Most of 2004’s hit movies were male-driven, even if Kirsten Dunst did make a substantial contribution to “Spider-Man 2” and Cameron Diaz clearly had something to do with the phenomenal success of the year’s No. 1 box-office hit, “Shrek 2.”
Neither Dunst nor Diaz, however, is likely to be mentioned — not even in the supporting category — when the Academy Award nominations are announced Jan. 25. (The Oscars will be held Feb. 27.) So how will this year’s 10 nominations for female actors be distributed?
Most likely they’ll come from a group of movies that are something less than multiplex sustainers — and are unlikely to be nominated in many other categories. In some cases, they’re one-woman shows that are doomed to be pigeonholed as chick flicks and ignored by male audiences.
Sometimes deservedly so. Nicole Kidman’s sharp, spooky performance in “Birth,” as an unhinged woman who believes that her dead husband has been reincarnated in the form of a 10-year-old boy, isn’t quite enough to make up for a dishonest script that flees from the issues it pretends to address.
Still, this was a pretty good year for actresses, with some scoring strongly in more than one film. Julie Christie had one effective scene as Achilles’ mother in “Troy,” and a more substantial role as Kate Winslet’s protective mother-in-law in “Finding Neverland.” Winslet, Naomi Watts and Laura Linney also had a couple of memorable roles apiece.
Here’s a roundup of 10 actresses for your consideration:
Annette Bening, “Being Julia.” Bening’s sly work as a scheming, aging actress, betrayed by a foolish young fan as she appears in one rotten 1930s play after another, is the chief reason for seeing this superficial backstage comedy. The movie may lack the wit of “The Grifters” and “American Beauty,” which earned Bening her previous nominations, but this is a star role, and she dominates the picture in a way that would have been impossible with those ensemble efforts.
Julie Delpy, “Before Sunset.” A familiar face in European movies, especially Kieslowski’s “Blue,” “White” and “Red” trilogy, Delpy got her big English-language break in Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” nearly a decade ago. Returning to the same role, Celine, she contributed to the script this time; the result is a character who is not only more mature but more carefully defined. Her reunion with her “Sunrise” co-star, Ethan Hawke, is surely the year’s most satisfying love story.
Irma P. Hall, “The Ladykillers.” The Coen brothers’ Southern-fried remake of the 1955 Alec Guinness comedy got a chilly greeting from audiences and most critics in the United States. It was much more favorably received at the Coen-friendly Cannes Film Festival, where Hall won a prize for her performance as a boisterous widow who appears to be easily duped by a gang of criminals led by Tom Hanks. She’s been working steadily in movies and television since 1973; maybe it’s her year.
Daryl Hannah, “Silver City.” As the pot-smoking, archery-obsessed black sheep of an influential political family, Hannah confidently pulled out every stop, delivering a richly comic performance that may have surprised even fans of her work in such 1980s classics as “Blade Runner” and “Splash.” It’s been far too long since she last played a part this challenging; writer-director John Sayles is to be commended for creating the part and thinking of her.
Laura Linney, “Kinsey” and Linney once more demonstrates her phenomenal range, playing Dr. Kinsey’s rather plain wife, Clara — as well as the attractive, restless heroine of “P.S.,” Louise, who instantly tumbles into the sack with a kid who resembles her long-lost love. Now firmly established as one of our great actresses, Linney unaccountably has only one Oscar nomination to her credit (for “You Can Count on Me”). She could earn a couple more if the Academy voters decide that “P.S.” is a leading role and “Kinsey” is supporting.
Virginia Madsen, Talk about paying your dues. Madsen has been working steadily in movies and television since the early 1980s, when her stunning golden looks dominated the opening scene of “Dune” and helped her to impersonate the young Marion Davies in a TV movie, “The Hearst and Davies Affair.” Now that she’s in her 40s, Madsen has been given the role of her career: a smart, funny, divorced waitress who falls for a dumpy writer who shares her passion for wine.
Catalina Sandino Moreno, “Maria Full of Grace.” The year’s most impressive debut performance. Before she made this drug-smuggling drama, about a Colombian teenager who gets through U.S. Customs by swallowing potentially deadly packets of heroine, Moreno had only done some stage work. She and her director, Joshua Marston, deftly created a character who is never simply a victim or a criminal; she’s a survivor whose new life in the New York melting pot gives the movie an unexpectedly positive spin.
Imelda Staunton, Staunton’s naturalistic performance as an almost saintly London matriarch — and abortionist — is the disturbing center of Mike Leigh’s post-war family drama. Best-known for supporting parts in “Shakespeare in Love” and “Sense and Sensibility,” Staunton hasn’t had such a showy leading role since the quirky British comedy, “Antonia & Jane” (1991). She pulls it off largely by making Vera Drake seem a true innocent, as well as a devoted wife, loving mother and almost accidental matchmaker.
Naomi Watts, “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “I Heart Huckabees.” Following her first Oscar nomination earlier this year (for “21 Grams”), Watts demonstrated her range by playing Peter Krause’s frustrated wife in “Anymore” (her love scenes with Mark Ruffalo are sensational) and Jude Law’s ditsy girlfriend in “Huckabees” (she’s transformed from a soulless company’s icon to a bag lady). Still, she did her best work to date in “Mullholland Drive,” which the Academy ignored a few years ago.
Kate Winslet, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and With three Oscar nominations under her belt (for “Iris,” “Titanic” and “Sense and Sensibility”), Winslet is fast becoming the Meryl Streep of her generation. Profoundly irritating as a woman who manages to wipe out her memories of a failed romance in “Eternal Sunshine,” she’s also profoundly sympathetic as a dying widow who warms to J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) in “Neverland.” Is there anything she can’t do?