Catching up on Oscar nominated (and not) performances
In catching up on the Oscar-nominated actor and actress performances, I also checked out some of the performances of non-nominated recent actress-spotlighting movies. Which is to say I made an excuse to go see “Wuthering Heights”(in theaters), a 2026 release that has a good shot at production and costume design nods in next year’s awards season. This Emerald Fennell-directed (she also adapted the screenplay) version feels as much like an adaptation of the Kate Bush song “Wuthering Heights” as it does of Emily Bronte’s book — we mostly get main characters and vibes but only a loose riff on plot from the original text.
Margot Robbie is the Cathy and Jacob Elordi is the gruff Heathcliff, an idea the movie sells mostly by making him look like 2 feet taller than her and eventually giving him a gold tooth. In Bronte-era England, child Heathcliff is “adopted” by Cathy’s drunken father (Martin Clunes) and the two grow up together, forming a deep attachment that turns all heaving chests and longing looks as they get older. But as Cathy’s dad has gambled away the family fortune, Cathy feels compelled to marry wealthy neighbor Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) to secure her future. Angry Heathcliff runs away for a few years and comes back with money of his own but still as angry and heaving as ever. Everybody here seems more comically unhinged than in the book with Edgar’s ward, Isabella (Alison Oliver), whom Heathcliff marries out of revenge, being the kookiest. Perhaps the movie’s most compelling character is Nelly (Hong Chau), presented here not as a servant who grows up with the main characters but as Cathy’s hired companion who is the child of a titled father and mother who is unmentioned (but it’s implied was not married to him) and is stuck by classism and racism in a lonely existence. There are problems with story and character construction but while not good exactly the movie is an enjoyable watch with Cathy’s enormous red dresses, the windy cliffsides and its “let’s do a silly one” approach to the material. For actresses, this movie probably gives more interesting stuff to do to Chau and even Oliver (she wins the “understands the assignment” award with the delivery of a wink) than Robbie, though she does get some great costumes.
Speaking of unhinged fun, I also checked out The Housemaid (rent or purchase), an adaptation of the book by Freida McFadden, directed by Paul Feig and starring Amanda Seyfried having the most fun. She plays Nina Winchester, wife of extremely rich Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar) and mother of sullen child Cece (Indiana Elle). She hires Millie (Sydney Sweeney) as a live-in housemaid — which is a relief for Millie, who is out on parole and in desperate need of a job and a place to live to keep from going back to prison. I haven’t read the book so I had the fun of spending the first chunk of the movie trying to figure out who — the perfect wife, the doting husband, the eager housemaid — will go bananas. The movie then takes you on a fun rollercoaster ride, in which all performers acquit themselves quite well but Seyfried is the standout. This is a truly fun movie night watch.
I also wanted to see what all the fuss (i.e. gleeful derision) was about Ella McCay (Hulu, rent or purchase), a James L. Brooks movie starring Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis and Albert Brooks, among others. This strange dramady with its 1990s vibes (but set for no particular reason in the late aughts) feels very much “what if a tween girl became governor.” The movie writes Ella, an adult woman in her mid 30s, as if she was 13 Going on 30-ed from a middle school student government meeting to the lieutenant governor’s office of some pretend state. Here, this patronizingly drawn character gets the top spot when the previous governor is appointed as a U.S. Secretary of something. Ella is supposed to be hyper-competent and love government and public policy but the character acts as though she’s never paid attention to politics at all, even during an election (including her own). This disconnect does fit with the rest of the movie in that nothing about the characters really makes sense. Everybody — Ella’s beloved aunt played by Curtis, Ella’s estranged father played by Woody Harrelson, Ella’s bodyguard played by Kumail Nanjiani — seems like they are in their own separate movie, with tones and plot focuses entirely different from each other. It’s so thoroughly weird and sexist in a very specific mid 1990s way that I almost recommend it as an oddity that needs to be seen to be believed. Almost.
Back to the Oscars and the lead actress nominations. I enjoyed Jessie Buckley’s performance as Agnes, aka Mrs. Shakespeare, in Hamnet (available for rent or purchase). It really is her movie as she plays a mother dealing with grief and a wife dealing with an artistic husband who needs London — and a life largely away from Agnes and her children — to succeed. She does good work making us feel the weight of all this.
Song Sung Blue (Peacock, rent or purchase) gives Kate Hudson her Oscar nomination for playing Thunder, the stage name for Claire, wife of Lightning or Mike (Hugh Jackman), a journeyman musician playing rock medleys at fairs and the like. When he meets Claire he is both instantly smitten and inspired by her to create a Neil Diamond Experience act, which he names Lightning and Thunder, giving Claire a nickname that she finds delightfully empowering. Hudson is truly the movie’s center, turning in a strong performance of someone who has to fight her way through considerable life hurdles while trying to keep optimistic about what she can accomplish. She’s able to show us all of of that, and a sense of humor, in small gestures and expressions. I am fully team this-era Kate Hudson. I also liked what Ella Anderson and the musician King Princess do here, playing Claire’s and Mike’s, respectively, teenage daughters from previous marriages. This is a movie tells a straightforward story but truly sings because of its performances. Plus some extremely fun music, including, of course, “Sweet Caroline” — bum bum BUM.
As mentioned in my year-end look at films, I lovedRose Byrne as a mom clinging to sanity in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You(HBO Max and for rent and purchase). I saw Bugonia(Peacock, rent and purchase), which got Emma Stone a nomination, a while back and generally did not enjoy it or her performance, which felt like a faded copy of a role she’s played a lot recently, including in 2023’s Poor Things.
In the supporting actress category, I feel like there are no bad options of the three performances I’ve seen: Amy Madigan in Weapons(HBO Max, rent or purchase); Wunmi Mosaku forSinners (HBO Max, rent or purchase) and Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another (HBO Max, rent or purchase).
I’m setting aside for a moment the two actress nominations for Sentimental Value, which I’ll catch up with when I see the movies nominated for International Feature Film. The movie also earned a supporting actor role. And, in the leading actor category, The Secret Agent, another international film nominee, got a nod.
Diving into the rest of lead actor nominations, I finally caught up with Richard Linklater’sBlue Moon (Netflix, rent or purchase), which received a nomination for Ethan Hawke’s performance as Lorenz Hart. I found Blue Moon thoroughly charming even though (or maybe because) it is self-consciously talky. Hawke is great as suffering chatterbox Hart, living through the nightmare that is longtime professional partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) getting raves on the opening night of Oklahoma!, his first production with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Hart praises the musical, derides the musical, snobbily bemoans its popular aspects and begs Rodgers to do another brand new production with him. Through it all he bounces clever anecdotes off the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), the piano player (Jonah Lees) and fellow patron E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy). Hart is at Sardi’s, right where he shouldn’t be to endure all this but also maybe right where he can’t help but be. Among his disappointments is Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20-year-old Yale student attending the party who Hart is in love with? Or fascinated by? Or some other kind of tragic situation, that he seems to realize is doomed and yet still has a “but maybe?” hope about it. Hawke turns in a good performance bringing humanity to a character who could have been written off as a passive aggressive blowhard.
Speaking of aggressive aggressive blowhards, let’s talk Marty Supreme(rent or purchase). Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, this movie has that Safdie brothers sweaty desperate energy that made Uncut Gems such a — not pleasure, exactly. Engaging cinematic panic attack, maybe? Here, while my gut “ugh, with this guy” reaction to Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mouser, wanna-be table tennis star in the 1950s, didn’t really change throughout the movie I did warm to how good Chalamet was at being a jerk on the come up, whose single-minded graspiness has just enough of a spark of charm. He is a good table tennis player and he is horrible at everything else, including basic “being a human” things. He is a guy whose whole vibe is asking for money he will definitely never pay back. It shouldn’t shock Odessa A’zion’s Rachel, Marty’s sometimes situationship, when his immediate reaction to her pregnancy is something like “it’s not mine.”
Solid performances are also to be had from Fran Drescher as Marty’s mother, from Tyler the Creator and Luke Manley as Marty’s friends, from Gwyneth Paltrow as a 1930s film star trying to organize a theatrical comeback and even from, I guess, Kevin O’Leary, Mr. Wonderful himself, as Paltrow’s husband demonstrating a different kind of jerkishness from Marty’s.
Of the movies I’ve seen before, One Battle After Another also got nominations for Leonardo DiCaprio in lead (shrug, sure), and Benicio Del Toro (yay!) and Sean Penn (boo for this cartoon character) in supporting. I would be delighted to watch Michael B. Jordan win for his double performance in Sinners and Delroy Lindo win supporting for his role in that movie. And I didn’t dislike Frankenstein(Netflix) as much as many critics — it’s so pretty! — but c’mon with that Jacob Elordi supporting nomination (for the role of the Creature).
