The Final Conclusion - Best Actress 1998

About the field: Three totally forgettable works and two brilliant performances. 1998 was not a very balanced year in terms of greatness. The field is worth not more than 3 Meryls, however if we see the individual performances, we can see that actually, this race was very colorful. We can find many characters: a monarch, a poetic young girl, a lonely woman, a cancer-stricken mum and a musician. Not all the performances were great, but I actually liked all the movies except for One True Thing. In the case of this year, the decision was much easier (Gosh, I'm still a bit sour about Carey Mulligan) and probably even obvious for me. Actually, this was the ranking that I imagined at the very beginning. So here it is:

5. Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love
This is a performance of which I did not have a very high opinion and I still don't, but I managed to like or at least appreciate it. In the last 20 minutes she was utterly charming and lovable, probably what she should have been during the whole movie. I'm not saying this is Oscar material but not bad anyway.

4. Emily Watson in Hilary and Jackie
She mostly gives the same performance she did in Breaking the Waves in a more subtle way. From a mediocre actress, this would have been a terrific achievement. However, we must NOT forget that this is Emily Watson, an amazing talent and therefore you can understand why I was so disappointed with this performance.

3. Meryl Streep in One True Thing
This performance was probably not as bad as it might seem to be from my review, yet I was just very-very disappointed as this is probably the weakest performance I've ever seen from Meryl Streep. I really hoped for something heartbreakingly sad, but never reall got what I wanted. Too bad for her.

2. Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth
The perfect example of "in another year".The best thing about this performance is probably Blanchett's magnetic and flaming on-screen presence, which is so strong, that she does not only commands the screen, she becomes a true dictator or if you like it, a queen with absolute power.

Amazing work by an amazing talent.

1. Fernanda Montenegro in Central Station
This performance is so indescribable as it relies mostly on emotions, so you cannot really get it across unfortunately. I thought that would not impress me that muchi but I was truly wrong. She does not only break your heart and makes you feel sorry for the character, but also lets you know the regrets, desires, thoughts of this person. Totally mesmerizing, beautiful performance for the ages.

So I can proudly announce 
that my winner for this year is,
Fernanda Montenegro 
in Central Station

I have already chosen my next year (which I won't begin until next Thursday unfortunately) and I give some clues so that you can find out:

• a winner with a horrible personal life
• a nominee who's a member of a legendary comedy couple
• Britain rules
• a foreign nominee
• one of the LEAST talked about races ever (if not the one)

These clues might be misleading, so think twice and don't think about the most obvious one.

Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love

Gwyneth Paltrow received her only nomination and won the Oscar, for playing Viola de Lesseps, a young girl, who's dreaming about becoming an actor and soon gets the part of Romeo in William Shakespeare's (Joseph Fieness) brand new play, Romeo and Juliet and she also becomes romantically involved with the famed author and player, however she's forced to marry the humorless Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) as she has to obey her parents and the Queen (Judi Dench).

Shakespeare in Love is a witty and and entertaining romantic comedy, which is widely hated because it won the Oscar over Saving Private Ryan, still I loved it because of some memories and also because I find it a very good and enjoyable movie, which wasn't necessarily deserving of the Best Picture Oscar. I admit though that it requires a special mood and you cannot always enjoy it (when I rewatched it yesterday I wasn't that impressed either). The music is probably the best thing about it, the screenplay is colorful, witty and smart and the comedy part is OK. Just like the actors, who give solid performances and only the always brilliant Judi Dench stands out, but when doesn't she?

Last time you read anything I wrote (a line) about Gwyneth Paltrow on this blog, it wasn't much of a praise and I kind of regret it, because it just wasn't that fair to say. Gwyneth Platrow is actually a talented and charming performer, who can give very good performances and who's also a very good comedienne (see Iron Man for proof). Just like in the case of Carey Mulligan, she was often compared to Audrey Hepburn at the time (well mainly by the campaign of Harvey Weinstein), which I really don't understand. Paltrow has a totally different personality from Hepburn, she acts in a very different way and they don't even look like each other. This role might be a little like Princess Ann in Roman Holiday. A rich girl who does not enjoy and would rather be with normal people. Roughly, this is the only comparision.

The first time we see Paltrow on scene, she's just laughing charmingly and then whispering the lines of Shakespeare rather awkwardly. We see that she's a girl who's a true dreamer and this is probably too exaggerated in the screenplay and Paltrow could not really handle this. She could either take the role a 100% seriously or emphasise the humor and be a bit ironic, a charicature of Juliet from the play. She wants them both and the two things mix weirdly and the result is being plain and a bit boring.

As this performance is by no means bad, it's only a bit watered and uninteresting. But it's not only the fault of Paltrow, as she's not provided with a very complicated and interesting role and she does not have the opportunity to truly shine. Or there was actually an opportunity but she could not use it. I cannot decide it though.

She also gets the classic comic role of a crossdresser, because in order to become a player Viola has to pretend that she's a man. In the role of Thomas Kent, she's quite good and funny, she brilliantly caught the clumsiness of this young girl who has to act like a man. The way she speaks or walk are both (limitedly) funny, meaning that you are amused by it at first, but then you get nothing special out of it.

However, I have to admit that in the very last scenes she reaches greatness and she even moved me. She perfectly solved her last scene with Shakespeare, which had many traps but she managed to avoid all of them. In the last 20 minutes she was utterly charming and lovable, probably what she should have been during the whole movie and is probably the reason why I give her this rating.

So to sum up, this is a performance of which I did not have a very high opinion and I still don't, but I managed to find like or appreciate. I'm not saying this is Oscar material but not bad anyway. So see my brand new rating system:



Definitely stronger 3 than Sandra Bullock's.



So what do you think? Do you agree?

The next year...

I have to wait until 1995 to get Dead Man Walking (last time I saw I borrowed it from the school library, but now there's no school), but I figured that I could do another year until then and I decided that it would be...

1998

And the nominees were:

• Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth
• Fernanda Montenegro in Central Station
  
• Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love*
• Meryl Streep in One True Thing
• Emily Watson in Hillary and Jackie

So who do you predict to win? Who do you want to win?