This year, you will find a variety of films in the Best Motion Picture category, where the pretentious (Black Swan) battles it out with the playful (Toy Story 3), and frustrated lesbian parents (The Kids Are All Right) come up against desperate mountaineers (127 Hours). On the whole, however, a relatively small number of films dominate the spread of categories.
The King’s Speech comes to mind with its 12 nominations and all sorts of smear campaigns about King George VI and his actual likeability are circulating across the media as the envious attempt to knock the British film industry’s pride and joy off its throne.
Following close behind it with 10 nominations is the Coen brothers’ Western remake, True Grit, whose 15 year-old actress Hailee Stanfeld has been nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. When such a young actor or actress receives a nomination in such a hotly contested category, alongside more seasoned performers such as Amy Adams and Melissa Leo who are both nominated for The Fighter, one can never help but wonder if the judges are just impressed that someone so young can put in a half-decent performance. But that is probably unfair because Stanfeld’s performance is actually very strong, her age notwithstanding.
The male supporting actors are in equally hot competition this year: Christian Bale’s powerful performance as a down-and-out former boxer in The Fighter is rivalled by Mark Ruffalo’s nuanced, laid-back interpretation of a Californian sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right and Geoffrey Rush’s engaging speech therapist in The King’s Speech.
Colin Firth is, of course, in the Best Actor category, alongside Javier Bardem for his intense performance in gritty Barcelona-based Biutiful and Jesse Eisenberg for his remarkable incarnation of Mark Zuckerberg in so-so film The Social Network. It is perhaps a surprise not to see Leonard Di Caprio in the running, after his excellent performances in both Nolan’s Inception and Scorsese’s Shutter Island. In fact, Shutter Island has, unfairly, been completely overlooked.
Annette Bening has beaten co-star Julianne Moore to the Best Actress nomination for The Kids Are All Right but her performance in this comedy drama is unlikely to triumph over those of Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) as we all know that the darker, more miserable parts tend to attract the awards.
The one certainty is that the tearful winners will thank their studios for `making it happen,’ their opponents for losing and their hamsters for sticking with them through it all.
