Cate Blanchett
Age: 53
Film: Tár
Role: Lydia Tár, celebrated musical genius, director, teacher, composer, and abuser of power. Though undeniably gifted, Tár is manipulative and unyielding. She can’t seem to resist promising career advancement to young women who catch her eye. This catches up with her. But is she as villainous as her detractors allege, or has her abrasive personality (and possibly her gender) made her a target?
Nomination History:
Won Best Actress Oscar in 2014 for Blue Jasmine (2013).
Won Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2005 for The Aviator (2004).
Previously nominated for Best Actress in 2016 for Carol (2015), in 2008 for Elizabeth: the Golden Age (2007), and in 1999 for Elizabeth (1998).
Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for I’m Not There (2007) and in 2007 for Notes on a Scandal (2006).
Why She Should Win
The cinematography in Tár is the thing I feel most passionate about this Oscar season. I loved the movie. It’s probably my favorite of the year. And I was bowled over by its shot composition. I didn’t go in expecting anything, and I couldn’t believe how effective the visuals were in a film about music. I don’t have the technical vocabulary to praise Florian Hoffmeister’s cinematography in the way that it deserves, but wow, it’s amazing.
The screen already looks alive with energy (even when absolutely nothing is happening! even with that muted color palette!) Every shot draws our eye, deeper, deeper. You actively watch this movie. And then I read that Hoffmeister wanted to create the effect that Lydia was always being watched. What a success!
So the only thing you could add to these scenes that makes them pop even more than they already do is Cate Blanchett. She wears clothes better than anyone. She makes wearing clothes look like an activity. I’m not particularly interested in fashion, but I am when she’s dressed up in it.
Her performance as Lydia Tár is riveting, start to finish. There is a huge visual component to the performance because in portions of the movie we watch her conducting music, composing music, and listening to sounds. She has to make us see the music and understand Tár’s connection to it.
Also, of course, the film is a fascinating character study of a brilliantly gifted (yet disturbingly flawed) person. Blanchett makes us believe both her brilliance and her more sinister qualities that will eventually lead to her downfall. (In some ways, this film is a little like Citizen Kane.)
I loved watching her threaten that child on the playground. It’s so uncomfortable. In my gut, it reminded me immediately of that awful date scene in Little Children. It felt just like it. As I first noticed that, I didn’t even realize Todd Field had directed both movies. So my mind may be a little slow, but my body’s paying attention, and Field certainly has a talent for conveying that awful feeling.
At some moments, Blanchett makes Tár so sinister. But in others, you can recognize the validity in some of her arguments and appreciate her insights about music. And there are also times when you do feel sorry for her, even when what’s happening to her is her own fault. Playing such a nuanced, multifaceted character is quite tricky. Plus, to prepare for the role, Blanchett studied piano, conducting, and German.
The film itself is so brilliant. I love Tár’s early insistence that she’s never experienced sexist bias (as if it doesn’t exist). Then at the end, you want to ask, “Are you sure?”
Blanchett’s one of my favorite actresses. She consistently gives Oscar-worthy performances, and this is another. So far, she’s won several precursor awards. I would love to see her win a third Oscar.
Why She Might Not Win
Michelle Yeoh might win. Everything Everywhere All at Once is wildly popular and has been that way for a year. Cate Blanchett already has two Oscars. This is her eighth nomination. She deserves to win this Oscar, but she doesn’t need it. Barring catastrophe, she’ll continue getting superb roles and turning them into something even greater whether she wins this Oscar or not.
There’s real competition in this category (even though Blanchett said in a speech recently that acting shouldn’t be a competition. She doesn’t get to decide. They’re only going to award this Oscar to one person) (unless there’s a tie).
There’s also some scandal associated with the movie.
As I first watched, I thought, “Oh my God! I am so stupid! This woman is so accomplished, and I have never heard of her! How is this possible? I know nothing about music.” (Thanks to being on Jeopardy!, I suddenly know tons of people who are so well versed in music, so trust me, I am quite ignorant there.)
But then I thought, “Wait! Maybe she’s not real.”
So I paused the movie and did some light googling, very lazy research. And I found out she was real. I immediately thought, “Oh no!” and quit looking because I didn’t want to spoil to the ending for myself.
So I thought Lydia Tár was real. A week later (after doing better research and no longer worried about spoiling the ending) I discovered she is not real. She is a fictional character, but apparently there’s a Twitter account and some online marketing that has confused a lot of people into believing she’s real. (This may explain why screams from The Blair Witch Project are used in the film. It’s kind of a delightful joke. I’ll bet a lot of people reacted the way I did. “Oh my God! Why don’t I know about this person? I’m so stupid!” It’s a great way to troll the cultural elite. I mean, think of people who do have expertise in music. They won’t have known her either, but there’s information online suggesting she’s real. What a great joke!)
So when I thought she was real, I kept asking myself, “Aren’t they concerned that she might be upset about this portrayal?”
But now that I know she’s not real, it seems like a much bigger problem because other lesbian musicians of note are real. And Todd Field is creating this lesbian sex scandal (that is not real) that might be offensive to lesbians (who are real unless I’ve been misled) and female conductors (also real). In fact, multiple people have already complained about this (assuming those people are real). Marin Alsop, mentioned in the movie as a lesbian conductor superficially similar to Lydia Tár, has spoken out saying she’s offended.
I do wonder what gave Todd Field the confidence to create such a character. I would feel uncomfortable writing about a world in which I have no personal experience. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. (I think about this every time I watch a Paul Thomas Anderson film. His movies are all set in such vastly different worlds. I can’t imagine saying, “My next novel will be about a Norwegian clockmaker living in 1921 Vienna, struggling with impotence.” I would feel uncomfortable telling the stories of people whose life experiences I don’t share. But that’s me. Other writers do it all the time.)
I find the character fascinating and the situation plausible. Nothing in this movie suggests to me that lesbians are evil, or that female musicians in leadership roles are all corrupt and unworthy. (Lydia’s wife isn’t diabolical, and she’s also a member of an elite orchestra.) Plus, Lydia herself is complicated. It’s not some gross caricature. So it works for me. But nobody asked me. To me, the greater problem would be a film in which a prominent lesbian conductor could not be depicted as having any personality flaws. But usually Oscar season is a time for scandals, so we’ll see how this develops as we get closer to March 12.
The real threat to a Cate Blanchett win is the wild, enduring popularity of Everything Everywhere All at Once. I don’t even think awarding Blanchett a third Oscar would give voters pause. It’s no fluke that she already has two. But Michelle Yeoh’s movie is much more popular. Everyone loves Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s much more of a crowd pleaser than Tár. In fact, the first fifteen minutes of Tár might inspire a lot of people to shrug, “This seems boring,” and turn the movie off.
Blanchett might win, but right now, Michelle Yeoh seems like a likely winner, too. (I wouldn’t even count out Andrea Riseborough. There’s tremendous scandal around her nomination, but it might end up helping her. I could even imagine Michelle Williams winning.) It’s early yet.
Ana de Armas
Age: 34
Film: Blonde
Role: Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood legend, overburdened by a private life defined by tragedy. Always overshadowed by the specter of her distant mother’s mental illness and her unknown father’s abandonment, Marilyn longs for a baby of her own to love. But how can she raise a baby just as her acting career is taking off? When will she find love? How will she be taken seriously as an actress? Why does everyone constantly abuse her? Repeated rapes and unwanted abortions traumatize her, but what hurts most is the cruelty of every man she tries to love. For some reason, she sounds vaguely Cuban.
Nomination History:
This is de Armas’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win
Ana de Armas is the best Marilyn Monroe I’ve ever seen (aside from Norma Jeane Mortenson herself). (No offense to Michelle Williams, also nominated in this category. My Week With Marilyn is without question the superior film.)
I’m glad she got nominated. Based on the strength of her performance, she deserves the nomination. Maybe you’ve heard horrible things about Blonde. They’re all true. But her performance is legitimately excellent. I’d watch the film again to see her a second time.
It’s too bad Blonde isn’t a biopic. De Armas’s riveting turn as Monroe feels a bit wasted in this film. I’m glad she got a SAG nomination, or I never would have watched her. I have such fond feelings for Marilyn Monroe. I was completely obsessed with her in middle school. I tore through biographies, watched all her movies, hung posters, collected post cards, displayed coffee table books, played with paper dolls, discovered borderline personality disorder. I gave years of my young life to Marilyn Monroe. I was reluctant to watch Blonde because word of mouth suggested she just gets tortured for three hours. It’s worth seeing for de Armas, though.
She does give Marilyn a Cuban accent from time to time (honestly most of the time). You have to overlook that. (I saw Alec Guinness brilliantly play Hitler with an English accent. Surely accent isn’t everything.) Despite her accent, she still manages to sound like Marilyn Monroe. And her facial expressions are uncannily spot on. In a silent film, the imitation would be exact. I’d guess she prepared for the role by carefully watching tape of Marilyn Monroe’s face. In her Don’t Bother to Knock audition, she’s eerily like Marilyn Monroe in Don’t Bother to Knock.
Good make-up and costuming help create the illusion, but she’s doing most of the necessary work herself. Marilyn Monroe is one of those people who’s easy to mimic. Probably most people could pull off an exaggerated caricature. But playing Marilyn Monroe without seeming like an impersonator is extremely difficult, and de Armas manages it. She exudes Marilyn’s energy, and despite her accent, nearly captures her unusual cadence.
Why She Might Not Win
Blonde is not a biopic. It’s based on a novel (I haven’t read) by Joyce Carol Oates, but it feels more like a Marilyn Monroe fanfic. I remember Alex Garland saying he wrote the screenplay for Annihilation after reading the first book of the Southern Reach Trilogy, but never re-reading or consulting the novel as he constructed his script. Essentially, he wrote the screenplay based on his impressions of the novel. Blonde has that kind of a feel. It gives us Marilyn Monroe’s life minus any of the events in it (except the subway scene from The Seven Year Itch).
I don’t want to say it’s a terrible movie. I haven’t made any movies myself. But in middle school, I’d devour Marilyn Monroe’s biographies, endlessly watch her films, seek out documentaries, interviews. And then I’d pretend about her, making up all kinds of Marilyn Monroe related fantasies, imagining scenes that could have happened in her life. (What was she like when she was twelve years old like me???)
To me, Blonde feels like that. It’s like a fantasy someone might make-up about Marilyn Monroe (like if I wrote down my dreams about Alex Trebek, threw in an anecdote about appearing on Jeopardy!, and then tried to pass off those ramblings as a Trebek biography).
This movie doesn’t pretend to be a biopic, which is a good thing, because it sure isn’t. I agree with the general consensus I’ve heard—it’s an insult to her memory. Marilyn Monroe has been dead for sixty years. She’s suffered enough. Didn’t she say, “I just want to be wonderful”? She wouldn’t want a story of her life to focus on all her suffering, surely. She wanted to be taken seriously as an actress.
It is true that she had abortions and miscarriages and desperately wanted to have a baby and never could. She was also terrified of inheriting her mother’s insanity. She struggled with her mental health and with addiction. Her marriages never worked out. She liked to read. There are true feelings and motivations in this movie, but the actual events of her life are just kind of missing. (And she did cool stuff. She got sick of her lousy treatment at Fox, moved to New York, started her own production company.)
Marilyn Monroe was more interesting than this movie. Blonde makes it look like aside from marrying Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, all she ever did was get raped and be in throuple with Charlie Chaplin, Jr., who then decided to psychologically torture her to death. And that’s not true.
It’s a very frustrating film. It’s highly watchable, and I would watch it again, but only because de Armas’s performance is interesting. You can’t even say she elevates the material, though. The movie is not good. She is good. Remember when people said Rami Malek’s performance was good but in kind of a bad movie? No. Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty good, and Malek’s performance is exceptional. De Armas’s performance is exceptional, and Blonde is not good.
It’s not without redeeming qualities. The costume design is good. So is the make-up. Another thing it gets right are the reasons her marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller fell apart. With DiMaggio, mistaken expectations on both sides and physical abuse. With Miller, the inability to have a baby, the utter betrayal of him writing things she told him in confidence, and perhaps her drug problems and affairs. And, yes, she did have a sad life, and she was preoccupied with the idea of her father and her inability to become a mother.
I don’t think Blonde deserves it’s NC-17 rating. I can’t figure out that rating. Maybe it’s for unsavory simulated fellatio or a creepy looking view of an abortion. There’s a lot of gratuitous…awfulness. (That’s frustrating, too, because it feels like a cheapening of someone’s actual trauma.) I hesitate to say the rating could hurt de Armas’s chances because surely her chances are already low enough since the movie is not on the same level as her performance.
If she wins, she’ll deserve it, but good luck convincing people. I would expect a general uproar and lots of complaints if the Oscar goes to Ana de Armas because nobody likes the movie (except Colin Farrell who cried himself to sleep). (Well, honestly, Academy members may like the movie more than the general public. That rape scene featuring Daryl F. Zanuck “discovering” her might play better to an audience who’ve had or narrowly avoided similar experiences) (or just hate Daryl F. Zanuck) (or someone who reminds them of Daryl F. Zanuck). I will concede that surely more people enjoy hating the movie than truly hate the movie. (I mean, a lot of its detractors probably haven’t even seen the movie.) I still wouldn’t expect a win for Ana de Armas. I think she’s the least likely to win in the category.
(After complaining about the movie so much, I kind of want to watch it again now. Maybe if I read the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, I’d come away with a higher opinion of the film.)
Andrea Riseborough
Age: 41
Film: To Leslie
Role: Leslie, who wins $190,000 in the Texas lottery, then six years later finds herself homeless, an alcoholic, estranged from her son, and enemies with her former friends. She’s at her lowest ebb, but she’s a prisoner to her addiction, and instead of helping her, everyone in the town where she grew up is relentless cruel. Then one man decides to treat her with kindness, and she begins to realize she needs to make changes in her life.
Nomination History:
This is Riseborough’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win
To Leslie begins as an ordinary drama. As it progresses, you see it will either end in tragedy or romance (not in the Shakespearean sense). The ending will either be dark or uplifting. Nothing about the story is that remarkable. Yes, a woman in West Texas won the lottery. But now she’s an impoverished alcoholic. She loves her son, but in her present state, she can only betray his hopeful trust again and again. She’ll be heading down one of two predictable paths—one to leads to death and despair, the other to recovery and hope. She’s going one way or the other, and if you’ve ever watched a movie before (or read a book or had a life), this is all familiar territory.
And yet, by the end of the movie, I became so invested in this character and her journey. I felt her pain. I was rooting for her. I was so worried every time she came to a crossroads. I practically died worrying about her making a misstep. And then the final scenes are incredibly poignant and powerful. It’s a well-constructed, well told story, but nothing is particularly novel. The power is in the performances, especially in Riseborough’s. Granted, it’s also a wonderfully atmospheric movie that looks and sounds like certain cross-sections of small town Texas. And the other performances are good, too. It’s a well-made film.
But Riseborough carries it, elevates it. She makes an ordinary story about an average woman into something memorably special. I cared about her character. She makes Leslie feel so real. It’s a tour-de-force performance, one of my favorite of the year. In fact, thanks to the strength of that performance, the film is also one of my favorite of the year.
At this moment, my top five are 1) Tár 2) Triangle of Sadness 3) To Leslie 4) The Fabelmans 5) Everything Everywhere All at Once/The Banshees of Inisherin.
To Leslie is so much more than I expected it to be. Riseborough disappears into the character. Even though I was watching specifically for her performance, I quickly stopped thinking of it as a performance and watched Leslie instead.
This may be the strongest performance in the category. (It’s hard to say. Cate Blanchett is so exceptional in every performance that it’s easy to downplay her stellar turn as Lydia Tár.) But I found Riseborough so moving as Leslie. (For that matter, so did Cate Blanchett! I heard her say so myself!)
I went into the movie with no expectations, and as it ended there were tears in my eyes, and I was overflowing with this weird feeling of excitement about life. She’d make a deserving winner.
Why She Might Not Win
As To Leslie ended, I thought in astonishment, “That is the best performance of the year. I can’t believe it! That was astonishing.” But as I’ve been mentally reviewing the other nominated performances in this category, some of the luster is fading. Riseborough is amazing as Leslie, but all five nominees are outstanding. Blanchett may be the best, after all. And Michelle Williams? I’ll remember the character of Mitzi Fabelman forever. It’s probably my favorite Michelle Williams performance (though I’m unusually fond of All the Money in the World). This is really tough.
What will probably hurt Riseborough’s chances is all the scandal associated with her nomination (unless it helps her chances instead). People are alleging that her last-minute grass roots campaign violated Academy rules. Several stars participated in a social media campaign, urging friends to vote for Riseborough and to post about the film on social media. Often they used the same phrases to describe the film, indication of an organized movement. They also suggested Academy members vote for Riseborough instead of Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler since they were already locks. Apparently mentioning other potential nominees is forbidden when campaigning.
Rebecca Ford describes the situation clearly and succinctly in Vanity Fair, but various takes about the whole thing are floating all over everywhere. Just google it, you’ll find a million different opinions (and some killer memes) (and evidence Lydia Tár is real). (She was probably part of the conspiracy.)
The Academy is investigating.
To me, Riseborough’s nomination was a surprise, not a shock. I’m only half paying attention this year, and I’d heard several pundits mentioning a potential nomination for Riseborough thanks to an eleventh hour push.
The shock is that both Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler were the ones left out. After this category was announced, I thought, “Oh no! This will generate scandal for sure.” I thought Davis was a lock because she’s a big name who always gives incredible performances, and she’s already won an Oscar. Deadwyler seemed more likely to miss to me simply because audiences might not be excited to watch the story of Emmet Till.
But missing the nomination is one thing. A bunch of A-listers telling people not to vote for Davis and Deadwyler specifically is quite another. So more will probably come of this, which is terrible for Riseborough because she truly gives an incredible performance, one of my favorite of the year.
She’s not a household name (despite being a fantastic actress), and now people are going to associate her with a scandal.
As I step back and think about it, though, I’m not sure most people are terribly invested in the Oscars. Probably more people will remember that Viola Davis was left out than that Andrea Riseborough got in. Personally I’d like to know how many people called out Davis and Deadwyler specifically as the ones not to vote for. I mean, if I were asking myself, “Was this racist, or is that my imagination because I’m disappointed?” and then I find out a huge number of wealthy white people said, “Do not vote for Davis and Deadwyler,” I would feel a lot more confident saying, “No, that’s not my imagination.”
Also, if it is against campaigning rules to use social media to make a concerted push for someone—why? I mean, those rules do need another look. These days everyone uses social media. Haven’t members always voted in blocks and talked with friends about how they planned to vote? Why is that different if it’s done using social media? (Just the virtual paper trail?)
We’ll see what happens. Right now the situation is generating some fun memes, but it could get ugly. If Riseborough pulls off a win, surely scandal will erupt anew, creating a memorable moment in Oscar history. I, for one, intend to carve out some time this week to (finally!) watch Till. I enjoyed Riseborough’s performance so much. I’ll feel less guilty about praising it if I’m also able to say what I enjoyed about watching Deadwyler’s performance. Everybody should know the story of Emmett Till, but I’m not sure it’s taught in public schools. I’ll ask my daughter.
Michelle Williams
Age: 42
Film: The Fabelmans
Role: Mitzi Fabelman, the endearingly eccentric mother of Sammy, the fictional counterpart of young Steven Spielberg. A gifted musician, Mitzi has decided to focus on raising a family instead of pursuing a career in the arts, but she encourages her son’s love of filmmaking and never loses her own love of performing. She has a big heart, and it sometimes leads her into places where she’d prefer not to go, but she always remains a devoted and loving mother. (Plus, she combats depression by buying a pet monkey. What an amazing woman!)
Nomination History:
Previously nominated for Best Actress in 2012 for My Week with Marilyn (2011) and in 2011 for Blue Valentine (2010).
Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 2017 for Manchester by the Sea (2016) and in 2006 for Brokeback Mountain (2005).
Why She Should Win
I have a soft spot in my heart for this performance because my daughter loves it so much. At this point, we’ve watched The Fabelmans so many times. If you ever come visit us, she’ll show it to you. (Even if you don’t know us! I can imagine my daughter screaming, “Aaaah! A stranger! That means he hasn’t seen The Fabelmans! Come watch!”)
As the movie ended in the theater, my daughter said to me, “As long as either Gabriel LaBelle or Michelle Williams wins an Oscar, I’ll be fine.” I think she’ll have to settle for the nomination, but I was worried Michelle Williams might get left out like she did by SAG, so I was relieved and pleased to hear her name called.
Williams is a sentimental favorite in this category for me because my daughter thinks that she’s Sammy, and I’m Mitzi. I was incredibly depressed when we watched this movie the first time, so I was thrilled to be compared to a flawed, off-kilter character portrayed in such a positive light. I thought cheerfully, “Oh! Maybe I’ll buy a monkey!”
So I will always like Michelle Williams as Mitzi Fabelman. She is quite charming here, and I love her line about not owing anyone your life. (I hope Steven Spielberg wins Best Director for this because his films are so good at uplifting and entertaining audiences, and I think he’s been so good at making the types of films he makes for so long that we take him for granted. That’s probably an unpopular opinion because he gets so much acclaim. But I’m forty-three. If you’re around my age, imagine the cinema you grew up with without Steven Spielberg. His influence has been so far reaching, too. It’s not just his movies you’d lose if he It’s a Wonderful Lifed out of existence.)
I keep thinking, If Steven Spielberg picked Michelle Williams to play his mother, and then he directed her himself, she must be doing it right.
Williams is a versatile actress. Here she’s playing a character with a theatrical nature, so she’s often over-the-top. But she’s so real in both the slap scene and the apology for the slap. What makes her performance special is the way she alternates seamlessly between Mitzi’s theatricality and her genuine anguish, only sometimes expressed.
At this point, I’d be surprised to see her win the Oscar, but there are some weird scandals in this category, and right now, it’s only the end of January.
Why She Might Not Win
Even my daughter, who is in love with this performance because she sees me in the character confided today that she would vote for Cate Blanchett. It’s a competitive year.
For me, the greatest weakness of Williams’s performance is that Mitzi is such a big, theatrical character. She lives as if she’s always on stage, so playing her looks like a performance. She seems like someone who might start belting out showtunes any second. That quality is, in part, what makes the character so memorable and fun to watch. But it also makes Williams look like she’s acting—because Mitzi Fabelman is always on. There’s no other way to play Mitzi Fabelman, but the character’s nature might make the performance seem less impressive to voters whether or not that’s fair.
Some people think she should have run in supporting. (“Some” may be misleading. I’ve seen that stance from a lot of people online.) To be honest, I don’t understand these complaints. Yes, she could have run in supporting. You can make a case that she belongs there. Maybe she would have won in supporting.
But this isn’t category fraud. Gabriel LaBelle is the lead actor, clearly. He’s the main character with the most screentime, and the story is all about him. Paul Dano as Best Actor does seem like category fraud. But if Michelle Williams is not the lead actress, who is?
Most of the story is about the way Sammy becomes a filmmaker, largely through interactions with his mother. Throughout his young life (which is what the movie covers) she’s his leading lady. At the heart of the story is her (emotional?) affair. And Sammy’s love for her and his love for filmmaking are all mixed up together. She’s not in the wrong category. A case could be made for either. If the choice were left to me, though, I would have put her in Lead Actress, too. Why wouldn’t you? Your leading man is a child! (I guess he’s twenty, but he’s playing a high school student.) He’s not going to get nominated (despite the fact that he arguably gives the best performance in the movie. If he acted like this on the street, and you bumped into him, you’d say, “Wow! You’re just like a young Steven Spielberg.”).
My daughter watched this film and immediately decided that we were Mitzi and Sammy because this is a movie about a young person and his mother. His father is also important to the story, but he’s not as central as his mother.
You know what? Michelle Williams gets nominated and circles nominations all the time. She should have an Oscar by now. And wouldn’t it be great if when somebody asked her, “So how did you finally win your Oscar, Michelle?” she could answer, “By playing Steven Spielberg’s mother.”
That just seems like a great way to finally win an Oscar. What a story!
There’s fierce competition in this category, though. As of now, it’s hard to imagine Williams pulling off a win. Something dramatic would have to change (as it well could given the developing scandal surrounding Riseborough’s nomination). I can envision a scenario in which most people vote for either Yeoh or Blanchett, and it’s such an even split that a third actress secures a victory. That could be Michelle Williams. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I’d be happy to see her win, and my daughter would be ecstatic. We’d go out and buy a monkey to celebrate.
(Side note: I frequently remember—in an auditory echo—Seth Rogen pointedly announcing that she won the Golden Globe, “For the hilarious comedy” My Week with Marilyn. He was in 50/50 that year, which actually was a comedy. It’s funny that they’re in this drama together, and that his character is the one who makes her laugh.)
Michelle Yeoh
Age: 60
Film: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Role: Evelyn Wang, the worst version of herself in any universe (like me!!!). As the laundromat she has always hated owning faces problems with the IRS, Evelyn finds herself pulled in many directions, simultaneously in conflict with her father, her daughter, and her husband. Then another version of her husband appears from a parallel universe. Suddenly her conflicts become much more violent as she learns she’s being hunted across the multiverse by the mysterious and terrifying Jobu Tupaki.
Nomination History:
This is Yeoh’s first nomination.
Why She Should Win
I have something in common with Ke Huy Quan. I loved Crazy Rich Asians! (Maybe if I start talking about that more publicly, I’ll get to make a movie with Michelle Yeoh, too!) The intensity of my reaction took me totally by surprise. I went home and read all the books. And Michelle Yeoh’s character makes the movie. I wanted her to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination so much. So I’m thrilled to see her finally get an Oscar nomination. (I’ve liked her since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.)
Honestly, as much as I love the other performances in this category, there’s a part of my soul that thinks, “Wouldn’t it be so amazing if both Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan win?” He can tell his story about getting back into acting because of seeing Crazy Rich Asians, and then later in the evening, Michelle Yeoh can make some moving, hilarious comment back. That’s a compelling narrative. It’s hard not to want that to happen just because the story is so good.
Plus Yeoh is great in this film. Playing Evelyn across the multiverse lets her show off her versatility because, of course, while there might be multiple Evelyns, only one Michelle Yeoh appears in this film. To play the part correctly, she has to demonstrate the talents of multiple women from multiple lives. She sings. She cries. She fights. (She’s learned some martial arts skills, but she’s also formally trained as a ballerina.) What impresses me most is the way she handles the comedy. Evelyn’s frequent malapropisms are hilarious, but they wouldn’t be funny with just anyone in the part. In the past, malapropisms by Asian characters have often arisen from lazy, racist writing and aren’t funny at all. But the writing in this film is razor sharp, and Yeoh makes the comedy work without undermining the dramatic tension of a scene. She’s actually funny (with material that could seem gratingly silly in the wrong hands), but she never loses the dramatic heft of the scene as she makes the audience laugh.
I both laughed and cried copiously during this movie, and it wouldn’t work without Yeoh’s lead performance.
Plus, I don’t know anyone who has seen Everything Everywhere All at Once who doesn’t like it. It’s made a gazillion dollars, and everybody loves it. And she’s the lead. Why shouldn’t she win Best Actress?
Why She Might Not Win
She might win. Right now, it seems like there’s nothing more popular than Everything Everywhere All at Once. (In fact, its overexposure is slowly turning me against it. I’m fighting that impulse so hard because this movie is fantastic, entertaining with a wonderful message that I loved the first time I watched it.) I don’t think the movie’s omnipresence and dominance of Oscar discussions is really a problem despite my own contrarian tendencies. (For one thing, I actually do like it. The second I watch it again, I’ll remember, “Oh yeah. I love this.”) (I’m a faux contrarian, just like I’m a fake misanthrope. Turn on the movie and invite my friends, and I’ll instantly gush, “What a great movie! I love everyone!”)
But then there’s Cate Blanchett. And…what if there’s a grass roots campaign, and other actors start telling each other on social media, “Don’t vote for Michelle Yeoh”?
Just kidding.
Cate Blanchett looks like the biggest threat to a Yeoh win right now. We’ll have to see how the Riseborough scandal plays out. Based on the merit of performance, I would consider her a threat to win, too. But winning Oscars is based on more than the performance, and it’s only January.
I can’t even rank the performances in this category this year. They’re all so good. Even if you asked, “Sarah, who would you vote for?” it would depend on when you caught me. I keep changing my mind. I think I want Cate Blanchett to win, but I would also be happy with a win by any of the others. Maybe not Ana de Armas. These other actresses are integral parts of excellent films. She’s the only reason to watch her movie (except the costume design and make-up. Those are good, too. That film has killer costumes. I recognize them from photographs of Marilyn Monroe).
Things could look very different a month from now. We’ll see what happens.