2016 Calvin Awards: Best Supporting Actress
By David Mumpower
February 25, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Rather than place arbitrary determinations on the appropriate placement for a role, our voting system gives the staff free reign to choose for themselves. Oftentimes, this is the best way to decide. This year, it wreaked havoc due to Alicia Vikander’s shocking ascension. Had people locked in on a couple of her performances, she would’ve won both Best Actress AND Best Supporting Actress. Instead, we wound up with a photo finish in each category.
Our winner this year owes everything to the reputation of Steve Jobs. Yes, the co-founder of Apple stands apart as a billionaire visionary. He was also quite the jerk, and everybody who worked with him knew it. That’s why the Sony movie about him is so divisive. It doesn’t shy away from the man’s crippling personality flaws. Legendary actress Kate Winslet is our choice for Best Supporting Actress this year due to her ability to highlight the difficulties of being one of Jobs’ most trusted advisors.
Winslet portrays Joanna Hoffman, the long-suffering marketing executive who worked on the original Macintosh team. The actual person once received a joke award from other Apple staff members for “the person who did the best job of standing up to” Jobs. The entire movie hinges on Winslet’s ability to talk sense into an extremely smart man oddly lacking in common sense. She’s the one who speaks up for the programmers, argues against her employer’s callous treatment of the mother of his child, and defends the daughter that Jobs constantly denies is his.
The genius of Hoffman as a character lies in her talent for translating the madness of Jobs for the benefit of others. She even functions as a soothsayer, uncovering the mystery of the entire NeXT project. Throughout all of these events, Winslet offers a master’s class in understated control. She shows precisely why a man as powerful as Steve Jobs would bow to the wisdom of Joanna Hoffman, even as he steamrolls over everyone else in his life. It’s a majestic performance that could just as easily stand in the lead acting category. Instead, Winslet has won the Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress and, on a less important note, she’s also won The Calvin.
As mentioned above and in several different categories, this was Alicia Vikander’s year at The Calvins. She received more total votes than anybody else…and I mean ever. Due to the sheer volume of laudable performances, however, she winds up with the silver medal in the category. It’s yet another instance where her total votes were easily the most, but the splitting of commendations among them cost Vikander the title. Instead, she’ll have to settle for second place as a technicality with a lot of passionate support for every acting role she performed last year.
Ex Machina is our staff’s choice as her best Supporting Actress performance. Vikander portrays Ava, a robot whose creator believes she’s capable of passing the Turing Test. Ava’s “owner,” Nathan, invites a programmer named Caleb to perform the test. Ava’s hypnotic combination of robotic behavior and adolescent curiosity toward humanity seduces Caleb. In the end, he learns that robots are just like humans in that it’s everybody for himself, herself, and itself in life (or the sexbot equivalent).
Vikander is stunning in her plausible portrayal of artificial intelligence capable of passing itself off as a real woman. Ava the robot is unforgettable and every bit as merciless as her creator. In a year where she dominated as an actress, Ex Machina stands as her most unique performance.
Since the opening moments of the trailer, we’ve known that The Hateful Eight doubled as a pure Jennifer Jason Leigh delivery system. Her mimicking of her eventual hanging is as hilarious as anything on film over the past 12 months. Jason Leigh has anchored movies going all the way back to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but many people had forgotten her dominant run of awards season roles during the early 90s. Quentin Tarantino had not, however, and his writing of her character, Daisy, borders on a love letter to her entire career. Jason Leigh’s portrayal more than justifies her status as QT’s most recent muse. It’s yet another reminder that she’s one of the world’s greatest living actors.
Rachel McAdams and Rooney Mara comprise the rest of our top five this year. McAdam’s work in Spotlight is an abject lesson in the value of doing research. Rather than portray Boston Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer randomly, McAdams texted her literally hundreds of times, developing a relationship so impacting that she took Pfeiffer as her date to the Golden Globes. For her work in Carol, Rooney Mara didn’t have that luxury. Her character, Therese Belivet, is the fictional shopgirl who somehow finds herself the sticking point in a failed marriage between the titular Carol and her terrible, terrible husband, Harge. BOP has loved Rooney Mara since the opening scene of The Social Network, and while Carol isn’t her showiest role to date, we suspect it’ll stand the test of time as her most impactful.
Our sixth and seventh selections are Phyllis Smith for Inside Out and Joan Allen for Room. Smith is simply a treasure as Sadness, the melancholy emotion that winds up driving a pre-teen girl named Riley into the depths of despair. Voice acting is particularly challenging by nature, but Smith is magnificent as she humanizes the importance of dejection in the maturation process. Allen’s role isn’t as showy as some of the other selections here, but she’s critical to the second half of Room. As the mother who learns that her kidnapped daughter is alive, Allen brings resolute support to her family during an unimaginably difficult period.
Our final selections in Best Supporting Actress are Tessa Thompson, Julie Walters, and Rose Byrne. Our staff adored Thompson’s memorable portrayal of Bianca, the musician who provides Donnie Creed with balance in his life. As for Julie Walters, she’ll always be Molly Weasley to us, but we also loved her as strict boardinghouse landlady Madge Kehoe in Brooklyn. And Rose Byrne brilliantly uses her perception as naturally uptight to maximum effect as the villainess who admires her opponent more than she should in Spy.
The Best Supporting Actress category was incredibly competitive this year. Vaunted actresses who narrowly missed nomination include Helen Mirren for Trumbo, Elizabeth Banks for Love & Mercy, Marion Cotillard for Macbeth, Jane Fonda for Youth, Jessica Chastain for The Martian, and Margot Robbie for Focus.
Calvins Intro
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
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture