 |
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
by JOHN HARKNESS
Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Winner, Golden Globe, AFI Award, British Academy Award
I can think of a number of women I'd rather see in this spot - Scarlett Johansson in either Ghost World or The Man Who Wasn't There, Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums, Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky, Jennifer Coolidge in Legally Blonde - but none were in films with the sort of Oscar campaign that got A Beautiful Mind eight nominations. Connelly is sympathetic and supportive, but why this performance and not her turn last year in Requiem For A Dream? She's an ingenue who's been on the brink of stardom for so long - remember Labyrinth (1986)? - that people forget she's barely past 30. In her favour are several factors. She's the female lead in A Beautiful Mind, even though she's nominated in the supporting actress category. And let's not forget the Marisa Tomei factor: she's almost the only American in a field of Brits, the only other American being, ironically, Marisa Tomei.
Helen Mirren, Gosford Park
Winner, Screen Actor's Guild Award
I'd like to think this is the sort of monkey wrench that could screw up the Jennifer Connelly campaign, except that at the SAGs Connelly was nominated as lead, not supporting actress, much like Benicio del Toro last year, which suggests that SAG has a better sense of what makes up a leading role than does the Academy membership. I'd like to say that Mirren's nomination is overdue, but her extensive credits are more in television than film, and for a performer of her considerable talent and reputation she's got an awful lot of junk in her filmography. She is superb in Gosford Park as the darkest of the downstairs characters, her mouth tightened downward with resentment and hard as nails for a reason. A standout performance in a film that's a three-ring circus of fine performances.
Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
Anyone else have the feeling that Robert Altman's sole bit of direction to Maggie Smith was, "Steal the picture?" Her grande dame, a flurry of ticks, moues and poisonous concern, manages the astonishing task of stealing scenes she's barely in, buried deep in the director's very busy frames and widening her eyes enough to pull our attention off whomever the camera is actually focused on. Smith, fully understanding that on an Altman film one is never sure when the camera has you in its sights, never turns off the performance. This is Smith's sixth nomination, and she's won twice, as lead in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and supporting actress in California Suite, playing a losing Oscar nominee. That alone militates against a victory here, simply because there are very few three-time winners.
Marisa Tomei, In The Bedroom
Just to put to rest one of the nastier rumours that has circulated around Marisa Tomei's Oscar for My Cousin Vinnie, it is impossible for someone to read the wrong name and have that person get the statue. The men from Price-Waterhouse are in the wings, ready to correct any errors. Anyway, after showing the worst career management skills this side of Mickey Rourke, Tomei has mounted a comeback as the passively sensual divorcee who triggers the narrative complications in In The Bedroom. It's a good performance but suffers from being in the same picture as Sissy Spacek's short-fused monster of maternal concern. Tomei should just say to herself, "It's an honour just being nominated, it's an honour just being nominated."
Kate Winslet, Iris
Third nomination, and in this case, I fear, not the charm. Winslet's incendiary performance as the young Iris Murdoch is the best performance in the category, but there are two problems. She's playing the younger version of the character Judi Dench plays in the second half of the film. And this is, by far, the smallest film in the category and the one least seen by Academy voters.
|
|
