Review of Oscar Nominees 2020: Best Supporting Actress

Won Best Actress Oscar in 1991 for Misery (1990).

Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Primary Colors (1998) and About Schmidt (2002).

Why She Should Win:
Kathy Bates is magnificent in Richard Jewell. To be honest, she elevates material that is already strong (if uneven). She completely deserves this nomination, and I’m thrilled (and, candidly, stunned) that she got it. Though I don’t expect Bates to win, I personally consider her work in this film the strongest of the nominated performances in this category. (If you’re wondering, I would give the Oscar to Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers, but since the Academy didn’t nominate her, J. Lo will have to make due with winning critics awards, being wildly rich, and performing at the Superbowl. I think she’ll land on her feet.)

The five women who were nominated all deserve it, but Bates gives the most special performance of the bunch. And what makes it so special is that she seems so ordinary. As I watched her play Bobi Jewell, I believed that she was Bobi Jewell. In a way that doesn’t require flashy prostheses, excessive make up, or digital effects, Bates disappears into this character. She slips into her skin and inhabits her life and seems right at home there.

Although I remember the events of the Richard Jewell case vividly (and, consequentially, had more positive passion for Eastwood’s film than most), I have never actually met Jewell or his mother. But I’ve met so many women like his mother that every moment she was onscreen, I felt like I knew her.

Sometimes Hollywood actors have the tendency to overdo it when portraying characters from the South. (I’m from Texas, and this drives me crazy. By the way, I’m not sure that I would classify Texas as “the South,” but in films, we all often sound bafflingly like Scarlet O’Hara. I think the celebrity of Matthew McConaughey has helped refine the accent but done nothing to tone down the theatricality.)

But Bates nails her presentation of a Southern woman of a certain age from a certain class. She seems like a real person, not a caricature or a character. Maybe it helps that Bates is originally from Tennessee, but I completely believed her as a woman from Georgia. She also gets her social class and place in society right. As played by Bates, Bobi Jewell reminds me so much of women I grew up around, went to church with, encountered in the community. She just seems real.

And that’s important for making the movie work because the true horror of the Richard Jewell story is that it could happen to any one of us. Bobi doesn’t win our sympathy because she’s special or exceptional but because she’s so much like all of us. She’s just a mother, working to make ends meet, wanting the best for her son.

Bates absolutely shines in the sequence when the FBI searches her house and seizes many of her belongings. (The VHS tapes of Disney movies she uses when she babysits!) She’s so bewildered and frustrated, angry at the injustice, powerless to correct it, terrified for her son (whose limitations and vulnerabilities she well knows).

Watching, it’s hard not to ask yourself, “What if this were happening to my mother/grandma/Aunt Betsy/babysitter/Sunday School teacher?” It’s hard to realize that if someone powerful accused you of a crime, your entirely unoffending, law abiding, and ordinary mother could be treated the same way.

Bates manages to hold our attention and win our sympathy without doing a single thing that’s showy. It’s wonderful, Oscar-worthy acting, and if she somehow pulls off a win, I’ll applaud from my living room.

Why She Might Not Win:
Richard Jewell bombed at the Box Office. I went to see it. I was excited to see it, but I was obsessed with the Atlanta Games which happened just before I started my senior year of high school at a fairly impressionable moment in my life. Who could forget when that bomb went off in Centennial Park and spread panic through the 1996 Olympics, and then the press tried to blame the hero who had discovered the bomb? Apparently everybody…or else people remember but just don’t care enough to watch a movie about it right before Christmas.

The Academy’s love affair with Clint Eastwood as a director seems to have ended. At the very least, it has cooled off for the time being. (Was it the empty chair, the fake baby, good old-fashioned ageism, the inevitable pendulum swing against the once wildly popular?)

The people who did see Richard Jewell were pretty quick to point out that it slanders the reputation of a dead journalist. The late Kathy Scruggs is portrayed as an over-the-top sociopathic minx who would do anything (or anyone) for a story. I don’t think the film ever technically shows that Scruggs slept with people for leads, but it does heavily imply it (depending on how seriously you take Jon Hamm’s character who is also made to look pretty bad). At first I thought Olivia Wilde’s portrayal of Scuggs was outrageously, distractingly over-the-top. Then I read some true stories of how Scruggs actually behaved and had to admit her self-presentation style does sound almost Dickensian in its larger-than-life outrageousness. Still, it’s hard to deny that Eastwood’s film makes the baffling choice to clear the name of scapegoat Richard Jewell simply by scapegoating someone else instead.

These factors may not work against Bates, but they certainly don’t help her. She’s the lone nominee from her (unpopular) film in a category with four other women whose films are nominated for Best Picture. (Robbie is not nominated for Once Upon a Time, but she’s in it. Even Bombshell got multiple nominations. Dern and Johansson each appear in two of the Best Picture nominees.) Plus, Bates has already won a (very deserved) Oscar.

Then again, she is getting older, and everyone loves a legend. We’ll see what happens.

Laura Dern
Age: Turns 53 the day after the ceremony. (Remember, Hollywood, to wish her, “Happy Birthday!” at the after parties!)
Film: Marriage Story
Role: Nora Fanshaw, the polite, friendly, hard-edged divorce lawyer so evil that she makes it possible for her client to live near her family and job and have custody of her son.

Nomination History:

Previously nominated for Best Actress for Rambling Rose (1991).

Previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Wild (2014).

Why She Should Win:

Laura Dern is the favorite to win this year, and I think she will.  Her performance as Nora Fanshaw is certainly good enough for an Oscar.  But what really positions Dern to win goes beyond the performance itself.  First of all, Laura Dern is everywhere.  She’s experiencing a career high.  I’ve been watching all the awards shows, reading all the coverage of non-televised stuff.  Everywhere Dern is nominated, she’s also a co-star of multiple other nominees.  Everyone she is working with is getting acclaim right now from the industry, the critics, the public.  And she shows up to the events.  She does the press.  And every single time she speaks, she is poised, charming, concise, grateful, and clever.  Doing a backstage interview at the Critics Choice Awards she managed to plug Netflix (which is taking a stance) but do it casually as if simply bubbling vivaciously about the lovely party. 

In Marriage Story, everyone who knows divorce lawyer Nora Fanshaw as a professional keeps commenting on how good she is at her job, and the same is true of Laura Dern. Isn’t it awful when someone wins an award over other equally worthy competitors, then gets up to the microphone and acts like a complete jackass with no clue how the whole thing works?  That will never happen if Laura Dern’s name is called.  She is always well dressed, poised, and professional.  She’s the daughter of two well known actors (one of whom appears in a nominee for Best Picture this year).  She’s a former Miss Golden Globe.  She knows everyone in Hollywood.  She’ll know the value of what she’s given.  She’s on the Academy’s Board of Governors right now, for heaven’s sake!

Plus she’s really pretty great as Nora Fanshaw.  It helps that the character is fascinating as written, a winning mix of realism and (arguably) hyperbole with an exceptionally juicy, (semi or possibly outright) blasphemous monologue penned by the eloquent Noah Baumbach.  Dern’s pitch perfect delivery of this shocking monologue is the most electrifying moment of her performance.  You listen and think, “What a horrible thing to say…but is she wrong?”  Describing Nora Fanshaw as villainous, ruthless, and conniving is easy, but (shh!) I like her.  She isn’t a member of the family.  She’s a professional hired by the wife to advocate for her throughout the painful process of divorce, and she does help her client to articulate her needs and achieve her goals.  What everyone says is true.  She’s a very good lawyer.

The general consensus is that Fanshaw’s character is based on real life Hollywood lawyer Laura Wasser, the attorney who handled Baumbach’s divorce (representing his ex-wife Jennifer Jason Leigh) as well as the divorces of like, every high profile celebrity in town.  Baumbach actually asked Wasser herself for permission to film in her actual offices where several key scenes are shot.  You might think that Wasser would be offended by Dern’s portrayal, but she says she loves it and graciously considers elements of it “satirical.”  So Dern doesn’t have to deal with the common problem of some real figure angry about her portrayal.  The snubbed Jennifer Lopez is currently getting a lot of flack from the “real Ramona,” but Laura Wasser sites Marriage Story as her new favorite movie about divorce!

Dern is playing slightly against type, and she’s very good, and the time is right, and she’s going to win.  Happy Birthday, Laura Dern!

Why She Might Not Win:

Scarlett Johansson
Age: 35
Film: Jojo Rabbit
Role: Rosie, the German mother who does what she can to work against the Nazis while sheltering her young son and hiding a Jewish girl within the walls of her home.

Nomination History:

Johansson is also nominated this year for Best Actress in Marriage Story (2019).

Why She Should Win:

I love this performance.  I couldn’t believe it when the Golden Globes didn’t nominate it, and so many critics ignored it.  But finally awards giving bodies started coming to their senses.  If you ask me, Scarlett Johansson has the best part in Jojo Rabbit.  Waititi entrusts her with the entire emotional core of the story, and every time she appears, she’s electrifying, lighting up the screen with her vibrant presence.  If she does end up winning an Oscar that night, I hope it’s for Jojo.  (I know I said I liked Kathy Bates and Jennifer Lopez the best this year, but Johansson is hovering right there in the same zone of my esteem.  It’s a good thing I don’t have to decide who wins.  I’d be utterly overcome by the responsibility.)

At times, Johansson plays Rosie as if channeling Marlene Dietrich, and though I’m not a particular fan of Dietrich, I think she pulls this off marvelously to great effect.  Johansson handles the comedic, whimsical aspects of the character so deftly, but what truly impresses me is the way she lets us see Rosie’s worry and weariness peeking through the cracks in her forced, determined cheerfulness.

But best is the scene when Rosie speaks from her heart to Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), the Jewish teen hiding from the Nazis in her home.  Here she might as well be speaking right to me.  As a fellow mother of a young, impressionable son living through politically turbulent times, I feel the echoes of all of Rosie’s worries in my own heart.  As children, we’re all eager to grow up and fight the bad guys.  Then we get older, more cynical, and we start to realize, “Ah, it’s more complicated than that.  Maybe there are no bad guys.”  Then we become parents, and we look around at our broken world and think, “Oh God, what if we are the bad guys?”  None of us wants our children to become victims.  But we need to protect them from becoming predators, too.

This role gives Johansson heart-felt dramatic monologues, whimsical scenes of sad comedy, and exhilarating moments of physical release (dancing, bike riding) which let her manifest Rosie’s philosophy of living while alive.  She plays every moment so perfectly, deftly handling the tonal shifts dished out by JoJo Rabbit (and real life).  I’d love to see her win an Oscar for this.

Johansson is a double-nominee this year, which sometimes translates into no wins, but sometimes into one win acknowledging both performances.  A win for her would be a way of acknowledging Jojo Rabbit (a film actual audiences seemed to love even though critics’ reactions were mixed).  I have to think that if any non-Oscar-fanatics actually tune in to this year’s broadcast, they would love to see Black Widow (i.e. someone they know) win an award.

Of all of the well known women in this category (and they are all well known), Johansson is probably the biggest movie star right now.  And, as we all know, the Academy does love to honor movies related to the Holocaust.  

Jojo Rabbit is one of my favorite films of 2019.  (I’m still juggling the order of my personal list, but it’s in the top five for sure.)  And Scarlett Johansson’s turn as Rosie is one of my favorite performances.  I can’t be the only one who feels strongly about it.

Why She Might Not Win:

Chances are, Johansson will lose this award to her Marriage Story co-star, Laura Dern.  Most people think that if Johansson does somehow win one Oscar, it will probably be for her lead turn in Marriage Story.  The most likely scenario is that she will win zero Oscars since before this year, she had never even been nominated (though she probably should have been for Lost in Translation).

Florence Pugh
Age: 24
Film: Little Women
Role: Amy, the youngest March sister, who in Greta Gerwig’s version of the story makes more of an impression than even Jo.

Nomination History:

This is Pugh’s first nomination.

Why She Should Win:

I’ve watched Little Women twice now, and the one thing I’ve noticed more than anything is that Amy is in it.  Her presence is inescapable.  I mean that as neither a compliment nor an insult.  It’s a simple observation.  In this version, Amy (her voluble passions, her practical ideas, her enormous eyes, her pickled limes) is nearly omnipresent.  Whether or not you like her performance (marked by a woman’s knowing gaze and a child’s atonal yelling), Florence Pugh is certainly a scene-stealer in Greta Gerwig’s Best Picture nominated version of Louisa May Alcott’s classic story of sisterhood. 

For the record, on a first viewing, I had conflicted, uncertain, (maybe even slightly negative) feelings about Gerwig’s Little Women, and after a second, I’ve decided it’s one of my favorite films of the year.  (Perhaps this is unsurprising.  The non-linear presentation of such familiar material requires mental adjustment.  Plus Gerwig’s Ladybird also grew on me with repeat viewings.)

I must confess that I still love Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 Little Women, a very different take on the story than Gerwig’s.  For me personally, Pugh is less convincing than Kirsten Dunst as young Amy (because, come on, Pugh clearly isn’t twelve), but lightyears better than Samantha Mathis as adult Amy.  I mean no offense to Mathis.  Her performance is fine, but she never seems like the same person as Dunst.  Pugh has the advantage of sharing the role only with herself, so she’s able to keep the character consistent.  Adult Amy has different mannerisms (and certainly different inflections) than her young counterpart, but we see in her eyes that she’s the same person.  Plus, note how her refinement melts away when she spots a cherished childhood friend from her carriage.  Suddenly, she practically is a child again.  This is excellent work by Pugh.  She lets us see the child in the woman and the woman in the child.

Though I find her more convincing as an adult, Pugh does some of her most memorable, Oscar-worthy work in that deliciously evil bit of revenge young Amy takes on Jo.  I love the wicked, determined delight she takes in the act.  She’s also quite good delivering some great, thought-provoking speeches on a woman’s place in the world as adult Amy.  (Probably these scenes are what people mean when they say Gerwig’s Little Women redeems Amy or makes her likable.  Personally, I think too much virtual ink has been spilled on this subject.  Amy has always been likable, flawed, yes, but she’s the strongest personality after Jo, and we can’t all be Jo!  And if you’re one of the people who has always hated Amy and still does, then I hope you show more mercy to your own children.)

If you have any interest in the Oscars whatsoever, I’m sure you’ve noticed the collective outrage that no women (named Greta Gerwig) were nominated for Best Director.  (Gerwig does deserve the nomination, but to be fair to the Academy, she’s not the only deserving director without a nomination.  There are, after all, only five slots.  When I considered her, Todd Phillips, Taika Waititi, and James Mangold for the same spot, I honestly couldn’t decide which of them deserved it most.  More recently, though, some have grown so bold as to suggest openly that it is Scorsese’s spot Gerwig deserves.  Unfortunately, I think that’s just about right.)

My point is that a number of people are (apparently) outraged that Gerwig did not get a nomination, and this surge of goodwill for Little Women could work to Pugh’s advantage.  I find it somewhat more likely that Pugh’s co-star Saoirse Ronan will reap the benefit of this collective unrest.  (Four nominations now, and no wins yet?  Zellwger’s performance is good, but her speeches…)  

Pugh also has tons of positive visibility right now.  She’s had a great 2019, first her breakout hit Fighting With my Family, then Midsommar (arguably the best live action film of the whole summer), and now Little Women and theatrical trailers for the upcoming Black Widow movie.  Her star is on the rise, and she’s a realistic dark horse for the win.

Why She Might Not Win:

As I alluded to earlier, Pugh plays Amy as a child by atonally yelling all her lines.  (She also wears her hair in braids and throws popcorn bowls.)  Even watching the film a second time, I could never decide if she is overacting (in a bad way, I mean).  The problem is, even when she seems a bit over-the-top, her performance is still so enjoyable to watch.  The second time, I looked forward to all her yelling and hysterical weeping and popcorn throwing, so honestly, I can’t say that any weaknesses in her performance are really working against her.

In all likelihood, though, Pugh will lose this award to her own mother (not her actual mother, but the actress who played Marmee in Little Women, Laura Dern).

Margot Robbie
Age: 29
Film: Bombshell
Role: Kayla Pospisil, an ambitious-but-naive, self-identified Evangelical Millennial (and non-lesbian) who works behind the scenes at Fox News but dreams of a job on camera.  Kayla is bright, motivated, (also young, blond, and attractive), and full of ideas.  But when she realizes what network president Roger Ailes means when he asks her to prove her loyalty, how far will she go to make her dreams come true?

Nomination History:

Previously nominated for Best Actress for I, Tonya (2017).

Why She Should Win:

Margot Robbie approaches every one of her roles with such pragmatic thoughtfulness and emotional intelligence. I love that she didn’t turn this fictional composite character into a one-dimensional cliché. It would have been easy to skewer the Conservative Christian girl whose family loves Fox News. Robbie could have made her ridiculous. Do you think Hollywood would have objected?

I still find the character fairly frustrating, but Robbie’s performance is quite good.  I feel the same way here that I did about Robbie’s portrayal of Elizabeth I in Mary, Queen of Scots.  Though I didn’t believe that version of Elizabeth, I did enjoy the performance itself.  Here, I find the composite character of Kayla far less satisfying than any single real person would have been, and I think that the film’s disdain for Conservatives is hard to mask, but I do like the way Robbie tries to make Kayla real.

Setting Laura Dern’s chances aside, Robbie has the misfortune of being recognized for a film that’s not a Best Picture nominee and playing the least specific character in that film.  Nicole Kidman portrays the highly recognizable Gretchen Carlson as a hero, while Charlize Theron transforms into a morally ambiguous, yet spot on Megyn Kelly.  To me, Robbie’s Kayla never feels as real and fleshed out as these other two, no doubt because Kayla is, in fact, not a real person.

Still, I think that on Oscar night, every one of these women who is not Laura Dern has a chance for a surprise win, even (maybe even especially) Margot Robbie.