Julianne Moore. There, I said it. That’s a name you’re likely going to be hearing a lot in the coming weeks, hell, probably months. She is the surest thing to come out of this year’s awards race. Ever since I saw her incredibly moving performance in “Still Alice”, back in September, it seemed like a no-brainer. Based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 best-selling novel, the film is a striking look at the nastiness and brutality that falls upon an American family when one of their loved ones is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Moore is ever so brilliant in the movie, encompassing the way a person can lose track of herself and her own identity even when she tries ever so hard to retain it.
Just through Moore’s eyes you can witness the slow detachment Alice is going through from society, friends, family, and herself. It’s a devastating film because, just like Alice, her ever deteriorating brain keeps getting erased of its precious memories without you even noticing the effects – it isn’t until the last few scenes that the devastation this disease has caused hits you. “Still Alice” has some of the hardest scenes to watch of any movie this year, but it’s all so worth it for the humbling journey that is involved with it.
Indie filmmakers Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer don’t try to pull at the heartstrings, they just tell their story in the simplest way possible, and why wouldn’t they? They have Julianne Moore at their disposal, one of the great actresses of our time (“Short Cuts”, “The Kids Are All Right”, “Boogie Nights”, “Far From Heaven”, “Safe”, “Magnolia”, “Children of Men”, “The Hours” and even next year’s “Maps to the Stars” directed by David Cronenberg, in which she plays a down-and-out actress, desperate for her next big shot). Every time she’s on screen, Cronenberg’s film ignites with excitement and his pitch black Hollywood satire gets even darker.
If Moore is the surest thing to come out of this year’s race, it doesn’t mean that the other nominees should pack it up and call it a night. For example, if Reese Witherspoon hadn’t won back in 2006 for “Walk the Line” we’d be talking about a close race to the finish. Witherspoon’s work in Jean-Marc Vallée’s “Wild” is astounding, equaling her Best Actress work as June Carter Cash. Coming out next week, the same week “Still Alice” is released, Vallée’s film is a stirring portrait of love, despair and hope. You can call it “Eat, Pray, Hike”, but that’s where comparisons should end with that Julia Roberts vehicle.
Vallée, who directed last year’s “Dallas Buyers Club”, is an artist through and through. Ever since his beginnings in Quebec cinema I’ve kept a watchful eye on him. Just check out “Café de Flore” or “C.R.A.Z.Y” to see how great of a filmmaker he can truly be. “Wild” has a more conventional storyline than those aforementioned films but he and Witherspoon make up for it with sheer artistry. It also helps that gifted writer/novelist Nick Hornby and Cheryl Strayed – on whose book this is based – wrote the screenplay. After a brutal divorce and losing her mom to cancer, Strayed went on an 1100 mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself to try to bring meaning to a life that was crumbling. It sounds like the kind of stuff the Hallmark channel would dig, but don’t kid yourself, Vallée knows better than to stoop down to that level.
Apart from Witherspoon’s emotionally resonant performance, the other major thing you notice in the film is how incredibly well edited it is. Going back and forth between present day, flashbacks, flash forwards and dream-like imagery can be a tricky business, but Vallée and his longtime editing partner Martin Pensa (“Dallas Buyers Club”) nail every detail. And Witherspoon, what more can be said about an actress who had me at hello ever since the day I first saw her in Alexander Payne’s “Election” (still the best performance she’s ever given). It wasn’t just that movie – her enormous talent has shone through over the years in films such as “Pleasantville”, “American Psycho”, “Cruel Intentions”, “I Walk the Line” and last year’s underrated “Mud”.
How refreshing it is to have not one but two top notch female performances coming out in the same week. These two actresses are on par with the incredible work Felicity Jones has done in the recently released “Theory of Everything”, Rosamund Pike’s harrowingly hypnotic femme fatale in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl”, Anne Dorval in “Mommy”, Scarlett Johansson in “Under the Skin” and my dark horse favorite Marion Cotillard and the mesmerizing performance she gives in “Two Days, One Night”. The latter three might not get the nominations they deserve, but I advise you to seek these performances out because they will absolutely blow you away.
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@Midtown Rider
Rather than claim that movies that are watched by the masses in theatres should dilute the acting categories with roles and movies that do not deserve to be nominated, maybe the masses ought to reconsider what movies they choose to see. Only then will Hollywood start caring about movies with with truly riveting performances and decent scripts instead of CGI gimmicks, trilogies that shouldn’t exist, and utter trash that is out the majority of the time in major theatres. If you want to watch hollywood blockbusters do not expect Oscar worthy performances the majority of the time. These movies are made for grossing millions by people who don’t care about a story, a plot or even if the acting is worthy. It’s all about the gimmicks and cash.
As for lead actresses, I too have been waiting since 1999 for Julianne Moore and she finally has two films this year. Maps to the Stars was released in Canada in some theatres already and she was great in that, I have not seen Still Alice though yet, but am hoping this will be her year for that film!
@ JULIAN THE EMPEROR I totally respect your opinion. Let’s agree to disagree on some things, you know? Personally, I’ve always welcomed diversity of opinion. Besides, it feels absurd not to and talk about art at the same time, you know what I mean? Art is supposed to broaden our critical understanding of the world and having a different opinion, let alone expressing it in such a well-intentioned way, like you, is something that’s not only totally welcome but also extremely productive. And quite refreshing in this day and age. And the list with the tremendous actresses in the history of mankind that are worthy of being called as the greatest of all time could just be endless. Especially if we talk about the ones in the legendary Ingmar Bergman’s films. Kudos to your taste, I really mean that man. From Bibi Andersson and Harriet Andersson to Liv Ullmann, my God, the list is really endless. And the exercise is indeed totally pointless. How about Bette Davis, Juliette Binoche, Elizabeth Taylor……. ???? For Christ’s sake, the list goes on and on and on. But yeah, for me, Cotillard tops them all and I’ve loved even the tiniest detail of her (at least to me) masterfully crafted performance in Two Days, One Night. I’m glad I won’t hear you complaining if she gets in, because to me she’s really deserving of something like that. And I couldn’t agree more with you that that’s a big if. Besides, a foreign-language drama of social realism by the Dardennes Brothers is definitely not the voters’ cup of tea, but dammit, to me, they really have to honor a tremendous performance in such an important film, let alone from an exceptional actress who has putting out consistently brilliant performances the last seven (!) years after her much deserved win for her legendary performance in La Vie En Rose. Again, all I’m expressing here is my personal opinion and I’m genuinely interested in others’ like yours.
Stergios: I can name you five or six actresses in Ingmar Bergman’s films alone that I would say qualify for the greatest actress ever… oh well, let it be. That is an entirely pointless exercise.
I love Cotillard, I think she exudes intelligence, vulnerability, passion, the lot. She’s even able to make something memorable out of her few scenes in the mess that was Midnight in Paris. I don’t know about Two Days, One Night, though… she’s very good in it, and quite believable too (the rest of the cast struggles with getting something more than stereotypical blue collar rage out of their characters), but it soon becomes obvious how much she relies on that radiant smile of hers (the one that signals ‘I might as well cry now, but in my own defiant way I choose to smile’), she uses it abundantly every time the movie slows down (which isn’t saying much, because it’s slow all the way), like, when the characters are stuck in a car together, listening to something on the radio, having a quiet conversation. She has this very Cotillard-esque way of lighting up when things seem bleak, and maybe she uses it a bit too excessively in this movie… just maybe? I noticed it, and I was slightly turned off by the way the camera never strays from her when she goes for that smile.
Heck, she’s a very fine actress and she is probably more deserving for this part than most of the competition, so you won’t hear me complaining if she gets in, and that’s a big if.
@ JULIAN THE EMPEROR,
I don’t think I exaggerate at all my calling Marion Cotillard the greatest actress of all time. And trust me, my frame of reference is far from limited. I’m a movies lover by birth, I’ve worked as both a reviewer and a screenwriter and I’ve never seen in my entire life an actress like Marion Cotillard. NEVER. Maybe that’s just me, but I know for sure that’s not the case here. To me, she tops Katharine Hepburn, she tops Meryl Streep, she tops any woman who ever attempted to become an actress. She is blessed to have a talent that seems almost non-human. Cotillard doesn’t act, she’s possessed everytime she gets to play a character. No matter the role, she just kills it everytime. And I mean every single time. She’s like a force of nature, she tops everything and everyone around her when she vanishes into her each new role. Her range is truly unbelievable and she should have had at least 5 Oscar wins by now. She’s literally otherworldly as an actress and it’s shame that she has never been nominated again for an Oscar after grabbing her first one back in 2008 for giving the best female performance ever put on screen in “La vie en rose”. I mean, what on Earth? I know, I’m totally aware I sound like such a crazy fan of hers. But actually I am a crazy fan of hers and I’m also a crazy cinema lover as well. I’ve watched thousands of movies and I haven’t seen an actress like Marion Cotillard in my whole life, that’s how I feel. In the history of mankind, the actors, both male and female (Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Katharine Hepburn, Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Huppert, Gena Rowlands, Michael Shannon, just to name a few) that manage to disappear into their roles completely and constantly, subserve the audience’s expectations and combining technique with emotion and theater background with screen charisma aren’t that much. Marion Cotillard for me is the goddess of cinema. An actress of technique, emotion, theater roots and screen magnetism like no other in the history of time. Her depth is obviously limitless and the way she chooses to display it is awe-inspiring. I wish she gets her second Oscar this year. If not, a ridiculously overdue second nomination has to be on her way.
@Duke,
Since Academy rules say that one actor/actress can’t compete against himself/herself in the same category, which Marion Cotillard would you keep and which other actress’s performance would you substitute in as the fifth nominee in the Best Actress race?
Julian, no, but she should be nominated because she delivers an Oscar-nomination worthy performance. And I don’t want the actress category being dominated by films that are seen by 1/1,000,000th of one percent of moviegoers. Anne Hathaway in Interstellar is worthy of consideration as well.
@ Felix
Maps to the Stars is not releasing this year.
Stergios: Most of us adore Cotillard. She’s a great actress, and she’s a bold actress in her choices as well. But, sorry, you go all hyperbole overdrive here with your ‘undoubtedly the best actress ever!’-claim. When you write something like that people will roll their eyes and dismiss your points all too readily, which is a shame. Because the advocacy of what she has achieved this year is spot on.
The Midtown Rider: So the fact that J Law has a Top 40 Billboard hit makes her an Oscar candidate? *big sigh*
@Bryce: Thank you for mentioning What Maisie Knew! I just saw it the other day and was completely amazed by her performance. That scene between mother and daughter at the end, in which her character realizes what she’s done….one of the most emotional scenes I’ve seen in a while, in a movie that I hadn’t even heard much of.
Can we just say what a year she’s had? Everybody seems to be forgetting Non-Stop, which was rather successful for what it is, then Maps, Alice and Mockingjay. Just look at the diversity in that. I’ve been waiting for this moment since 1999, and it looks like it may finally come.
Haven’t seen “Still Alice” but if any actress is “due” an Oscar it’s Julianne Moore.
(You could also add her amazing portrayal of Sarah Palin in GAME CHANGE!)
In my opinion, Julianne in Still Alice stands among the 4 best female performances of the year. The other three are Charlotte Gainsbourg in Nymphomaniac and Marion Cotillard in both The Immigrant and Two Days One Night. Rosamund Pike is fantastic in Gone Girl, a perfect performance, and she is up with these four that I mentioned. As good as Reese is in Wild, I don’t think she comes near to those.
(I haven’t watched Mommy, Cake or Theory of Everything yet)
Julianne in Maps to the Stars is another great female performance, but I consider it a supporting one.
So, right now my top 5 would be:
Julianne Moore (Still Alice)
Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nymphomaniac)
Marion Cotillard (The Immigrant)
Marion Cotillard (Two Days One Night)
Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
It’s not a weak year for the category. It’s a weak year if people consider the Oscar standard for consideration in this category.
Absolutely agree with Bryce. I would also add Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right and Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Moore’s long resume of work is astonishing, no doubt.
I didn’t find one scene Oscarworthy for Witherspoon in WILD. It is an overrated mess. Moore by miles, then Pike. I’ve venture to say to Blunt should get in over Witherspoon, at least she went out on a limb and attempted singing. Swank was far superior as well.
Robert Altman’s SHORT CUTS
Louis Malle’s VANYA ON 42ND STREET
Todd Hayne’s SAFE
Paul Thomas Anderson’s BOOGIE NIGHTS
Joel & Ethan Coen’s THE BIG LEBOWSKI
Robert Altman’s COOKIE’S FORTUNE
Neil Jordan’s THE END OF THE AFFAIR
Paul Thomas Anderson’s MAGNOLIA
Todd Haynes’ FAR FROM HEAVEN (Best Actress from Venice)
Stephen Daldry’s THE HOURS (Best Actress from Berlin)
Alfonso Cuaron’s CHILDREN OF MEN
Fernando Meirelles’ BLINDNESS
David Siegel & Scott McGehee’s WHAT MAISIE KNEW
David Cronenberg’s MAPS TO THE STARS (Best Actress from Cannes)
This is what “dues” look like. The time is here. It will be highlight of the night.
After seeing Still Alice tonight, I don’t feel entirely convinced that Moore is winning yet. If she does, it will be for the wrong movie. As great as she is in Still Alice, the movie itself is fairly small, standard and dreary. All I could think about while watching it was her performance in Todd Haynes’ movie Safe and how much more unsettling that was. The two movies actually share a few things in common. She really should be winning for Maps to the Stars this March..
They have probably already engraved Julianne Moore’s name. This is a done deal. And it is deserved.
It is refreshing! I’m loving the Best Actress contenders this year. As brilliant as Moore was in Still Alice, I ever so slightly prefer Pike and Cotillard (The Immigrant) so far. She was devastating and authentic. It will be a deserved win. I have not seen Wild yet, but Reese looks like she’s carrying a lot of emotional weight in her role. I’m also excited to see Amy Adams’s newest work in Big Eyes.
I would really love to watch Julianne Moore receiving finally her long overdue Oscar trophy. She’s a phenomenal actress and indeed absolutely worthy of an Oscar win for her incredible performance in Still Alice (pretty much as always) and having seen recently Maps to the stars, I’m also completely in awe of her raw, wild, tremendous work as Havana Segrand. But really, seriously, how can Reese Witherspoon be put next to actresses like that? I really want to know how in the world this can even be possible. Jean-Marc Vallée is a truly gifted filmmaker and he has brought the best out of Reese Witherspoon in Wild. She goes really against the type there and is indeed intensely committed to her role and putting up possibly her best work to date. That being said, she’s DEFINITELY not the kind of actress that deserves a second Oscar nomination. Not in a world where an actress like Marion Cotillard, undoubtedly the greatest actress of all time, gives the one legendary performance after another and still hasn’t scored a second Oscar nomination (?) I totally understand why she’s your dark horse, Jordan. She actually should have been anyone’s favorite if we lived in a world of justice. The fact that Witherspoon is really good in Wild isn’t enough to justify the hype she gets. At least not in my humble opinion. And let’s be honest, shall we, she is and always be an actress of indisputable talent but also indisputable obvious limitations in acting that are strikingly evident in even her strongest screen work. Make no mistake, this is not at all some hating comment for Witherspoon. She’s talented, that’s for sure, but she belongs to that long list of well known stars like Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock who, while having some undeniable acting virtues and screen magnetism, have also undeniable limitations in terms of acting. They’re not actresses like Marion Cotillard, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Tilda Swinton and many more that have never won an Oscar like Julianne Moore, Isabelle Huppert, Glenn Close, Jessica Chastain, Amy Adams, just to name a few, all of them actresses of otherwordly talent in acting, tremendous technical skills, obviously limitless depth and an almost terrifying level of commitment to every role they so brilliantly portrays on screen or on stage. And that constant desire to defy every expectation of their audience, approach not even a single role as an Oscar vehicle and take risks that seem almost inconceivable. Well, those ladies deserve five Oscar nominations each. Witherspoon is not even half of the actors they are. Besides, the difference between solid / (really) good work and great / Oscar worthy is HUGE.
Jessica Chastain is presumed as a lock for her clearly amazing work in A Most Violent Year, yet she obviously has no chances to score a nomination for her outstanding performance in The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby. It’s a gigantic performance to say the least, easily among her best work to date and more than worthy of an Oscar win. She immerses herself into her role in a way I think it’s almost impossible for an actor to do so. The emotional detachment, the steelness, the coldness in her look is penetrated into every cell of her body. There’s obviously not a limit to the depth she can bring into a role. Her chemistry with the brilliant James McAvoy is incredible as well. Amy Adams is overdue for her first Oscar as well and I really hope she has a shot this time around with her role as Margaret Keane in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes. And Rosamund Pike’s performance in “Gone Girl” is really something that has to be seen to be truly believed. The whole hype around her mesmerizing work actually can’t do any justice to her achievement as Amy. It’s simply brilliant. There are so, so many great performances delivered by tremendous actresses this year. Hilary Swank delivers her best work in years in The Homesman, Scarlett Johansson is terrific in Under the skin, Agata Kulesza is astonishing in Ida, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Shailene Woodley are wonderful in Belle and The Fault in our stars respectively. But if there’s one performance that deserves the Best Actress Oscar win this year no matter what is without a int of doubt the one the brilliant Marion Cotillard delivers in Dardennes’ latest masterpiece Two Days, One Night. Worthy of an Oscar to say the least. In addition to her equally worthy of an Oscar win, phenomenal turn as Polish immigrant Ewa Cybulska in James Gray’s The Immigrant, Marion Cotillard gives a performance for the ages. IT’S UNDOUBTEDLY THE BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS. There’s no other female performance that could possibly come close. The second one would definitely be the one Marion Cotillard gives in The Immigrant. Can you imagine that this woman hasn’t won her second Oscar yet? Even worse, can you imagine that this woman has NEVER earned a second Oscar nomination since her more than deserving win back in 2008 for giving the best performance ever put on screen (by an actor or actress) in La vie en rose? This is almost scandalous. If she’s going to be robben even of an Oscar nomination relentlessly once again from the Academy for the marvel of a performance she so gracefully offers through Dardennes’ latest masterpiece Two Days, One Night, I’m 100% sure there’s no point of having a Best Leading Actress category at the 2015 Oscars. Any Best Actress list would look empty without Cotillard’s otherworldly performance as Sandra who has to fight against depression and the possibility of losing her job at the same time. What she does there, it’s almost impossible for an actor to do so. She loses herself so completely into her role that it ends up almost terrifying. The whole theatre was in tears throughout the screening I saw for Two Days, One Night. You rarely get to watch such a towering performance from an actor / actress in your entire life. With her unmatched work in this film, you feel like she’s pushing acting to a whole another level. She makes you feel the deepest and most complex emotions for a woman who has to fight against depression and the possibility of losing her job at the same time. It’s such a monumental achievement, such a towering combination of unlimited emotional depth and jaw-dropping technical skills, such a groundbreaking piece of brave and soul-shredding acting that it has to be put among the ten best performances ever put on screen. It’s a performance THAT astonishing. She deserves to score her second win.
I am trying really hard to understand how Rosamund Pike is been underrated on this forum..Remember guys the academy is about performance and not about likeability and being over due.
Sorry guys but the lovely miss Pike is going to win the oscar!
R O S A M U N D P I K E!
If Julianne Moore deserves a nomination, it should be for President Coin in Mockingjay. Not a two-bit art house film that won’t even be released nationally until 2015. The Academy can also put an end to the “it was a weak year for actresses’ talk if they have the stones to nominate Jennifer Lawrence for Mockingjay as well. She’s about to become a Billboard top 40 music star (145,000 copies of The Hanging Tree sold on iTunes this past week). The Academy needs genre films to bail them out more than genre films need the Academy. Go all in on Mockingjay and Interstellar.
After watching Still Alice, Best Actress is down to Julianne Moore, Reese Witherspoon and Marion Cotillard.
Academy very confidently ignores Cotillard, so this year BOTH her performances will likely go ignored again.
Reese has won. They’re not giving it to her again.
Julianne Moore is the winner. Although, after watching Still Alice, I personally believe Maps to the Stars should be released this year to make Moore’s case more strong. I mean then she can’t lose, at all.
BTW what is the matter with Maps to the Stars??? Sasha’s contender tracker says it’s coming out this year, whereas IMDB says it’s 27 Feb 2015.
There are very few people who doesn’t want Julianne to win. I know I will be standing and cheering when her name is called on OSCAR night.
Speaking of Reese, I thought she was excellent in Freeway, also.
Just saw “Still Alice” today. Julianne Moore is a marvel; that she hasn’t won yet is mystifying. This is her year! She’s this years Best Actress winner.
I haven’t seen Still Alice or Wild yet, but I can’t help but to be lean towards the lovely and crazy Amy Dunne – I mean, Rosamund Pike. I <3 her so much. She plays crazy beautifully! I hope she gives Moore and Witherspoon a hard time oscar season!
Great article…I really hope for Julianne Moore’s win…She is just great in almost every role she plays..And I am fine with Reese W. being the first runner up:)