After Promising Young Woman arrived, the consensus was—before many other nominees’ movies had even been released—just give Carey Mulligan the Oscar for Best Actress. A lot has happened since then that has turned the top award for an actress in their profession into a true race. The latest Oscar Watch column zeroes in on this esteemed category and breaks down what has happened, and more importantly to those of you doing Oscar pools, who will win.
Here are the nominees:
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Now, I’m not saying that Mulligan is not the front-runner—or at the least right up there with who might very well win. It’s just that things have gotten complicated, to say the least.
Andra Day won Best Actress in a Drama Motion Picture at the Golden Globes in an award that was a surprise, to say the least. But it put her firmly in the conversation for who will win the Academy Award. To be honest, I thought The United States vs. Billie Holiday was terrible. Day was absolutely incredible in the titular role and portrayed the nuances of what that cultural icon went through as she was a target of our own government in what was tantamount to institutional racism at the highest levels. Does she have a chance to win Oscar gold, thanks to the Golden Globes victory? I don’t think so…
Vanessa Kirby blew me away in the most painfully raw ways with her turn as a mother who experienced what no mother should ever have to go through. In Pieces of a Woman, she survives the unthinkable, but she will never be the same again. Her turn was electric, otherworldly, and frankly, in any other year, I’d say the Oscar should be hers. What Kirby achieved is absolutely uncanny and not only should go down as one of the best lead actresses’ performances of the year but of the decade. Sadly, thanks to someone else in this category… this will be a classic case of “I’m just happy to be nominated.”
Among the next three women on the above list, your winner for Best Actress 2021 will come from this trifecta of titanic talent.
See, before last week, there was little chance that Davis would be the winner for her searing performance as Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. At least, I felt that way. Given the fact that she has won an Oscar already, and recently, and the fact that the other two women that remain in the category simply have a better chance of winning. Then, Davis won the Screen Actors Guild for this category, and that sent shock waves through Hollywood. Did she deserve it? You bet your Bottom dollar she does. What Davis achieved with her characterization encapsulated what so many musicians, particularly those of color, experienced and sadly, continue to go through. At one point, Ma Rainey says, “they just want my voice.” There was little else that white America wanted from her and that was captured impeccably through her performance.
There’s a train of thought, one I have espoused repeatedly when it comes to Best Actor and Best Actress winners from the same film. That is their performances were not achieved in a vacuum. It is pretty much a given that Chadwick Boseman is going to win Best Actor posthumously for his role in Ma Rainey’s. The fact that Davis is also nominated in the lead category, normally, I would say she deserves it. But this is that rare occurrence where these two parts aren’t necessarily congruent or even parallel. Boseman and Davis share a few scenes together, but for the most part, Boseman does his thing with the other members of Ma’s backup band.
Then, there’s McDormand in Nomadland. This is a case of a thespian carrying a movie on their shoulders. Nomadland is the Frances McDormand show and without her, the film is an empty vat. I’d say she was the leader heading into this year’s award show, but there’s something about her road to victory that she has no control over, it simply is what it is.
.McDormand recently won for Three Billboards in this very category after winning in this category years prior for her stunning work in Fargo. Now, Meryl Streep has two Oscars and is considered one of the greatest actresses of all time. One of her awards is for Supporting Actress, the other for Best Actress. So, what does it say about the Academy if McDormand wins her third award in this category and she has two more Best Actress statuettes than the greatest living female thespian that ever walked the earth?
Sadly, for this reason alone, I believe it disqualifies her. She may win another Oscar, but it won’t be for a number of years—getting time-wise away from her 2018 victory for Billboards. As I said, it’s through no fault of her own, it’s just how the collective that is the Academy thinks. She just won, and there’s no way this soon after her victory in this same category she will win again and surpass the great Streep in the Oscar-winning department.
That leaves Mulligan, who began this process as our favorite. Here’s where I tip my hand… I still believe she is the front-runner and it’s not because of my process of elimination here on Oscar Watch. Mulligan deserves the Best Actress in a Motion Picture award from the Academy because it was the “best” performance from an actress that was delivered all year. The fact that the film she achieved it in—Promising Young Woman—landed in front of viewers merely a few years after #MeToo became a movement only enhances her chances.
What Mulligan achieved as Cassandra transcends the genre of film. Her character was the BFF of a woman who was sexually assaulted in medical school and not only did it derail her career in medicine, but it would also lead to her suicide when no one believed her. More importantly, the man who attacked her is living his best life and has found success beyond what he could have dreamed. There’s a scene with Connie Britton’s Dean Walker that embodies everything that is wrong with our system and our culture when it comes to women versus men in the battle of he said/she said.
Walker makes a comment to the effect of “am I supposed to ruin a young man’s life over this?” Sadly, that sentiment is what so many women have heard when they summoned the courage to say something over the decades (and centuries if we’re being real). The other side of that coin is that a woman’s life doesn’t matter. The fact that writer-director Emerald Fennell had the Dean be female, makes it all the more powerful.
We know that how it was handled was what would ultimately lead to Cassandra’s friend taking her own life. Since then, as is the crux of Promising Young Women she has been on a one-woman re-education campaign to scare men straight. We, at least, hope she has by posing as being beyond drunk and some “nice guy” taking her home thinking he’s going to get lucky when she “sobers up” on a dime and puts these men in their place. It’s cathartic to watch, especially after hearing so many horror stories since #MeToo rocked the world several years ago and continues to do so.
But what Mulligan does with her character, all within the confines of this world that Fennell has created, is keenly in step with our society at this moment in time and would do wonders for the movement as well. For an Academy seeking to come off as relevant after decades of seeming and being aloof to the lives of people of color and women, it would be a huge moment—not simply for Oscar… for women everywhere. There’s also the fact that this isn’t an award for all of the above, Mulligan is a one-person hurricane with her turn as Cassandra. It is, by far, her best performance and most indelible of her entire career. She’s made many “announcements” of talent since she first started acting, but there has been nothing like the force of nature Mulligan created with Cassandra.
In a year filled with great performances from actresses, for this writer, there still has been nobody who has come remotely close to what Mulligan achieved in Promising Young Woman. It is not simply because she deserves it. It is the right time for this actress to win for this role. When all is said and done and that envelope gets opened, the words “Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman” is what the world will hear. Then, hopefully, more women will be inspired to be heard.