Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 453-454: Wild Girls

Continuing the theme of the previous post we focus on two more films which concentrate on young women struggling with growing up whilst dealing with the worst that life throws at them. Unlike the our two female protagonists in the last post, the two young ladies that take centre stage this time are both growing up in small rural communities. Once again both performances propelled the two young ladies to stardom and they both earned a Best Actress nomination in the process.

We kick off with a young lady who would go on to mega-stardom shortly after making a name for herself in the Best Picture nominated Winter's Bone. I'm talking about Jennifer Lawrence who was a relative unknown when she was given the lead role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone. In the film Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year old girl living in the rural Ozark Mountains who has been forced to become the carer for her younger brother and sister. This is primarily as her drug-dealing father is often away for many months at a time whilst her mother is portrayed as having mental issues of some kind. Whilst it's clear that Ree longs for a normal life, she's decided that looking after her family has to take priority. That's why Ree has to resort to desperate measures to track down her erstwhile father after he's put up the family's home as bail for an upcoming court case. Her father's failure to turn up later puts the house at risk, so Ree is forced to seek help from her extended family who are all scattered across the local area. The only problem is that her family is portrayed as a cagey bunch at best with her Uncle Teardrop being a particularly loose cannon. As the film progresses, Ree's hopeless search gets more fraught and at one point she encounters a violent attack. Throughout the film Granik portrays Ree as being a young woman who is wise beyond her years but at the same time is completely out of her depth. I personally believe that the film climaxes with a rather violent scene at a cattle fair and after that the film sort of loses its way.

One element of the film that never wavers is the fantastic performance put in by Jennifer Lawrence who, like the two young ladies in the last post, features in almost every scene. Ree is certainly a girl of few words and therefore Lawrence is forced to give a very physical performance. Lawrence's Ree is almost as raw as the gritty scenery that surrounds and adds to the mystery of the piece. However, while she portrays Ree as hunter and gatherer, Lawrence is also keen to show Ree's softer side. The scene in which she pleads with her mother to help her is splendidly done as are the moments in which she attempts to toughen her siblings up. Lawrence was rightfully nominated for her role in the film and in my opinion should have won the award. As the downright unbalanced Uncle Teardrop, John Hawkes received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor which was more than deserved. Hawkes has since carved a career as playing charismatic but dangerous characters and he's able to showcase exactly what he can do here. I also enjoyed the performance put in by Dale Dickey who played one of the area's more dominant women and later came good in helping Ree on her quest. As I already mentioned, the Ozark region almost becomes a character in itself as the hostile nature of the landscape fits in well with the hostility that Ree experiences from the majority of the characters. Although the film does go downhill towards its conclusion there are still some tense moments and a rather tender one involving Ree and Teardrop. Ultimately this was the film in which Lawrence made her name and one that would later land her roles in both the X-Men and Hunger Game franchises.

As I've already covered, Jennifer Lawrence did go on to win her Oscar two years later with a performance which wasn't half as great as the one she gave in Winter's Bone. Amongst the actresses she beat was nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis who made history as the youngest ever nominee in that category. In my opinion Wallis' turn as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild was better than Lawrence's and certainly contained a lot more subtlety. The community in Beasts is certainly a little warmer than that of Winter's Bone as we move from the Ozark mountains to a small Louisianan Bayou. Hushpuppy and her father Wink live in a small community known as 'The Bathtub' which is a place full of light, excitement and wonder certainly when seen through the youngster's eyes. What I like about Beasts of the Southern Wild is its feeling of innocence as nearly all of the events are seen through the eyes of Hushpuppy. So for example we learn early on that Wink is ill as we see him returning home in a hospital gown however we're never sure what is condition actually is. Beasts also draws on recent tragedies in Louisiana, such as Hurricane Katrina, as the Bathtub community live through a storm but then find themselves trapped. Although I loved the magical realism that Beasts had in droves I did feel the pacing of the story slightly trailed off in the film's final act. Hushpuppy's brief search for her mother didn't really go anywhere although I did like the ambiguity of her meeting with the chef who may have been her mum. This small setback is more than rectified with a heart-breaking final scene which sees Hushpuppy overcome tragedy once again as she looks set to rule the Bathtub once and for all.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is one of those little films that could and I'm so glad that it got highlighted at the Oscars. In fact, for a small budget film such as Beasts, it did tremendously well scoring nominations in the Picture, Director and Screenplay categories. However for me it was Wallis that totally made the film as she was on screen almost the entire time. She displayed a maturity of an actress at least double if not triple her age and not once did I not believe anything that she went through. Wallis' brilliant facial expressions combined a childlike innocence with the experience of a girl who'd learnt plenty of life lessons through her father. In the role of Wink, non-actor Dwight Henry was absolutely convincing as the man who was trying to keep his community together at any cost. Whilst in actuality Henry is a baker, I felt he did a better job than most professional actors and I'm a little annoyed that he didn't receive any recognition from the academy. The fact that the film is shot on 16mm adds to the realism of the piece as at times I felt I was watching a documentary rather than a fictional work. Cinematographer Ben Richardson takes you on a tour of the Bathtub making you believe that it's actually a real place. Dan Romer and director Benh Zeitlin's music for the film was incredibly uplifting and certainly set the right tone for the film as a whole. Although it's not perfect, Beasts of the Southern Wild still remains one of my favourite films from the past couple of years. It's hard not to watch most of it with a big smile on your face whilst it's certainly a film that is memorable both for its visual flair and more importantly that fantastic central turn from Quvenzhané Wallis.

Next time we turn the focus from young women to middled aged men as we take in a double bill from a director we've met before.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 365-366: Crowe's Best Part Two (Contains Spoilers)

We continue on now with our conclusion of the quartet of Russell Crowe Oscar films starting with the second consecutive Best Picture Winner that he appeared in.

A year after Gladiator; Crowe played a completely different type of character to Maximus in the form of troubled mathematician John Nash. Even as a somewhat mild-mannered chemistry teacher in The Insider Crowe was an intimidating presence but in A Beautiful Mind he was quite the opposite. The film follows Nash from his time as a student at Princeton to receiving the Nobel Prize for his revolutionary work on game theory. The majority of the film though concentrates of Nash's schizophrenia and the hallucinations that are side effects of the mental illness. Perhaps A Beautiful Mind's most memorable moment is when it's revealed that Nash's Princeton roommate Charles Herman and shady secret agent William Parcher are both imaginary figures. Even though I'd never seen the film before I felt it was quite easy to guess that Charles was an imaginary figure, due to the fact that he always disappeared whenever any other characters came on screen. Meanwhile the revelation about Parcher was more revelatory although it did negate a lot of the more interesting thriller elements of the film that were cast aside in favour of a story about Nash's rehabilitation following a stint in a mental hospital. The final part of the film concentrates on Nash's relationship with his loving wife Alicia as well as his return to Princeton where he became one of the institution's most respected professors. However, I found that this journey through time was almost a little anticlimactic judging by what had gone before.

Although I did go into A Beautiful Mind fresh there were a couple of things that I knew about it ahead of time, such as the fact that Russell Crowe was supposedly robbed of a second Best Actor Oscar for his role here. The rumour goes that, after winning a BAFTA for the role, Crowe's argument with an editor over a poem cost him points with the Academy. However, I would assert that Crowe's performance in A Beautiful Mind simply wasn't strong enough and I felt that his turn wasn't particularly memorable. The film itself had its moments most notably when Akiva Goldsman's adapted screenplay added a little bit of humour to otherwise stifled character of Nash. But Goldsman's weakness was his pacing and there were times were the narrative ground to a halt most notably just after Nash is released from the mental facility. Of the other performers, only Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly truly shone as Alicia Nash giving a well-rounded turn as a woman who discovered she'd taken on a lot more than she'd originally thought. I personally felt that Connelly provided the emotional core of the film and she provided the majority of A Beautiful Mind's most compelling moments. The film occasionally presented some interesting visual sequences in which Nash's theories would be constructed via light and fill the screen. Unfortunately these moments were few and far between and the only other highlight that I noted was James Horner's haunting score. Ultimately there's nothing particularly wrong with A Beautiful Mind; it's a solid biopic with solid direction by Ron Howard, but there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it either and I feel that it won the Best Picture prize simply because it's one of those 'issue movies' that the Academy loves so dearly.

Another love of the Academy's older members is an epic swashbuckling adventure that harkens back to the films of the 1930s. They were give this two years later in Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; an adaptation of three books by Patrick O'Brian chronicling the Napoleonic War ventures of Captain 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey. In the lead role of Aubrey, Crowe wasn't the recipient of a Best Actor nod but the film did receive ten Oscar nominations, a tally only bettered by that year's Best Picture winner. Set in 1805, the film focuses on Aubrey's ship the HMS Surprise and its pursuit of the French privateer Acheron. The film's main themes are about the notions of hierarchy and tradition on the ship and how sometimes these can cause problems for the crew. The main relationship the film explores is that between Aubrey and the ship's doctor Stephen Maturin who are presented as old friends. The pair argue about Jack's occasional pig-headedness and Stephen's love of nature as opposed to his friend's preoccupation with warfare. In fact, there isn't a lot of action in Master and Commander, which I feel is rather a good thing as it allows the audience to get a feel for what it's really like being on the ship. Peter Weir explores every aspect of the Surprise from the crew's quarters to the Captain's table and punctuates the action-packed scenes with some quieter moments. Obviously, the final twenty minutes or so is devoted to the Surprise's final attack on the Acheron in which they disguise themselves as a whaler to avoid detection. Weir and co-screenwriter John Collee build up the tension in this final scene perfectly and so the pay-off is even more satisfactory. However, I'm still not quite sure what the film's final scene achieved and it made me believe that some people were clamouring for a Master and Commander sequel.

Of the ten nominations Master and Commander was awarded by the Academy it only won two; for Cinematography and Sound Editing. I'd certainly say that these were the two elements of Master and Commander that were the best especially Russell Boyd's cinematography which I believe was integral to the narrative of the film. Boyd takes the audience into every part of the ship and captures every skirmish perfectly and as a result gets us involved in the action. Meanwhile sound designer Richard King went out of his way to record realistic sounds particularly for the storm and battle scene. In fact I found all of Master and Commander's period detail to be spot on from the costumes worn by each crew member to the construction of the HMS Surprise itself. I suppose one could say that at times Master and Commander is a film that favours style over substance as the plot was quite easy to follow. But that's not to say that Master and Commander was poorly written as I felt that I knew all of the major characters and their key motivations. Furthermore I found that Russell Crowe was the ideal choice to play Aubrey due to his commanding presence. Whilst I didn't think the role required a much range from him as something like The Insider I found him to be utterly believable a the conflicted captain. Oddly Paul Bettany, who played Charles in A Beautiful Mind, played opposite Crowe once again here as Stephen. Due to this I spent a good twenty minutes trying to decide whether or not the doctor was in fact a real character or just a confidant that the Captain had imagined. It was only when Stephen started to interact with other crew members that I believed he was real and by the end Bettany had turned him into a compelling member of the crew. Although old-fashioned in its storytelling; Master and Commander's visual prowess made it stand out from the crowd and overall I felt it was deserving of its place among the pantheon of Oscar-nominated movies.

That's your lot for now, next time we will be going back in time again as I look at three more films from the 1930s and 1940s.