Charlize Theron: Bombshell
Cynthia Erivo: Harriet
Renee Zellweger: Judy (winner)
Saoirse Ronan: Little Women
Scarlett Johansson: Marriage Story
What’s Missing
When it comes to Best Actress for 2019, I’m almost certainly missing a lot of films that belong here. I imagine that when it comes to snubs, a lot of people are going to bring up Booksmart and both Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein. I disliked Booksmart, though, so I’m not going to include them here. I’m tempted to include Ana de Armas, but Knives Out is an ensemble, which makes her a tougher sell. The same is true of Park so-dam and Parasite. Oscar’s biases take care of a lot of the other snubs. The anti-superhero bias keeps Brie Larson and Captain America out of the options. Oscars anti-horror bias (and the possibility that they are more supporting roles) keeps both Kyliegh Curran and Rebecca Fergusson out for Doctor Sleep, Florence Pugh for Midsommar, and Haley Bennett for the horror-adjacent Swallow. Lupita Nyong’o’s work in Us falls at the crossroads of Oscar’s horror bias and racism problem (and she’s the biggest snub in my opinion). Finally, in what I think is the second-biggest snub, Oscar’s race issue also likely kept Awkwafina and The Farewell out of the running.
Weeding through the Nominees
5. I’ve never been shy about appreciating Charlize Theron, but there’s no reason she belongs on the stage with the other nominees. Bombshell isn’t that good of a movie, and while Theron is generally always worth watching in whatever she does, in Bombshell she’s playing an unpleasant real-world person in an unpleasant movie about equally unpleasant people. When the snubs include Awkwafina’s heartfelt work and Lupita Nyong’o’s excellent double role, Charlize being on the list is simply wrong.
4. Similarly I tend to like Scarlett Johansson, but as mentioned last week, I am not a fan of Marriage Story. I dislike all of the characters and most of the performances. Johansson had a really good year—she was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Jojo Rabbit, and she deserved every bit of that nomination. That’s where she should have been for 2019 and not on the list for this performance or this movie. I’m not sure she’d make my top 10, and she certainly wouldn’t make my top five.
3. Cynthia Erivo is a more difficult choice for me, because I’m not really sure what I think. Erivo herself is very good, but the movie has so many problems that I find it hard to judge her in it. The biggest problem with Harriet is that the filmmakers decided that Harriet Tubman should be an action hero. The real Tubman’s story is good enough and didn’t need to be sexied up the way this film wanted. Erivo is fine; she’s far better than the movie, but that’s not saying a lot, and I probably wouldn’t want her in the list.
2. I’ve said before that I’ll probably watch anything Greta Gerwig directs until one of us is dead. I also probably watch anything that Saoirse Ronan is in as well. Little Women is not a movie I loved, though, mainly because I don’t love the source material that much. Ronan is almost certainly going to have multiple Oscars in her career, and she’s probably already earned one or two at this point. However, not for this. I like Ronan’s work and she’d probably make my list of nominations, but she’s not winning.
My Choice
1. If you go through past reviews on this site of movies that have involved Renee Zellweger, you’re not going to find a huge amount of praise. I’ve not been a big fan of hers and I’ve not been a huge supporter of her presence in films in general. However, she is absolutely brilliant in Judy. In fact, she’s the only thing worth seeing in it—she takes a misdirected and misfocused movie, puts the whole thing on her back, and by herself makes it worth seeing. With a better nomination class—Nyong’o, Awkwafina, and a few others we might have a different conversation, but she’s absolutely the class of this group and an easy winner.
Final Analysis