Best Supporting Actress was a tight race between two very different performers and performances. In one corner, the beauty demonstrating her thesping abilities in the throwback noir L.A. Confidential, Kim Basinger (some still may consider her role a leading lady part); in the other, the veteran whose career was older than 20th Century Fox, emotionally anchoring the narrative of the epic box office titan (!) Titanic, Gloria Stuart! Indeed, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, they both won, a rare awards season tie.
Oscar did not go the same way.
It’s an interesting lineup overall, with three Best Picture nominees, a dramedy, and a studio comedy all in the mix. Here's how I'd rank 'em:
5. Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken
L.A. Confidential
only nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actress, SAG Awards winner for Best Supporting Actress; BAFTA Awards nominee for Best Actress, SAG Awards nominee for Best Ensemble
Neither a weary nor a devious prostitute, but a guarded professional, careful to keep the mask up whether with clients or potential clients (isn't everyone?). I think subtle is the most generous way to describe this performance, one that I just couldn't get into. For me, the movie stops dead whenever she's on.
4. Minnie Driver as Skylar
Good Will Hunting
only nomination; SAG Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble
The supportive girlfriend who wants her guy to open up, usually a not-much-there role, but Driver (and the script, to be fair) offer an intelligent, humorous take on an old archetype. It would take a special kind of woman to break down Will’s walls, or make him want those walls gone. Driver convinces us that she’s the One.
3. Joan Cusack as Emily Montgomery
In & Out
second and final nomination; NYFCC Awards winner for Best Supporting Actress; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actress
Cusack, the expert comedienne, always knows what pitch to play her characters: hysterically funny and always believable, her work convincing you of the reality of the film’s world. She doesn’t play a woman completely blindsided by the fact her fiancé might be gay, but a woman whose worst fears are confirmed. Why do they keep trying to pass her off as plain, though?
2. Gloria Stuart as Rose Calvert
Titanic
only nomination; SAG Awards winner for Best Supporting Actress; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actress, LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Supporting Actress, SAG Awards nominee for Best Ensemble
An effective performance, her voice inflected with nostalgia and sorrow, the subtlest changes in facial expression completely altering her tone. She listens. And her hands, my God, the way she uses her hands to express longing and the actual conjuring up of memory. And that final look she gives, returning her Heart - the memento of her escape, her survival - to be with the man she loves, her expression beatific, bittersweet, decades of emotion packed into one look. How they learned it in the '30s still works!
1. Julianne Moore as Amber Waves
Boogie Nights
first of five nominations; LAFCA Awards winner for Best Supporting Actress; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actress, SAG Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble
Moore nails the sincerity of every moment, whether it's the irony of her making out with the hot young stud she's just declared "motherly" feelings for (there is something reassuringly maternal about the tone of her voice...) or the between-takes pep talks to guarantee a comfortable experience and believable performance for the performer set to cum on/in her. That sincerity, that believability, sets her up for the dramatic turns later on: because of Moore's sincerity, because she has not mocked the porn star in any aspect of her performance, she invites a natural sympathy...empathy...open-mindedness.
Next time, we wrap up Oscars 1997 with Best Picture: As Good As It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, and Titanic.
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