You Go Olivia Colman!!!!

Performance Review: Jennifer Jones in The Song Of Bernadette

Jennifer Jones received her first Oscar nomination and won the Oscar for playing Bernadette Soubirous in The Song Of Bernadette. Bernadette is a young woman who sees a vision of the Virgin Mary which results in her becoming the subject of worship, ridicule, and religious persecution only to come out almost completely unfazed.

Jennifer Jones appeared to have been For Whom The Bell Tolls's star Ingrid Bergman's main competition  for Best Actress in 1943 with the latter being expected to triumph but given the strength of The Song Of Bernadette with the Academy (it got twelve Oscar nominations!) and Jones's Golden Globe win I wouldn't call her win an upset but hey I wasn't there so I couldn't tell you for sure :)

The Song Of Bernadette is a very admirable film although overly long and somewhat uncomfortable to watch. It is truly an awful and abhorrent thing to witness the town government conspire to destroy Bernadette's life as well as her borderline emotionally abusive parents trying  to squash her faith. I also think it spends too much time on the conspirator's storyline; we get their motivations and their personalities right from the start so why do we have to spend so much time on them? Still the script is very strong, the acting also excellent, and its beautifully made in addition to being a highly engaging story.

Bernadette is another very interesting character from this category and arguably one of the most challenging. Bernadette needs to come across as sincere, steadfast, sweet, shy, strong, but polite and never terse. Playing someone with such unusual  religious faith and devotion is tricky to get right but Jennifer Jones is able to do the trick. She imbues the character of Bernadette with a wonderful purity and innocence without making the character too sweet or saccharine. Jones adds such dignity, strength, and quiet fervor to her character that it makes it beautiful to watch as well as captivating as she is so beautiful that she lights up the screen. Bernadette is so wonderfully honest, innocent, sweet, and subtly strong that you don't wonder why so many people put their faith, their reputations, and their belief in her hands. As the film nears its end, Jones  makes us feel her character's intense emotional struggle to leave her home and the possibility of a happy love life behind due to her knowing that she has been chosen by God as a vessel of wonder and faith meaning that she must leave her life behind and become a nun. The one issue with the performance is that it is a bit one note due to the nature of her character(therefore that is the point) but the last 45 minutes or so gives Jones more opportunities  to portray different sides of Bernadette such as her genuine feelings of pity and compassion that she has for Sister Vazous's jealousy of her gifts, her pain as she begins to waste away on illness,  her anger towards the men that continue to harass her about her faith. and her near loss of faith when she is on the brink of death. These scenes should have been a lesson to the filmmakers to cut some of the corrupt politician scenes and expand Bernadette's character a little more but Jones is still terrific.

It's a very captivating, strongly played, and luminous performance that is the center of the film.

Performance Review: Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter

Loretta Young received her first Oscar nomination and won the Oscar for playing Katherine  Holstrom a young farm girl who moves to the big city to become a nurse only to then become a maid to a wealthy political family whose bright young congressman poster boy(Joseph Cotton) ends up falling in love with her. Eventually she gets persuaded to run for office against her love interest's political party and becomes a dark horse in the race.

Loretta Young apparently didn't have a chance in hell of winning Best Actress this year but she won beating all the odds. In a field which seemed to be filled with dramatic heavyweights it's not too surprising Young's charming and romantic performance pulled off an upset in addition to the fact that everybody loves an underdog which fit her character and her status in the race which voters must have been won over by.

The Farmer's Daughter is a pretty hokey film that like To Each His Own is pretty implausible but is still interesting and entertaining. It's a bit simplistic and rather dated but it still holds up today at least for me.

Young portrays Katrin with charm, intelligence, and radiance. She presents Katrin as a strong independently minded person who is blunt and straightforward simply because she's never known anything else. Her dedication towards becoming a nurse as well as her determination to make a better life for herself are aspects of her character that Young plays very well even though the film ends up throwing them out due to wanting a romance between Young's character and the male lead Glenn. Despite this rather old fashioned plot change Loretta Young still is wonderful to watch, showing a radiance and beauty that inhabits Katrin as she falls in love with Glenn whether it be her excitement at seeing him after so long or  her feelings of pleasure and longing when the two spend time together. Both she and Cotton have good chemistry on screen due to the obvious contrasts in their characters given  how each of those contrasts compliments the other. She also captures Katrin's sense of integrity and strength when it comes to politics even if it is clear that she definitely is not a political climber and only wants to run out of an obligation for what she thinks is right. When things go downhill for her and when her  relationship with Glenn goes south Young makes us see her character's pain and hurt at her love's betrayal and then afterwards her joy at expressing the love she has for Glenn at last in addition to her joy of being given his love in return.

The second half of the film does get a bit too ridiculous and simplistic but it's so harmless and charming that it doesn't really effect Young's performance. I don't want to overpraise the performance as it really isn't anything that grabs hold of the screen but it's a charming and well played performance with wonderful simplicity and just the right amount of depth for material like this. An unfairly disliked performance at least to me.

Performance Review: Brie Larson in Room

Brie Larson received her first Oscar nomination and won the Oscar for playing Joy Neesham, a young woman who was kidnapped by an older man at around eighteen or so and then subjected to sexual abuse by her kidnapper. She eventually got pregnant by him and had a son who she has been living with inside a  live- in shed for five years. Joy  has shielded her son(whose name is Jack)  by making him believe that the room  as well as it's day to day activities are the only thing real in the world.

Larson was the hands down frontrunner for the Best Actress Oscar three years ago although this was not always the case. Before the release of Joy as well as the official start of the awards season, Jennifer Lawrence was a definite possibility in regards to being the  eventual winner given her popularity in Hollywood and the expectations surrounding her performance in the film. Once Lawrence became an also ran who had to struggle  to be nominated, the race narrowed down to Larson and Saoirise Ronan in Brooklyn who gave a beautifully subtle performance in a very good film. Larson ended up getting the edge over Ronan with the precursors due to stronger industry popularity in Hollywood as well as the fact that her role is more dramatic although not by as much as one would think. Once the nominations were released Room snagged  a Best Director nomination which strengthened Larson's chances enormously and after SAG and BAFTA awarded her there was no real chance that she would lose.

Room is a beautifully made film with a tough subject matter that is handled well by the filmmakers- it is largely the story of the boy Jack and how he sees the world in the child like wonder perspective that his mother has given him and how that slowly is shaken by the unfolding of the events surrounding him. I think it is a strong film that is worthy of praise although it doesn't delve deep enough into some aspects of the subject matter that I feel would have helped the film.

When we first meet Joy, she is a very depressed and withdrawn woman. I personally have read about real life examples of people in her situation and Larson convincingly plays a person who has become so accustomed to the horrors of her situation that there is almost no real life in her with the exception of the love for her son. Larson plays each scene with her son convincingly by portraying the true love that she has for him, her sadness of him not having a better life, and her frustrations with the reality of her situation. She and Tremblay both work extremely well together with both being believable as a mother and a son with the viewer naturally connecting with as well as rooting for them the whole way. Once things start to escalate Larson makes sure the very high stakes of her character's desperate struggle to escape come across to the audience in addition to displaying how much Joy is sacrificing for her son and how painful and fearful the mission she gives him is for her. Despite these strengths I have to say that personally I am not in love with Larson  as an actress even though she does what is required of her in this film. Judging somebody's performance is so subjective that sometimes it just comes down to whether or not you find the character/the actress  likable in the most fundamental way. I have to say that I don't even though that does not mean that I don't respect her work.

Moving on, once the two escape from Old Nick's(the kidnapper) clutches Larson is equally effective although the flaws in the script or perhaps the inherent nature of it become more apparent. The film is largely Tremblay's story which means that Joy's emotional journey and backstory are in the background to Jack's as well as serving as  supplements  to Jack's character arc instead of standing on their own. The film's vision and intentions are beautifully realized but  both of those things are primarily involved with  showing Jack's transformation in how he sees the world both  outside and inside of the room. More details surrounding her family life, the relationship with her father, the abuse she had to withstand for all those years, and the day she was kidnapped are all things that were needed to create a fully rounded and developed performance. It's also difficult to sympathize with some of Joy's actions in the 2nd half without those details being shown(in addition to my dislike of the character) and the changes in her feel a little abrupt although still convincing.

It's a very real, authentic, and emotionally strong portrayal that fulfills the expectations of the role by executing the script's portrayal of this character well. If the film had developed Joy's backstory more and focused more on her the performance could have been on a much more powerful, emotionally charged  level then it is. But even with these complaints Larson is still very strong in this film and her win isn't anything to rip your hair out over even though there was stronger performances that year that should have been honored instead. A very competent and admirable performance that is just a little underwhelming.

Performance Review: Olivia De Havilland in To Each His Own

Olivia De Havilland received her third Oscar nomination and won the Oscar for playing Jody Norris a woman who is forced to let her son live a life without knowing she is his mother in To Each His Own.

Given the legal victories that De Havilland won for herself and the industry against Warner Brothers and her pedigree as an actress it”s easy to believe that De Havilland was the favorite this year especially considering the fact that she had never won an Oscar before. I”d have to check some resources but I”m pretty sure now that it would have been an upset if she was overlooked in favor of someone else.

To Each His Own is a very typical soapy melodramatic movie from the 40s- none of the plot lines are really that credible and the movie isn”t really noteworthy even if it is entertaining and well crafted. The only real reason to watch it is for Olivia De Havilland who commands the screen while carrying the film completely without letting it”s implausible  plot drag her down.

Jody is a very interesting character- she appears to be a strong willed, independent, and dominating woman  who hides a great degree of loneliness and emotion underneath. De Havilland captures all of this extremely well in addition to technically playing the older Jody flawlessly- it”s amazing to think that this woman also was a southern belle in Gone With The Wine and a rich heiress in Tbe Heiress. As the movie enters into its flashback phase, Jody is shown as a very young woman. Practical and strong but also vulnerable, inexperienced, and romantic. We see her faith in finding the right happiness in her life as well as her passion for adventure. There is a great sense of spirit, of confidence and maturity that De Havilland brings to Jody that makes her wonderful to watch. As the film goes on we see Jody get pregnant with her dead lover”s child, her excitement and determination towards having the baby as her own, and her heartbreak over the loss of the child to an old friend of hers who will now always be known as his mother. Granted, Jody is a little bit selfish and overzealous in her attempts to become the baby”s mother(so much to the point that she bribes her friend into letting her have her son who becomes so lonely he gets sent back to her) but De Havilland wonderfully displays how Jody”s powerful love for her son motivates her to create a better life for herself and for him. Despite the ridiculous almost uncomfortable nature of the way the film portrays this woman De Havilland makes it believable and effective  every step of the way even with the clunky script and  sometimes unsympathetic nature of Jody.

It”s a terrific performance that rises above her film when another actress could have made it a complete disaster. Luckily, Olivia De Havilland had the right instincts and the technical as well as the emotional skills of a quality actress to pull it off making it something memorable. A deserving winner.