. She should hold her head a bit higher as the true victor -- a Remains of the Day unto herself.
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