Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Angelina Jolie for Changeling (2008)

Melissa Leo for Frozen River (2008)—Joel’s Pick

Meryl Streep for Doubt (2008/I)

Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008)

For me (with contrite apologies to the lovely women involved), this is a three-horse race. Anne Hathaway has come a long way from the Princess Diaries and is developing into not only a major star-which she already is-but a fine actress. She will find roles that will give her other opportunities to collect a statuette on Oscar night if she can avoid being caught up in Bride Wars II-VI. Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie is an actress in her prime and elevates nearly every role she takes into something noteworthy for awards’ season recognition. Sadly, her role as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart was overlooked by the Academy last year. Unfortunately, Changeling-despite its searing true story of a woman buffeted by the dual tragedies of mysteriously losing a son and then being cruelly railroaded by the police into accepting an ersatz replacement-employs a Jack-Webb-nothing-but-the-facts-ma’am script that really doesn’t allow any of its actors to carve out a three-dimensional identity. Jolie’s Christine Collins gets to cry, to rage, and even to becalm herself in heroically confronting a horrible situation, but we never feel that we that we truly know her.

My three-horse field consists of Melissa Leo, Meryl Streep, and Kate Winslet. Meryl Streep has already collected her fourteenth nomination and has won two prior statuettes. She has not won, however, since 1983 for Sophie’s Choice. She is an incredible actress who delivers so many Oscar-worthy portrayals she is almost competing against herself: Does her performance in this film stand out as being more spectacularly remarkable than her prior non-Oscar-winning roles? I don’t know whether one could say that about Doubt, but it is a terrific performance in the critical lead role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier. Her role is the linchpin in John Patrick Shanley’s film around which all the other characters revolve. For the play to work effectively, this character must persevere credibly in certitude without substantiation and yet leave a sliver of reservation that makes the ambiguous denouement so powerful. One could certainly argue that Streep is overdue for a third Oscar and ponder whether there have really been eleven better performances than hers in her Oscar bids since 1983.

Then there’s Kate Winslet from The Reader, adapted from Bernhard Schlink’s book. She has her own streak of five prior unsuccessful nominations for an Oscar. She, too, it can be argued, is overdue to win. Rarely has the Holocaust been looked at from the perspective of the perpetrators. Winslet makes us consider compassionately a woman who has participated in running a concentration camp and then later on, as she seemingly tries to hide in plain sight on trolley cars, embarks on an affair with a teenaged boy. These are transgressions that many would find unforgivable, but Winslet compellingly keeps us aware of her humanity even if the film never takes the audience into the concentration camp where she served. I’m not sure I felt fully satisfied when The Reader ended, but it was not because I found Winslet’s performance wanting. I am a great admirer of Kate Winslet and feel that she has delivered two Oscar-worthy performances this past year in both The Reader and Revolutionary Road. She would be a worthy recipient of this year’s Oscar.

However, my choice would be Melissa Leo from Frozen River. This was a small film that emerged from last year’s Sundance Film Festival to be distributed last summer, offering a story to ward off summer’s heat. It was powered by Leo’s lead performance as a single mom desperately trying to keep hearth and home together for her family. She becomes involved in smuggling illegal aliens of various nationalities across the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada into the United States. This film seems even more trenchant now as the financial desperation has spread from economic backwaters to-in the overused phrase of the current political discourse-Main Street. Leo is a career character actress who has filled numerous niche roles in dozens of other films. She is the kind of supporting actress who often gets squeezed out when lead performances get dropped down into the supporting role categories, but here she has a rare opportunity to be the lead and carry the film, which she does very well. She has the opposite problem of Streep and Winslet, who have lead roles in film after film delivering Oscar-worthy performances almost every time. Even though Leo has excelled as a lead in this film, she may not have another opportunity or certainly not very many opportunities to play the lead. Leo is my choice, but she is clearly a dark horse for the Oscar. If you would like to see her accept an award, you may want to check out the Independent Spirit Awards that are broadcast the day before the Oscars. I would think she might be the favorite there.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Richard Jenkins for The Visitor (2007/I)

Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon (2008)

Sean Penn for Milk (2008)

Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (2008)—Joel’s Pick

The smart money says that the best actor Oscar is a two-man contest between Milk’s Sean Penn and The Wrestler’s Mickey Rourke. I think there are four really strong performances in this category. Frank Langella is excellent in taking his stage role in Frost/Nixon to the big screen. This is his first Oscar nomination and an equally fine portrayal in Starting Out in the Evening was overlooked last year. He is now seventy-one, and he may not have many more opportunities if he doesn’t win this time. Richard Jenkins, like Melissa Leo, has delivered a terrific performance in his rare opportunity to be the lead in The Visitor. This film, like Leo’s Frozen River, also has had to stay in the consciousness of Academy voters despite the disadvantage of having been released last April, well before award season gets started. Also like Frozen River, The Visitor addresses an important issue-immigration-in the United States today. It is quite an achievement for Richard Jenkins’s quiet performance to be recognized with a nomination. My comments in addressing Taraji P. Henson’s Best Supporting Actress nomination apply to Brad Pitt as well. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button seems more focused on its impressive technical achievement of aging characters-or in the case of Pitt’s titular Benjamin Button to show him aging in reverse-than it is on character development. Pitt gives a solid performance, though in many ways one that seems passive. His acting ability tends to be discounted because he has such good looks, but this is not the performance that should earn him an Oscar. Sean Penn is another perennial Oscar contender with four prior nominations and one win (Mystic River). He gives a fine performance in a very good film. However, neither Penn nor Milk is great. I simply can’t say that I found myself moved by this film. It well depicts a particular time and the historic significance of Penn’s character, but it doesn’t take me anyplace that I hadn’t ever conceived of going, and I can’t say it’s because I have seen the powerful documentary about essentially the same events in The Times of Harvey Milk.

The Wrestler’s Mickey Rourke was a terrific emerging talent when he first appeared in early 80’s films such as Diner, Body Heat, and Rumble Fish. He eventually managed to self-sabotage his film career. He has now come back to prominence in a unique film about people living at the margin of society whose lives say something profoundly universal for us all. It probably makes the message all the more profound that his now weathered middle-aged face is paradoxically new to the audience, belying the fresh-faced brashness that was his persona in his early films. His performance has to draw us in and make us follow this character all the way to the end. Rourke is carrying-with the exception of costars Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood-the entire film as opposed to being part of an ensemble cast, as there was in Milk, where there are several key supporting roles. Rourke delivers a terrific performance, and the achievement of winning the Oscar after being seemingly down-and-out for the film business is a terrific story. One that Hollywood will have a hard time to resist, which is why I think he not only deserves to win but will win.