Cate Blanchett’s turn as Jasmine in Woody Allen’s latest feature, Blue Jasmine, is an excellent performance that showcases a woman’s descent from privilege to madness as she slowly watches her entire, formerly upper-upper-class lifestyle crumble around her until she is reduced to nothing. It’s also probably going to win the Oscar and I think that it is a performance which is worthy of an award (which it certainly has already, having won everything and anything it’s been nominated for).
There’s only one problem: Emma Thompson.
The problem isn’t that Thompson might swoop in and steal the Oscar right from under Blanchett’s nose like a Snitch, the problem is that Thompson isn’t getting a chance to when she definitely deserves it more.
I was quite shocked when the Oscar nominations were announced and Thompson’s name was left quite conspicuously off the list. There had been huge amounts of buzz for her performance in Saving Mr. Banks as P.L. – sorry – Mrs. Travers and when I finally saw the film, I felt it was the best performance of the year, hands down.
I actually think that Blanchett and Thompson’s performances were quite similar as both played quite unlikable characters. Blanchett’s Jasmine was spoiled and pampered and unfeeling to those around her, especially those who would help her, while Thompson’s Travers was harsh and cold and managed to cut down everyone around her. Both had the troublesome task of taking these unlikable characters and demanding the audience feel sympathy for them, and when it came down to it, I felt a lot more sympathy for Travers than I did for Jasmine, and all of that was Thompson’s performance.
I actually think it was due to a single scene, in which a mean-tempered Travers is sat down by the Sherman Brothers and Don DiGradi, who explain that they changed the ending and proceeded to play ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’ for her, while demonstrating some (purposefully) pitiful choreography. Until this point, Travers didn’t budge on anything, she didn’t like anything they had planned and she didn’t like anything they’d written. So to see it in Thompson’s eyes as Travers finally came round to the idea that maybe there’s something, just something in this film that could be magical, to see her feet slowly, but surely, start to tap in time with the music until eventually DiGradi offers her his hand and they begin to waltz around the room together… It was literal Disney magic. Not going to lie, I cried a little.
And yes, I am a huge Disney sap. Ridiculously huge. Can’t get enough of Disney.
But I couldn’t get enough of Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks. She was easily the most captivating thing about the film and, in my opinion, gave the most outstanding performance that I’ve seen from 2013. I loved it so much, I’d give her all the Oscars.
The worst thing about it is that I’ve seen all of the nominees in the Best Actress category and I know that Thompson was better than all of them. The one that really comes close is Judi Dench in Philomena, who is an absolute class act. My brother put it best: ‘Dench gives a better performance in a five minute clip of ‘Send in the Clowns’ than most people do in their entire careers’. I thought that Meryl Streep was good in August: Osage County, but that’s all I can really say about that, it was just… good. That said, ‘good’ for Meryl Streep is essentially everyone else’s A-Game, so maybe I’m being too hard. Amy Adams, as I’ve discussed before, was good in American Hustle, but the character really let her down. There was just nothing for her to do – that said, there was one scene in particular, where she’s confronted by Bradley Cooper, which was incredibly well acted, and had she done that the rest of the film, we’d be engraving the award already.
While I don’t think it will happen, I wouldn’t mind seeing Sandra Bullock win for Gravity, as the film wouldn’t have worked if she didn’t make us want her to survive. It was an intense and intimate performance, but I think in the scale of things, Gravity was about the entire spectacle, as opposed to the person lost within it.
The award will go to Blanchett come Oscar night, and while I won’t be too disappointed, I won’t be able to help but feel like I did last year, when Jennifer Lawrence won her Oscar. I thought Lawrence was fantastic in Silver Linings Playbook and definitely earned the award, but when compared to Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, Lawrence was out of her league.
It’s an odd melancholic feeling.
Are there any ‘Best Actress’ performances that you thought were better last year? Or should I go and lament Thompson’s snub by myself?
Crazy is Perfect 