Oscars 2021: Examining chances of the 'tough five' in Best Supporting Actress category, from Glenn Close to Olivia Colman

In a normal Oscar season, you would be able to pretty much guess the winning actors by now. Think of last year, when the same foursome of Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger, Brad Pitt, and Laura Dern steamrolled their way through every awards show: The only suspense was whether they could sell us on their surprise as their names were called again and again. There are some acting races this year I already feel confident in calling — a posthumous best-actor Oscar for the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom star Chadwick Boseman is pretty much a done deal. I am keeping an eye on Carey Mulligan in best actress, and Daniel Kaluuya is coming on strong in the supporting-actor race for his work in Judas and the Black Messiah. But there is still one acting category I cannot make heads or tails of. The supporting-actress race this year is an eclectic free-for-all where just about anybody could win. Those wacky Golden Globes did not help narrow the field at all, since voters there gave the supporting-actress award to Jodie Foster for The Mauritanian, a performance the Oscars did not even bother to nominate. I am not mad, though: It is fun to not know what will happen, and I am impressed that the up-for-grabs chaos of the category has lasted this long. The Screen Actors Guild Awards may clarify matters when they are presented 4 April, but until that big clue comes, let us parse the contenders and keep scratching our heads. Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Look, let us get real about this: Not a single one of the nominated performances this year generated more headlines than Bakalova’s. Her hotel-room encounter with Rudy Giuliani gave the Borat sequel its you-gotta-see-it comedic climax, but the fearless Bakalova proved indispensable throughout, picking up on every prankish cue from Sacha Baron Cohen like she was born to play his daughter. You can feel the movie reconfiguring itself around her performance as it continues, and ultimately, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm has a spine and a soul because of what this formerly unknown Bulgarian actress brought to it. [caption id=“attachment_9007261” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Maria Bakalova | Elizabeth Weinberg/ The New York Times[/caption] This is, I think, how most voters feel; where they differ is on whether a performance like this can ever really be considered Oscar-worthy. An improvised role in a comedic sequel is pretty much without precedent when it comes to winning Academy Awards, let alone an improvised role in a comedic sequel in which the character is introduced eating a monkey, and is then offered to Republican politicians as a child bride. (And those are just the plot points I could name in a family paper!) It would be completely beyond for Bakalova and Borat to triumph in this category, but hey, 2020 was a weird year for the movies. Let the Oscars reflect that with the weirdest win imaginable! Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy Close is one of the five most-nominated actresses in Oscar history, and the only one of those five who has never won. Is it not time to just give her the trophy? Well, that was pretty much the argument when Close was nominated two years ago for The Wife, and it did not work then, either. (She lost to Olivia Colman, who is once again nominated against her this year — that is some real Bening-Swank energy, folks.) Although Close was excellent in The Wife, the movie could not stir up enough passion to put her over the top, and critical support is even more lacking for the poverty-porn drama Hillbilly Elegy, which is currently sitting at 26 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, I would not count Close out. There will always be a contingent of voters who simply like to watch a famous person physically transform for a role, and Close as the ruddy-cheeked, wild-eyed Mamaw is giving them that in a way that none of her competition can really touch. She may be the only Oscar nominee this year who received a Razzie nomination for the same performance, but voters are liable to look past all that: They want to see the work that was put into playing a character, and you cannot accuse Close of underselling it. Olivia Colman, The Father The supporting-actress category is usually where you go to win your first Oscar, not your second: Only four women who were already Oscar-minted have ever won another in the supporting-actress category, and the last one was Dianne Wiest in 1995 (for Bullets Over Broadway). Colman is the sole contender in the race this year with an Academy Award at home, so if voters are looking to spread the wealth a little, she will not be their first pick. But that recent win does give Colman at least one advantage: Her part in The Father could not possibly be more different than the capricious queen she played in The Favourite, and to think of those films in concert is to better appreciate Colman’s breathtaking range. She is by far the most sympathetic figure in The Father, tending to the addled Anthony Hopkins, and weathering so many of his cruel mood swings. You almost want to give her an Oscar just because the poor woman has to endure so much! While actresses have not had much luck picking up a second trophy in this race, men have made a recent sport of it in their own category: Mahershala Ali and Christoph Waltz each pulled off a supporting-actor twofer in short succession. That provides something of a precedent for the similarly respected Colman, as does this: The Father earned six nominations, and voters are clearly fond of it. If they want the film to win something on Oscar night, the supporting-actress race is its best bet. Amanda Seyfried, Mank With her role as Marion Davies in Mank, Seyfried checks off a lot of Oscar’s favorite boxes: She’s an ingénue (check) playing another ingénue (double-check) in the field-leading best-picture nominee (ch-check). And while Seyfried is best known for comedies, musicals, and romances, Mank proves that she can seriously shine in a prestige drama, the sort of maybe-you-underestimated-me career arc that Oscar voters gobble up. Still, it is a little weird that Seyfried missed out on a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild, which added the young News of the World star Helena Zengel in Seyfried’s presumed place. The Oscar winner in this category almost always wins at SAG first, and there is rarely a path for a non-nominee to prevail: Regina King managed it two years ago for If Beale Street Could Talk, but at least she picked up a high-profile, televised Golden Globe along the way. A win for Seyfried would still be fully within the Oscars’ wheelhouse, but that SAG snub is going to keep it suspenseful until the very last minute. Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari Actors make up the academy’s biggest branch, and their guild went for Minari in a big way: Not only did Youn and Steven Yeun earn nominations there, too, but Minari was the only best-picture nominee aside from The Trial of the Chicago 7 to have also earned a commensurate SAG nomination for best cast. And although Mank received more Oscar nominations, Minari is arguably the stronger movie with a representative in the supporting-actress category, since it also earned a key screenplay Oscar nomination that eluded David Fincher’s film. Youn’s role as the grandmother in Minari is riotously funny and more than a little heartbreaking — if you love the movie, you’ve got to love her, too — and the 73-year-old performer has collected supporting-actress trophies all season from critics’ groups, including the high-profile Los Angeles Film Critics Association. She was the first Korean actress to be nominated for an Academy Award — and she may become the first to win it. Let us just hope the Oscars have the good sense to invite her wonderful eight-year-old scene partner, Alan S Kim, to the ceremony: If Youn triumphs, can you imagine his reaction shot? Kyle Buchanan c.2021 The New York Times Company All images from Facebook except where stated otherwise.