The Best Actress Race Without Julianne Moore

What do you when your presumed frontrunner is no longer in the Oscar race? It’s been announced that Focus World will not give Maps to the Stars an Oscar run (what a shame) and thus, Julianne Moore will not be a contender. I personally think the role and her overdue status give her the stuff to drive it home to a win (think: Charlize Theron in Monster). I also think it’s premature to assume the Oscar voters are too soft to handle a movie like this. Most of them came of age during Ken Russell and Robert Atlman, for chrissakes.

Anne Thompson:

Julianne Moore can kiss goodbye to any hopes she was nursing for an Oscar campaign for David Cronenberg’s Cannes Best Actress winner “Maps to the Stars,” which is set to play Toronto and New York festivals. Canadian distributor eOne was going to distribute the film stateside, but it has now sold U.S. rights not to Universal specialty distributor Focus Features–the arm that would handle an Oscar effort–but Focus World, their digital distribution arm, which plans an early 2015 release.

It’s moments like this that I feel embarrassed spending so much time investing in a race that must cater to soft-palmed, comfort-seeking upper class wimps who can’t handle the truth. How in the world can anyone be in the business of rewarding best when best must always come with a disclaimer: “When we say best we don’t really mean that. We certainly don’t mean highest achievement in film. We mean something on the order of it makes us look good. It makes us FEEL SOMETHING and it sends us out into the world feeling happy about our lives.”

While I can understand the urge to always lean towards idealizing the human condition, I can tell you that nothing scratched off the top layer of Hollywood like Maps to the Stars. Bruce Wagner’s script is easily one of the year’s best and two performers – Julianne Moore and Evan Bird are spectacular. Years from now no one will believe why Maps to the Stars was not Oscar nominated. They probably figured that Moore plays a character so unlikable her chances of winning were slim. I disagree with that assessment as it is often the darkest turns by the nicest actors that win Oscars.

Or to put it another way: Maps to the Stars is the movie Hollywood deserves.

With Julianne Moore out of the race that opens up the Best Actress race considerably. We’re still looking at the following potential nominees:

Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl – with Julianne Moore out of the race this will put Pike squarely in the spot of the darkest female anti-hero in the mix.
Amy Adams for Big Eyes – an overdue actress the pundits have much faith in winning.
Jessica Chastain for Eleanor Rigby or Miss Julie – again, very much overdue for a win and having another spectacular year of performances
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Hilary Swank now a slam dunk for The Homesman
Reese Witherspoon in her most raw and challenging performance to date.

There are several borderline actresses would could make a run in lead – Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game and Patricia Arquette for Boyhood. These are roles that could go either way.

Other names include:
Shailene Woodley for The Fault in Our Stars
Anne Hathaway for Interstellar