The Film Experience

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Nathaniel, Ben Miller, Mark Brinkerhoff and special guest Nick Davis to discuss Best Actress.

NATHANIEL: I've been thinking a lot about what the characters and not the nominated actresses would make of all the competitive hoopla around the Best Actress Oscar this year. Photographer Janis (soulfully embodied by Penélope Cruz) wouldn't quite want all the eyes on her but she'd keep busy and turn her lens on her fellow nominees. She'd stick around for all the events. Professor Leda (Oliva Colman in all her complexity) and Princess Diana (anxiously inhabited by Kristen Stewart), who I'd never otherwise pair in thought, would both surely acknowledge the honors while eyeing the nearest exit and counting the minutes until they could escape. They would skip anything non-mandatory. Lucille Ball (surprisingly portrayed by Nicole Kidman) would be the consummate star and pull all the focus... but what would she actually be thinking about in the glow of all the lights? Only Tammy Faye (enthusiastically reincarnated by Jessica Chastain) might truly enjoy it. She would be very extra about campaigning and thoroughly enjoy the circus of it all.

Am I stalling due to utter suspense about who might win? Sure...

But also no because I love to think about movie characters as actual people and I don't mean biographically. Do I have a kick off question? Not really but I guess I do want to know where your preferences lie. Which character would you be most eager to sit with at an Oscar party... and which actress are you hoping takes home the gold and why?

MARK: Excellent question(s). The character I’d be most eager to sit with at an Oscar party probably would be Lucy on account of the interesting conversations to be had. (Janis and Lena, by contrast, may be a bit too cagey, while Diana and Tammy Faye likely would be awkward or just plain exhausting.) But that doesn’t mean the character I’d like to spend time with is played by the actress I’m hoping to take home Oscar. Because that would not be Kidman (whom I love) this year, despite the fact that she gives a much better performance as Lucy than the film surrounding her merits—or that I, quite frankly, expected from the (mis)casting. And while Chastain, Colman and Stewart are giving their performances their all (Colman most effectively), my heart belongs to Cruz, even though my head leans (slightly) toward Chastain at the moment. What a weird, wild Oscar race this has been, am I right, gents?

BEN: I love how fluid this race has been. Six months ago, Stewart was the runaway winner. Two months ago, it was Kidman. Lady Gaga was the precursor champ, then it shifted to Colman. Chastain has all the momentum now, but there are grumblings of a Cruz surprise. I love it. The last time I remember this many contenders for the win (not counting last year's Best Actress), was 1999 Best Supporting Actor.

This is the Academy's reward for not nominating any duds. There is no clear "narrative" driving who should win. Either give Chastain or Stewart their first with a long career to follow, or give one of the other mainstays their second. My favorite part: there is no bad outcome. I am "very fond" to "overwhelmingly love" all these performances.

NICK: Obviously, my job is to sit with Leda and hold down a whole banquette for moody academics who teach esoteric subjects and feel like lumpy, middle-aged laughingstocks while doing their grading on the beach. It would be fun to sing our beloved Bon Jovi together and to steal things from other nominees and compare our respective bounties, debating what to keep and what to restore. Or maybe, amid what I considered a growing rapport, she’d look at me flatly like she does at Ed Harris and ask to finish her dinner undisturbed, please.

Regarding the actresses, I’d be happy to see any of the five of them win, though I feel like Colman is embarrassed about the whole thing and would rather clap for somebody else. All of them have had interesting, unpredictable careers, and I would be excited for whatever extra choice-power and visibility a trophy would entitle them to, however briefly. Regarding the actual performances, I’d have a hard time with a Spencer win. Stewart’s committed performance often seems effortful and self-conscious to me in ways that don’t serve the character or shift between scenes, as Chastain’s/Tammy Faye’s strenuous exuberance or Kidman’s/Lucy’s shifting and overlapping layers of performing, withholding, and prevaricating do.

I like what Chastain and Kidman manage under tricky circumstances and in uneven films. But at the end of the day, I’m a Cruz voter. I love how much less she “does” than many an actress would and how she and Almodóvar have conspired to explore the power of underplaying within an ornate aesthetic and an excessive genre. The scene where she tells Milena Smit’s character….what she finally needs to tell her, in a quiet and subdued tone and a conversational pace, while sitting down, utterly refusing to “play” to her scene partner or her director, encapsulates this quality for me. She manages a kind of directness and emotional lucidity throughout while remaining as mysterious in some respects as the script requires. Colman is similarly economical and subtly kaleidoscopic in a surprising part for her and is my close runner-up. I do think Chastain is winning, though.

If a Libra can spit out a clear preference and a straightforward prediction, anything is possible for the rest of you. Nathaniel dodged his own question about favorites in the race, as did Ben, and Mark’s head and heart were in different places. Show those cards!

NATHANIEL: Fine fine. Haha. At first I didn't state preferences because I was torn but it came time to give out my Film Bitch Awards medals so I had to. Since Chastain had already won gold in my own awards (for A Violent Year) and I felt very "tie" about my preference, despite not believing in ties, I went with Olivia Colman who is a total marvel in The Lost Daughter. She's playing both interior and exterior constantly and the way she illuminates how badly Leda would NOT like her exterior to show, her frustrations and fascinations and attractions and ambivalence and what have you keep popping out, often messily. It's a really rich performance. I'm also crazy about Chastain who is definitely playing more to the exterior but what other choice did she have for that specific role (if anything she could have gone bigger!). It's a highwire act. She risks being absolutely ridiculous, which you'd have to in that role and which is absolutely appealing from a fan perspective if the performer pulls it off. You just want to throw flowers. Or at least I did. In lieu of flowers, throw Oscars? I actually think she might lose though so I'm considering dreadicting Kristen Stewart.

Why? I do genuinely like Kristen Stewart and my own awards prove I think she already deserved an Oscar. But the mania around this performance has had me baffled all year. Kristen Stewart has been campaigning as hard as anyone and she is obviously leagues more comfortable with being in the white hot spotlight than she was during the Twilight and immediately post Twilight years. I think the voting will be close.

One more thing I want to state is that I dont really understand the mandatory thing of people expressing that they dont like a film but they love the actor's work in it. A lot of people are using this against Jessica Chastain this year. I am 100% sure I've done it in the past but when I see others doing it I'm always like "No, we're supposed to only be judging the acting in these categories". If I were judging on solely the films themselves than my medalists would often be very different. This is a long way of saying that Olivia is in the best film with Cruz as runner up. Yes, Chastain is running circles around her too-simple film but that doesn't put her in last place. Meanwhile I feel like Kristen Stewart isn't running circles around her movie so much as spinning in place with it until actress and film get dizzy and crash into earth. I don't like the movie or the performance, though I can always separate one from the other. I'm sorry, internet!

Ben? Mark?

MARK: Well mine are obviously on the table, but can we revel for a moment in the full characterizations that Cruz and Colman are giving—full stop? Historically the Academy is clearly gaga over biopic performances (except, ironically, Lady Gaga’s this year), but I much, much prefer when actors—oh, who am I kidding, actresses—create something vivid and distinctive organically. Which is precisely what Cruz and Colman get to do, guided in no small part by their incisive directors.

Also really appreciate that these two, now four-time and three-time Oscar nominees, respectively, have been nominated for roles that are quite different from the Oscar-nominated roles they’ve played previously. I mean, the range, the talent, the wonder! It’s an embarrassment of riches for those of us wistful for the halcyon days of Sirk-like melodramas with complicated women at their center. And speaking of complicated, can anyone explain how Stewart arrived at this interpretation of Diana? What direction must Pablo Larraín given her to go…there? (Chastain and Kidman had more linear paths, truly.)

NICK: Mark, I love your points about Cruz and Colman, in relation to their working without real-life templates and their significant stretches from what they’ve shown us before, especially in nominated work. For me, though, the other three nominees get a gold star in the latter department, too. I never expected to see Chastain as exuberant and full-bodied or as musical (when talking, as much as when singing) as she is here. There's some Celia Foote in her Tammy Faye, but I think even Celia would be awestruck and a little dumbstruck by her. Kidman's given plenty of outsized and plenty of inward, cerebral performances but to me it's kind of rare that she's had to give both at once, weaving back and forth between those poles in tricky rhythms and often against audience expectations.

I do agree with you in being perplexed by a lot of what Stewart does, especially by herself and in adult interactions. She has repeatedly named "ferocity" as her keyword for Diana, and I still can't work out the path to that of all adjectives. But ferocious she is, and I can almost see it as an experiment in playing Diana as panicked, hunted animal even when she's not being outwardly aggressed. It's nothing like I thought we'd ever see from her, and still less are her best scenes (to me), which are the ones with her kids. So I'm blissed out by a category where nobody is repeating herself.

Sorry, Ben, for cutting in, but also glad to vamp to give you more time!

BEN: We are all pretty much in agreement that all these women/performances are great. What win works as the best narrative for the Academy? None of these women are in the twilight (no pun intended) of their careers and could very well be nominated again in 20-30 years. In each of their cases, the Academy can justify skipping the win because they keep doing great work. Kidman and Colman are already Best Actress winners, while Chastain and Stewart seemed poised to keep showing up. Cruz is interesting.

The Oscars have this funny habit of owing Supporting winners until they get a Lead trophy. Jack Lemmon and Denzel are the best examples of this. Do they give Cruz the Lead Oscar this year and wait on the next opportunity for Chastain and Stewart, or is this the right time to give Chastain her Oscar and wait down the line for Stewart (or vice-versa)?

What is the best and worst scenario narratively?

NICK: I’m curious how others will answer, but I’m not your girl for Oscar narratives. I feel like they disproportionally drive the conversation, besides which voters are weirdly erratic about when they embrace them. The last time we got a perfect Oscar narrative was with Alfre Woodard (universally beloved, always reliable character actress with decades of experience, finally headlining a movie with complex, timely themes that takes the top prize at Sundance and in which she gives a pristine performance with an enormous degree of difficulty), and they couldn’t even bothered to nominate her! Besides which, I feel like none of this year’s contenders has a better-than-average narrative behind them, and their careers are precisely interesting by not having clear narratives. So now I’m back on Libra brand by not having any decision or preference to register. : ) What do you think, Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL: The narratives drive the conversation too much, is what I think, yes. And I blame that somewhat on the cottage industry of punditry. It was pretty limited realm when I started doing this in 2000 but it's exploded with every site having someone on the Oscar beat and some critics (probably reluctantly) covering it too when they have to. With the ratings dwindling it makes me think that one day there will be more pundits than people watching. JOKING, obviously. But It makes me think of Mo'nique's indifference to campaigning 'can't it just be about the performance?' or the rare times when it does feel entirely about the performance (Hopkins for The Father, Swinton for Michael Clayton).

Ben is right that the "overdue" and "owing" business is super inconsistent -- especially when Supporting trophies are involved. Nick name-checks Alfre Woodard in Clemency (2019) and I raise him then-overdue Joan Allen in Upside of Anger (2005) who gave the best leading actress performance in a year in which it would have been remarkably easy to reward her and, again, no narrative took.

But back to this season. Though there was a groundswell of love for Penélope Cruz around the time of the nomination, Parallel Mothers didn't break out as much as some of Almodóvar's other films. For example Pain and Glory did $37 million worldwide while Parallel Mothers has earned about half of that. Some of that is surely due to the sorry state of moviegoing in 2021/2022 but I feel it did undercut her momentum. And then The Worst Person in the World and Renata Reinsve (who wasn't nominated) began to soak up the conversation, with a lot of people (including myself) suspecting that Reinsve could have made the Best Actress list had the film been released earlier or pushed harder. All of which made Penélope's momentum feel confined to just a couple of weeks. If she wins on Sunday I will have obviously been wrong about this!

And then the conversation looped back around to Kristen Stewart. All conversations loop back to their origins if the season wears on long enough. Which is why I think this race is either going to Kristen Stewart (obsessive fans that wouldn't budge even if they thought she would lose) or Jessica Chastain (the narrative + degree of difficulty). Olivia Colman never took off as an option because Maggie Gyllenhaal was the focal point of The Lost Daughter's campaign.

MARK: Oh, God, I’m at odds with myself about whether Stewart’s winning would help or hurt—not Stewart herself (or her career), per se, but rather her devoted fanbase. Would they be quelled or further emboldened by Oscar winner Kristen Stewart? I mean, if haters gonna hate, then fans gonna fan… the flames.

So maybe the Academy, which isn’t beholden to #FilmTwitter or rabid fanbases anyway, opts to reward a clearly going-for-the-gold Jessica Chastain, thus completing a decade-long quest for the highest honor in Hollywood. And I could hardly quibble with Chastain’s being an Oscar winner, even if her output as of late (namely superfluous sequels like The Huntsman: Winter’s War, It: Chapter Two, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix) has been more questionable than quality. (Count me as excited though for George & Tammy, reteaming her with Take Shelter co-star, Michael Shannon—to me the undersung performance/film from her breakout year.)

With all that said, I can’t help but have a nagging feeling that Cruz, whose biggest hurdle was the nomination itself, very well could pull off an upset and at the end of the day be the emergent winner. Which would be deeply satisfying *and* deserving, would it not?

NATHANIEL: Stewart stans are already insufferable but they will be whether she wins or loses. I think she'll top this performance in no time if she keeps taking big swings with quality directors (as she did here - though I'd argue it didn't quite work; I'm fully aware that this is a minority opinion so don't come for me). Anyway, I like her and I am thrilled by her ambition and will eagerly watch what she does next.

Ok final round make your predictions. I'm going:

Prediction: Chastain. (alt. Stewart)
Preference: Colman (alt. Chastain)

NICK:

Prediction: Chastain (alt. Cruz)
Preference: Cruz (alt. Colman)

But really: WOODARD (do a write-in, you cowards!!)

Dear Kristen Stewart fans – I did not besmirch you in any way or use an adjective like “insufferable,” and I wrote a nice cover story about her once, and Mark was very nice and called you “devoted” and Ben stayed out of the whole fray. Please take this info into account when issuing any and all follow-up communiques.

BEN: I appreciate the recap Nick. It made me look really good. The Academy loves their history and I think a Cruz win would look the best down the road. Though I do agree with you that Chastain is looking like the predicted winner. I just want the Academy to keep Best Actress as competitive as it has been for the past two years. It's been delightful.

MARK: Indeed it has. So here we go:

Prediction: Chastain (alt. Cruz)
Preference: Cruz (alt. Colman)

Which leaves Kidman on the outside looking in…till next year? Who can say; that woman works a lot.