As a college student with a budget that regularly declines at the same rate as Donald Trump’s brain cell count, I find it difficult to get to the movies as often as I want to. The struggle is even more real once awards season rolls around. Somehow, I managed to see every movie with nominees for “Best Actress in a Leading Role.” The Academy Awards darlings are ranked in no particular order because each performance was phenomenal in its own right.
Cate Blanchett in Carol (2015)
Cate Blanchett is a favorite of the Academy and my own. Ever since she played Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, she carries herself with remnants of elegance and magic belonging to the most revered elvish woman in all of Middle Earth.
In Carol, she plays a woman in her thirties living in the suburbs of New York City with a husband and child in the 1950s. Her co-star, Rooney Mara, is a shopgirl at a department store and aspiring photographer who is not in love with a man who loves her. From the moment Carol and Therese meet, the tension is unexpectedly palpable. They enter an affair that begins as mutual curiosity and tranforms into long-term love. The film is based off of the novelThe Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, which is well-known for its relatively happy ending, something that usually did not exist for queer fiction of that time.
Cate Blanchett does an excellent job of portraying a woman caged by society’s expectations. She is graceful when she is in her element, without her husband by her side, and she is forceful when he strives to ruin her. Blanchett is always a marvel to watch, and the case is no different in Carol.
Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn (2015)
I’ve sort of had this unfair bias towards Saoirse Ronan since she played the brat who got James McAvoy sent to war in Atonement. But in Brooklyn, she won me over.
The story is set in 1950s Brooklyn. Ronan plays a young Irish immigrant trying to make her way in the world. This falls close to home for Ronan, who is fiercely Irish herself and proudly wore an emerald gown to the Oscars in order to pay homage to the country that gave rise to her as well as Brooklyn, adapted from a novel by Colm Tóibín.
Jennifer Lawrence in Joy (2015)
The fan culture around J-Law is widely known. Even still, here is my official invitation to her and Amy Schumer to hang out with me because they’re both freaking awesome.
In Joy, Jennifer Lawrence plays yet another powerful female role as Joy Mangiano, a real life self-made billionaire who created a business empire from a mop. She kills it in this film, which actually received a lot of negativity from critics and people I know personally. I went in with my dad expecting it to be okay, and we both left having teared up on multiple occasions. Joy makes you believe in your ability to forge your own path through the medium of your tenacity and your willingness to tell people to shut the hell up about what you can and cannot do.
Honestly, Jennifer Lawrence could do a dramatic reading of the phonebook and I would probably cry at least once, so maybe I’m biased. But find out for yourself and watch Joy. It truly is a great film.
Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years
From the moment Charlotte Rampling fills a glass of water in the first scene and meditates on the moment, it is apparent that viewers are about to experience a very realistic portrait of a woman and her marriage. 45 Years focuses on a couple who, as you might guess, have been married for 45 years until a revelation devastates their seemingly unshakable foundation. Both Rampling and her co-star, Tom Courtenay, have shockingly good chemistry. I had to Google them to make sure they weren’t married in real life.
Rampling’s raw performance is striking. She becomes jealous of a woman who is no longer alive. The idea is ridiculous, and she seems to know that herself, but it doesn’t change anything. This film launches an unflinching investigation into the strange details that drive and nourish our vulnerability, like a long gone lost love whose memory stirs something up in a man that causes his wife to believe she will lose him.
Brie Larson in Room (2015)
It is one thing to execute the role of a mother when you have never been one. It is quite another to embody the soul of someone who is the mother to the child of her rapist, to embody the soul of a girl kidnapped at 17, to embody the soul of a girl who sees her friends and families in new lives as the days went by while she was locked in a one-room shed, and to embody the soul of a woman who knows that she is simultaneously strong and weak.
Brie Larson accomplishes all of this. There is not a moment of this film during which I remembered she was Brie Larson, an actress who I had previously seen in 21 Jump Street. To me, she was a girl that I just wanted to hug and scream futilely at the stars with. Great acting occurs when a person loses themself and creates an entirely new, empathetic character on the screen. I fell asleep hoping for the best for “Ma,” Larson’s character. I drifted off wishing the best for a person who only exists in a book and on screen. That just reaffirms why I go to the movies: to see actresses shine until they fulfill their duties as “stars.”