2011 Calvin Awards: Best Actress
February 17, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Natalie Portman is our choice for Best Actress this year. Portman’s dazzling turn as a ballet dancer who takes Swan Lake too seriously left us spellbound. The vote for Portman was as emphatic as any we’ve ever had at The Calvins. Portman earned more first place votes than the rest of the field combined; even more impressively, each and every one of the voters named her on the ballot, a rare feat in and of itself. The most stunning aspect, however, is that only one voter placed her performance outside the top five in the category. On that ballot, she finished sixth. There was universal consent among the members of the BOP that Portman delivered one of the best acting performances of the year with the only dispute being where she ranked among the best of the best. For 96% of our staff to deem her worthy of top five placement is historically unprecedented. Even previous winner Helen Mirren did not manage this with The Queen.
Why are we so devoted to Portman’s work in Black Swan? If you have seen the movie, you know the answer to this. Portman plays against typecasting in one of the most effective ways anyone has done so in the 2000s. While Closer allowed her to discard the porcelain princess persona she was given by George Lucas, Portman returns to her roots as a breathtaking woman living a sheltered life. Then, she turns this premise on its head as she develops certain new characteristics, ones that are much less in line with the inexperienced ingénue way of life. From there, her story gets a little weird as she starts to develop new physical extremities, hooks up with someone who denies it later and gets a little stabby with the person who is the least likely victim of such an attack. Portman effectively utilizes her angelic appearance to enhance the electrifying series of events that reveals the depth of her descent into madness. Only after the movie reveals its true intent does the viewer fully appreciate exactly how brave her acting is in Black Swan. For these reasons, Portman is far and away our staff’s choice for Best Actress of the year.
Finishing a distant second is True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld. Given that six months ago, nobody knew who Hailee Steinfeld was and that she is just now 14-years-old, second place strikes me as quite good. The Academy Award nominee won a massive international search to play the role of Mattie Ross in True Grit. Like the Academy, our staff was torn over whether her screen time in the movie qualifies as Supporting or Lead, but in the end we made the determination that since the movie is ostensibly told from her point of view, she is the true protagonist.
Had Steinfeld’s performance been delivered in a year where Natalie Portman did not become the world’s scariest ballerina, she would have won this category. I say again that she is only 14. How many major awards had you won by that age? Yeah, me neither. Steinfeld faces off against two of the hottest actors in our industry, Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges, and she proves herself to be more than able to hold her own. Even determining which scene is her best in the movie is debatable; I love watching her negotiate prices with a hapless clerk, but her moment of truth confronting the man who killed her father is equally engaging. Steinfeld demonstrates depth, confidence and maturity as a headstrong girl who will not be denied her pound of flesh.
The youth movement at the top of our Best Actress list continues with our third selection, Jennifer Lawrence. Amazingly, the 20-year-old actress falls in the middle of our trio of favorite actresses this year, nine years younger than old maid Portman, but six years older than Steinfeld, who at her age really ought to be following Justin Bieber across the country instead of going to the Oscars. Lawrence is a native Kentuckian who utilizes the advantages of a true Southern accent to add credibility to this story of a backwoods girl fighting to protect her home. The de facto provider for her ever younger brother and sister, Ree Dolly faces a crisis when informed that if she cannot locate her father, the bank will foreclose on their home. What follows is a desperate investigation of several hillbillies who earn a living by dealing meth. They do not take kindly to kin folk asking too many questions about their business practices yet Dolly never backs down. Her dogged pursuit of the truth is as heart wrenching as anything in cinema this year; Lawrence is a revelation as a teenager whose force of will alone drives her to discovering the truth about her father.
Actresses exploring the pitfalls of long term relationships are our choices for fourth and fifth place. Michelle Williams’ performance in Blue Valentine is one I’m certain draws on real life experiences of hers. This role requires her to demonstrate the difficulty of raising a child without benefit of the real father, as well as the difficulty in building a relationship with someone who is not your baby daddy. As would be expected, she delivers a heart wrenching performance. Annette Bening’s character in The Kids Are All Right has a different problem, as her character is suffering from a potentially fatal case of lesbian bed death. Her shrewish behavior may be the causality for these problems, but the staff at BOP is won over by her determination to repair her family, making it whole again.
Sixth and seventh place go to actresses whose performances embrace sexual promiscuity or at least the pretense of it. Perhaps no actress this year made us laugh more than Emma Stone in Easy A; her character, Olive, is suffering through a dreary, anonymous existence as a teenager right up until she fakes being a huge slut. The only thing BOP loves more than fake sluts is real ones, which explains why we also adore Julianne Moore’s work in The Kids Are All Right. She portrays male fantasy come true, a lesbian who suddenly considers changing teams for the right guy. While we slightly preferred Bening’s showier role, Moore proves to be the perfect complement.
The three remaining selections in the Best Actress category are Noomi Rapace for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole. Rapace earned the most coveted role in the world when she was chosen as Lisbeth Salander in the Danish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Just the right note of forceful yet fearful, Rapace proved herself as ideal for the role and is earning consideration for major Hollywood roles if so inclined. Winstead was also asked to play a beloved character from a novel, Ramona Flowers, and her mysterious mannerisms are pitch perfect for this particular role. It’s a thankless job to be the straight woman (relatively speaking) in a cast of jokesters, but we noticed how much she gave everyone else in her scenes. Kidman’s character was lost in heartbreak, but she didn’t milk it for lazy sympathy, choosing instead to find solace and understanding from an unlikely source. This is one of Kidman’s lowest key performances to date and we admired her discretion.
Narrowly missing selection were Tilda Swinton for I Am Love, Hye-Ja Kim for Mother, Chloe Moretz for Let Me In, Emma Watson for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Gemma Arterton for The Disappearance of Alice Creed and Thandie Newton for For Colored Girls. (David Mumpower/BOP)
The Calvins Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture