Best Actress – And Along Came Meryl

The Best Actress race has been shifting month-by-month in a year where there is, for once, an abundance of contenders. From Judi Dench to Annette Bening to Sally Hawkins to Jessica Chastain to Saoirse Ronan to Margot Robbie to Meryl Streep, it has shifted again and again. Is there a Best Actress frontrunner? Right now, no one is sure there is a frontrunner in any categpory. The closest we have is Gary Oldman to win for Best Actor. Maybe we also have cinematography going to Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049. Maybe.

The Best Actress race will not begin to lock down until Michelle Williams has been seen in All the Money in the World. Other late breaking performances include the splendid Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread and the sublime Meryl Streep in The Post. Two actress so far have won major awards: Saoirse Ronan, who won at the Gothams, and Streep, who just won the National Board of Review. Tomorrow, the New York Film Critics will weigh in to concur on one of these or name someone else.

Most often the choice of a Best Actress winner will tend either toward the veterans or the ingenues. There isn’t a lot of in-between. It’s either the girl of the moment (Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, Emma Stone) or it’s the overdue veteran (Julianne Moore, Helen Mirren). We have both in this year’s race, just as as we have a few in-betweens — actors who are not really veterans yet but not really ingenues either.

We still don’t know which performances are being regarded as the strongest among voters because we have so little intel. We have buzz. We have box office. We have reviews. We have Oscar history. And we have the year of Trump.

We’ve often noted the connection between women and Best Picture, or rather, the discouraging lack of connection: how no film has won Best Picture with a Best Actress nominee since 2004. Million Dollar Baby was also of the few instances when a Best Actress winner was in the Best Picture winner. So what has happened since then? Among other things, in 2003 the Academy shifted Oscar Night up one full month. That led to a more rushed Oscar season with all of the awards being voted on and announced within a two month time frame. Vanity Fair’s Daniel Joyaux just wrote a piece about the curious case of Best Actress and Best Picture that is worth a read.

For a while it looked like any or all of these films stood a good chance to get nominated for Best Picture:

The Shape of Water, with Best Actress nominee Sally Hawkins
Lady Bird, with Best Actress nominee Saoirse Ronan
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, with Best Actress nominee Frances McDormand
The Post, with Best Actress nominee Meryl Streep
The Florida Project, with potential Best Actress nominee Brooklynn Prince

That’s five, which would have set a record not attained since the preferential ballot was introduced. You have to go back to the 1977 to find a five for five match. Diane Keaton won for Annie Hall, which also won Best Picture. There were two nominees from The Turning Point, one from Julia, and one from the Goodbye Girl.

We could maybe hope for I, Tonya slipping in, with Margot Robbie nominated. More likely, four films will get in at the most, tying the record already set in 2012 when four Best Actress contenders were featured in films nominated for Best Picture. These numbers are embarrassingly low. They are low for women overall, and even more pathetic for women of color. Black lead actresses, in particular, seem to be absent in all of the films with Best Picture heat heading into the season.

Right now, Saoirse Ronan has a lot of Best Actress heat — there is no denying it. Much of it is due to the popularity of Lady Bird, which is like a shooting star in Oscar season. Greta Gerwig is perhaps looking at a Best Director nomination and if she isn’t the winner, or if Lady Bird isn’t the winner, there is a chance that Ronan will be one of the big wins for Lady Bird overall. I don’t know if she’s the frontrunner quite yet, but there is no denying she has momentum.

Meryl Streep just won the National Board of Review and gives a standout performance in The Post. Streep always turns in good work, even in movies that aren’t that great. The Post is an exceptional film and will get many nominations, including one for Streep. If she wins, as our friend Tomris Laffly pointed out on Twitter, she will match Katharine Hepburn with four statuettes for acting. Of course, Hepburn has four lead actress Oscars. Streep will have three Oscars for lead if she wins this year, along with her first Oscar for supporting.

Sally Hawkins plays a woman who is unable to speak in The Shape of Water. Her entire performance is communicated without words. It’s truly amazing. She ought to be the frontrunner, or at least one of them, but does it help if she stars in a Best Picture nominee? 16 Best Actress winners in the past 27 years starred in Best Picture nominees. That seems to indicate that it’s better to be in a Best Pic nominee than not, but not by much.

Margot Robbie is the stealth contender who could fly under the radar and win. Jessica Chastain seems particularly strong as well.

How do other observers see the Best Actress race shaking out? Here is how it’s looking on Gold Derby:

Frances McDormand – 14 experts
Sally Hawkins – 6 experts
Saoirse Ronan – 3 experts
Meryl Streep – 1 expert

And that’s it to win so far. McDormand is way ahead. But Three Billboards did not land on the NBR Top Ten, which may or may not mean anything. Usually an actress starts winning and doesn’t stop. But this might not be a year when one actress wins everything up to and including the Oscars.

Let’s look at it like this: the Golden Globe winner in one or the other category will be the likely Oscar winner.

Saoirse Ronan – Musical/Comedy
Sally Hawkins, Meryl Streep, or Frances McDormand – Drama

Unless there is a comedy actress we’re not thinking about, Ronan will be the comedy winner. Her main competition in the category is Margot Robbie, whom many are predicting to win the Globe. But more are predicting Ronan right now.

In the drama category, the same three are going head to head again: Hawkins, Streep, and McDormand.

Meryl Streep has a long history with the HFPA. If they really love The Post (which they might since it’s about the press and the Globe voters are technically the press) then there is a great chance they’re going to award Meryl in the drama category. Unless they really really love The Shape of Water.

But right now I think Streep will win the Globe, meaning the two Best Actress frontrunners out of that final bracket very well could be Streep vs. Ronan. Personally I believe that Frances McDormand and Sally Hawkins gave the two best female performances of the year but, as we know, that doesn’t count for much.

Because the NBR threw a wrench in the works, some of us are more unsure about Best Actress overall than we were a week ago. Perhaps the awards coming down in the next weeks will help clarify that.