So Many Choices for Supporting Actress

Editor’s Note Feb. 8: The Oscar nominations today make aspects of my story wrong, particularly that the Academy resisted what I thought it wouldn’t — nominating Rita Moreno alongside Ariana DeBose.  But rather than deal with the Belfast conflict, they only nominated Judi Dench, plucked the new actress Jessie Buckley from The Lost Daughter and, as I predicted, dropped the two leading ladies I mentioned to this category.

COVID-19 might still change the timing, but the Oscar nominations are now set for Feb. 8 and the ceremony itself for March 27. Various trades, guilds and other industry groups have met and produced their lists that will influence how the Oscar voters decide.

To date the titles includes Belfast, House of Gucci, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Don’t Look Up, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story and The Tragedy of Macbeth, but other titles are hovering.

The nominations could also reflect movie theaters in one corner and streaming services in the other. There are cross-overs, but there are also stern one-siders. Some categories in fact will be hard put to find five genuine prospects to nominate (much less 10 films for the top slot!). 

But the situation is the opposite in the supporting actress category. There exist far more genuine hopefuls than there are slots, particularly when studios and agents play the game of forcing lead actresses into the supporting actress category. That will smack viewers most forcibly with Belfast, a well acted movie that clearly confused some American viewers, who struggled with the Northern Ireland accents (I found them charming) and some uncertainty about who to root for in this boy’s life story of growing up in 1969. The film opens subtly with color panoramas of Belfast today before moving into a black-and-white 1969.

Also confusing to some viewers is that the Protestant vs. Catholic enmity did not prevent both sides from declaring their Irishness and how in 1969, even as they were inflamed into choosing sides, Protestant and Catholic families co-existed. We all obviously need to learn more about this history, which was shut off U.S. front pages by Vietnam.

Holding the Protestant family together in ways that Catholic families will find recognizable is a fine Irish actress (and truth teller in director Kenneth Branagh’s film based on his own upbringing), Caitríona Balfe. Despite her central importance and screen time, academy voters are being pushed to consider her in the supporting actress category.

But there is a better known member of this cast also likely to be there. If so, it will be hard to dislodge Judi Dench. The Dame, as she is titled, is best known to moviegoers as the perennial M in the James Bond films, where her dry wit and bemused looks don’t begin to tap her ability. “Belfast” does. She is the Granny being left behind, whose scenes with her husband (Ciarán Hinds, and look for him to be nominated in the supporting actor category) spark the humor and genuine sentiment of the story. She is even given the defining phrases as the rest of the family leaves for America. Her final scene will be hard to overlook.

That’s two strong possibilities from one film – yet that isn’t even the strangest case. How about two actresses associated with the same role – Anita in West Side Story?

Ariana DeBose has drawn raves for her acting, singing and dancing in Steven Spielberg’s new version, only available in movie houses. It is a role where those elements plus the ethical dilemma won Rita Moreno her Oscar 60 years ago — but look! Over there in the same film is Rita Moreno, a miracle at age 90.

She won the Oscar for Anita — and is given a new role, Doc’s widow Valentina, now running the drugstore, and she even nails a famous song, “Somewhere,” which she sang live on set, according to the studio. It isn’t a cameo, as she insists, since screenwriter Tony Kushner wrote the part for her. 

Can you imagine the Oscar voters resisting coming full circle? Can you imagine them nominating her and not nominating DeBose — even though they may cancel each other out?

And can they also resist Cate Blanchett? A fine actress and former winner, she has two good ice-maiden supporting roles – Don’t Look Up and Nightmare Alley. She never can be discounted.

Then there are two actresses who ought to be in the best actress category for the importance of their parts, but are only being talked about for supporting. They are Kirsten Dunst, who quietly nails the dichotomies of her role in The Power of the Dog.

And there is the most cringe-worthy de-elevation being contemplated for King Richard, for which Will Smith seems a lock to get a best actor nomination. As I wrote in a January review: “The best acting in the film belongs to Aunjanue Ellis as Oracene (Brandy) his wife – feisty, supportive and insisting on equality – a performance that deserves to be considered at awards time. It is her honesty as an angry truth-telling wife that keeps the film from slipping irretrievably into the sugary side.”

Yet the studio is pushing her – and not very hard – only for the supporting category.

As of this writing, it is unclear which names the Oscars will jump for, and it might not include someone I should have listed as I see more of the films in contention. I pretty much know who I like in the other races, but I wouldn’t want to be the voter who has to come down to five and then one in this category.