Oscars 2018: The Lead Actors

With the big show just a few days away, we’re entering the home stretch of our Oscars predictions. Today, we’re looking at the lead actors, where one race is far deeper than the other. Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up with Best Director and Best Picture.

If you missed our earlier installments, you can find them at the following links:

The supporting actors
The screenplays
The big techies
The odds and ends

BEST ACTOR

NOMINEES
Christian Bale—Vice
Bradley Cooper—A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe—At Eternity’s Gate
Rami Malek—Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen—Green Book

WILL WIN
Malek. He’s won the precursor Triple Crown, and while Film Twitter has spent the past two weeks attacking his performance as simplistic, Film Twitter doesn’t vote at the Oscars. It’s possible to suss out a late-game push from the perennially disappointed Cooper, but that strikes me as a false narrative. Malek takes it.

SHOULD WIN
Quick housekeeping note: The Netflix Blu-ray of At Eternity’s Gate is literally on its way to my house right now. But it won’t arrive until this afternoon, and my editors are keeping me on a tight schedule, so I have to abstain regarding Dafoe’s work. [UPDATE: I have now seen At Eternity’s Gate, and my considered opinion is that Dafoe is fine and the movie is bad.] As for the four that I’ve seen, I’m weirdly indifferent about this race, because I admire all four performances without quite adoring any of them. They’re also good in different ways; Bale is the most technically impressive, Cooper is the most soulful, Malek is the most flamboyant, and Mortensen is the most fun to watch. I’d be happy with any of them winning, which is another way of saying that I don’t really care who wins.

But protocol requires me to pick a horse, and so I’ll take… Mortensen. Green Book is probably my least favorite of the Best Picture nominees (though you could talk me into two of the others), and its themes and characterizations have serious problems. None of this is Mortensen’s fault. He commits to the part completely, and he and Mahershala Ali (who also should have been considered a lead, but never mind) periodically lift the film above its troubling undertones. Dubious movies can feature good performances.

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT
Daveed Diggs—Blindspotting
Ryan Gosling—First Man
Joaquin Phoenix—You Were Never Really Here
Jonathan Pryce—The Wife
Sunny Suljic—mid90s

Diggs runs an emotional marathon. Gosling is heroically reserved. Phoenix is taciturn and terrifying at once. Pryce is pure, scorched-earth toxicity. Suljic perfectly embodies awkwardness and angst.

The Manifesto’s winner: Jonathan Pryce—The Wife.

(And yes, I recognize the irony of me, a male critic, highlighting the performance of a man in a movie that’s all about how men systematically subjugate women and throttle their artistic achievements. Sue me. Pryce is really good.)

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Ethan Hawke—First Reformed
Billy Howle—On Chesil Beach
Stephan James—If Beale Street Could Talk
Anders Danielsen Lie—22 July
Dominic West—Colette

Lie is genuinely disturbing as a figure of bottomless evil. Hawke internalizes pain with gripping intelligence. James is achingly sympathetic, while Howle is fearlessly pathetic. West, in a performance that pairs well with Pryce’s, is a towering presence of noxious entitlement.

Honorable mention: Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet—Beautiful Boy; Jason Clarke—Chappaquiddick; Steve Coogan—Stan & Ollie; Tomasz Kot—Cold War.

BEST ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Yalitza Aparicio—Roma
Glenn Close—The Wife
Olivia Colman—The Favourite
Lady Gaga—A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy—Can You Ever Forgive Me?

WILL WIN
Oh, I’m tempted. The internet has essentially already given this award to Close, and she remains the safest bet, but I’ve seriously toyed with picking Colman instead. Close did win at the Screen Actors Guild, but Colman topped her at the BAFTAs. (The Golden Globes are no help because both of them won, with Colman inexplicably competing in the “musical or comedy” category.) And it’s possible that voters will want to throw a decent-sized bone to The Favourite, given that its Best Picture chances seem to be dwindling by the hour.

But here’s what’s stopping me (beyond general cowardice): This is Close’s seventh Oscar nomination. She’s never won. She’s 71. How many voters will wonder if this is her last chance to take home a statuette? Too many, I’d wager. Glenn Close it is.

SHOULD WIN
I like all of these performances, in particular McCarthy’s for the way she deftly mingles pride, self-loathing, and resentment. But Colman is the easy pick for me here. Her monarch is haughty, capricious, and quietly vulnerable. God save the Queen.

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT
Gemma Arterton—The Escape
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie—Leave No Trace
Anna Kendrick—A Simple Favor
Saoirse Ronan—On Chesil Beach
Anya Taylor-Joy—Thoroughbreds

To be clear, this was torture. I say again: torture. Every year, I keep a running long-list of potential Oscar candidates in all categories throughout the year, just to ensure that I don’t forget anything when awards season rolls around. Each category tends to accumulate around six-to-eight mentions, with a few more in the acting categories. This year’s long-list for Best Actress? Thirty-one names. That’s even more than last year’s insanely deep field. And I’m supposed to cut this down to five? You must be joking.

Anyway. You’ve never seen The Escape, and you should change that (it’s streaming on Hulu), because Arterton is devastating, all quiet anguish and flailing confusion. Harcourt McKenzie delivers the year’s softest, sharpest stomach-punch. Kendrick bristles with suppressed desire. Ronan, forget it, I’m toast. Taylor-Joy rounds hairpin curves with effortless grace.

The Manifesto’s winner: Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie—Leave No Trace.

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT: SECOND TIER
Regina Hall—Support the Girls
Nicole Kidman—Destroyer
Keira Knightley—Colette
Jennifer Lawrence—Red Sparrow
Rachel Weisz—The Favourite

Hall brims with pain but refuses to ask for your sympathy. Befitting her film’s title, Kidman is a force of nature. Knightley is sly, sweet, and sexy. Lawrence takes a stupid movie and makes it relentlessly entertaining. It kills me to nudge one of The Favourite’s trio ahead of the other two, but Weisz’s prickly melancholy hit me the hardest.

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT: THIRD TIER
Olivia Colman—The Favourite
Zoey Deutch—Set It Up
Elsie Fisher—Eighth Grade
Emma Stone—The Favourite
Charlize Theron—Tully

Deutch is radiantly overwhelmed, while Fisher is overwhelmingly real. Stone is wonderfully cagey. Theron makes exhaustion exhilarating.

THE MANIFESTO’S BALLOT: OH COME ON JUST STOP
Jessie Buckley—Beast
Toni Collette—Hereditary
Joanna Kulig—Cold War
Rachel McAdams—Game Night
Amandla Stenberg—The Hate U Give

Buckley is deliciously unpredictable, Collette even more so. Kulig blazes fire. McAdams is a riot, and not just because of the year’s funniest line reading. Stenberg is our hopes and dreams.

Honorable mention (deep breath): Emily Blunt—A Quiet Place; Madeline Brewer—Cam; Claire Foy—Unsane; Helena Howard—Madeline’s Madeline; Matilda Lutz—Revenge; Kelly Macdonald—Puzzle; Chloë Grace Moretz—The Miseducation of Cameron Post; Camila Morrone—Never Goin’ Back; Andrea Riseborough—Nancy; Julia Roberts—Ben Is Back; Saoirse Ronan—Mary Queen of Scots.

In conclusion, I think we can safely retire the adage that there are no good parts for women.

Coming tomorrow: Best Director and Best Picture.