If you were betting in your Oscars pool in 2000 and picked anyone but Julia Roberts to win Best Actress, you'd look like quite the dummy. No win in any category this year was as certain as hers.
There was only one major awards body that made no mention of Roberts: the New York Film Critics Circle. Eventual nominee Laura Linney won Best Actress for You Can Count on Me, with The House of Mirth's Gillian Anderson and Dancer in the Dark's Björk as runner-ups, and eventual Best Actress Oscar nominee Ellen Burstyn among the runner-ups for Supporting Actress for Requiem for a Dream. Otherwise, Roberts ran through awards season like General Sherman: the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, the LA Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the Critics Choice Awards, the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, the Teen Choice Awards, and on and on and on until the night of the Oscars:
Had I a ballot, here's how I would rank them:
5. Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher
Chocolat
past winner, second of two nominations; BAFTA Awards nominee for Best Actress, Golden Globes nominee for Best Actress - Musical/Comedy, SAG Awards nominee for Best Actress and Best Ensemble
Between the "bottom" two, she's in the better movie, but alas, still my #5. Again, that's just because someone has to be, but her Vianne is a convincing creation, her smile warm, inviting...and yet still mysterious. She grounds the magic, you know her chocolate is beyond and bewitching, but Viane is not unknowable. As infectious as her creations.
4. Joan Allen as Laine Hanson
The Contender
third of three nominations; Golden Globes nominee for Best Actress - Drama, SAG Awards nominee for Best Actress
To the film's credit, it attempts to make Laine a full human, flaws and all, with strength of character that makes her more than qualified for the job at hand, able to take the abuse of the committee's line of questioning. Allen projects all this, and the frustration, and the attempts to keep her temper, and when that resolve falters, it's shocking to her, disconcerting - you see her telling herself to get her head in the game! An accomplished performance, the reason the film works at all, and everyone around her benefits.
3. Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb
Requiem for a Dream
past winner, sixth of six nominations; Golden Globes nominee for Best Actress - Drama, NYFCC Awards second runner-up for Best Supporting Actress, SAG Awards nominee for Best Actress
Beyond the transformation of the makeup, Burstyn communicates the feelings of emptiness and hunger that not only lead to her quick speed addiction, but also imply that addiction can be a family trait. She's addicted to television, a pleasure that's become a habit that's become an appetite to be fed; long before she gets the diet pills (speed), you see her marking conversations with how they run into her TV time. Her fear in that first encounter with her son is not just the mother frightened of her ne'er-do-well boy - they there's that, too, suggesting a cycle of battle and enabling - but the desperation of someone's fix getting cut off. It's a bigger performance than many of the others here, but it has to be, we have to see her go from an "acceptable" addiction (what does it do, make her sit still for an hour?) to an unacceptable one, one that has her twitching and biting her nails and looking fearfully at the fridge.
2. Laura Linney as Sammy Prescott
You Can Count On Me
first of three nominations; NYFCC Awards winner for Best Actress; Golden Globes nominee for Best Actress - Drama, LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Actress, SAG Awards nominee for Best Actress
Linney gets the details just right. Remember the excitement when she sees her brother Mark Ruffalo for the first time in ages? Remember the relatably tamped-down frustration with her new boss and his new policies that aren't really new but, hey, the old boss understood the lives of his workers? Remember her disappointment that she knows she should try to hide but can't help revealing when...well, often? She has no poker face, watching her attempt one and absolutely failing, with a shift in body and a flicker in the eyes, is to watch a master of the craft at work. She's messy in a way one can understand, even when she doesn't herself.
1. Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich
third of four nominations; BAFTA Awards winner for Best Actress, Golden Globes winner for Best Actress - Drama, LAFCA Awards winner for Best Actress, National Board of Review's Best Actress of 2000, SAG Awards winner for Best Actress
A truly great movie star performance, seemingly tailor-made for her particular gifts while showing a new side of her; she never becomes Erin Brockovich, but we learn to appreciate Julia Roberts anew. And that is talent, that is needed for a star vehicle like this, and this is great movie star acting! She's a mother, she's a worker, she's a lover, she's a fighter, she's one of Us, the little people, the forgotten people. We see her question the time away from her kids, sure, but Roberts never lets us really think that she's going to give up the great work, no, she'll find the balance, she'll do what's right! And the way she delivers lines like, well, "That's all you got, lady, two wrong feet in ugly fucking shoes!" Hilarious and galvanizing, a perfect mixture of hurt, rage, and confidence.
Next were the Writing Awards. Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke came through via satellite from Sri Lanka, naming Traffic by Stephen Gaghan as the Best Adapted Screenplay (sorry to Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Wonder Boys), while Tom Hanks appeared in person to name Almost Famous by Cameron Crowe as the Best Original Screenplay (sorry to Billy Elliot, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, and You Can Count on Me). And then came Best Director: Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot), Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Ridley Scott (Gladiator), and Steven Soderbergh...twice (Erin Brockovich, Traffic). Tomorrow, tomorrow....
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