Oscar Blitz 2024 – Supporting Actress

Last year we had legitimate suspense in three of the four acting categories. Only Ke Huy Quan’s victory for Best Supporting Actor was a sure thing. This year, as I’ve mentioned before, is very much not the case. Supporting Actor is all but a lock for Robert Downey Jr., and being extremely generous we can maybe think of Paul Giamatti or Jeffrey Wright as spoilers for Cillian Murphy in Best Actor, but the odds are indeed quite slim. Really, Best Actress is the only contest with any uncertainty, with Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone duking it out.

When it comes to tonight’s category, Best Supporting Actress, the competition is even thinner. Strictly speaking, while there’s a clear favorite there’s at least a chance at another performer winning where it wouldn’t be considered an “upset,” but that’s about all there is to this. In fact, while there’s a truly great performance outside of the top two, the roles I’ll end up ranking in my bottom two are so unimpressive that it really feels like the Acting Branch is clearing out space again. They do this every few years or so, nominating people who have absolutely no chance to win – and everyone knows they have no chance – but it’s more of a career hat tip or a favor to a friend, and it serves the grander purpose of making sure this isn’t a close vote. The fact that Florence Pugh, Penélope Cruz, Claire Foy, and Julianne Moore missed out on this while two other nothing roles got in speaks to that hypothesis.

Still, we’re not here to bemoan the snubs, but to rate the official contenders. And despite my opinions on the nominations themselves, these are all fine actresses who have either already claimed Academy honors, have done work worthy of the prize, or that have the potential to do so in future. While my bottom two aren’t even in the same league as the top three, they’ve all proven themselves in one way or another.

This year’s nominees for Best Supporting Actress are…

Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer

Personally, I prefer Florence Pugh as the stronger supporting performance, but that’s just me. Emily Blunt does a fine job as Kitty Oppenheimer, giving her all to one of the only two major female roles in this very large film with an epic ensemble cast. She handles the material well, evokes the proper emotional responses from the audience, and gets a few “GIMME OSCAR” moments along the way.

Of particular note are two scenes in the back half of the movie. The first is when she tells Robert to suck it up after Pugh’s character dies, telling him that she’s aware of his infidelities, but that his work is too important to not keep up appearances, and that when she married him, she committed to his cause as well as him as a person. She should arguably be devastated that he cheated on her, but she turns the more cliché response on its ear. The second is when she testifies at Robert’s hearing. After having to sit in that tiny room and hear every intimate detail of his philandering – including imagining a naked Pugh riding him in the chair – she takes the hot seat with Jason Clarke preparing to roast her and get her to denounce her husband and quake under his intimidating questioning. Instead she deftly turns the tables on him, making him look a fool, and getting a wry satisfaction that the kangaroo court will at least have a less easy sleep that night for the chicanery they’re pulling off.

On the other side of things, though, there are far too many ways in which Kitty gets pigeonholed. She’s the domestic support, she’s got a drinking problem, and even the triumphant moment after the Trinity Test ties into a housewife persona, as Robert’s coded message to her is about doing laundry. For every moment of brilliance, there are three or four where she’s just there. It’s still a great performance, but there were opportunities to make even more out of her screen time that I just feel she didn’t take.

Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple

As the loud, liberated, and boisterous Sofia, Danielle Brooks is the best thing about the remake of The Color Purple by a wide margin. From her defiant “Hell No” introduction to her take-no-bullshit trash talk, she’s a consistent source of fun and badassery.

She’s also not strictly a comedic character. As much abuse as Fantasia Barrino’s Celie takes, the most dramatic moment of the entire film comes from Sofia, when she’s imprisoned for slapping the mayor’s wife after the latter treated her like a servant in public. The way her spirit is broken because she stood up for her own individual value and the well-being of her children is devastating, a testament to how badly the deck is stacked against minorities in the Deep South. Sofia was the most vibrant character in the film, and because she wouldn’t be disrespected, she was almost destroyed. She’s practically catatonic upon her release, especially when it’s into what is for all intents and purposes indentured servitude to the woman who caused this whole incident.

Thankfully, though, she has the last laugh, very nearly literally. When Celie and Squeak finally stand up to Mister and Harpo, leaving with Shug for Tennessee, the comedy behind the clapback elicits the tiniest giggle from Sofia, and we get to watch the life come back into her face as it grows into full-on guffaws. For a relatively small role, Brooks makes the most of it every chance she gets, showing off tremendous range. If the movie itself was better, she’d arguably be the front-runner for this year’s award.

America Ferrera – Barbie

Bull. Shit.

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be mean. I like America Ferrera just fine. She’s a great comedic talent and an awesome voice actress. She brought Astrid to life in the How to Train Your Dragon films. She’s definitely worthy of consideration for the outstanding career she’s had to date.

But for this role? Fuck off.

There is almost nothing to Gloria in Barbie. She’s a generic working mom archetype who can’t relate to her daughter… until the script says that she does. There’s no actual work involved with fixing their relationship, just the plot demand that their issues be resolved so we can get to the third act. She’s somehow responsible for creating Stereotypical Barbie’s existential crisis, but the reasoning behind it doesn’t extend to any other character. She imagines “Irrepressible Thoughts of Death” Barbie and draws some pictures, and that somehow makes the character traits manifest, but when the Kens take over Barbie Land, the Mojo Dojo Casa House ends up becoming a hot seller in the real world. So does our reality influence Barbie Land or the other way around?

Apart from a few comic asides about her love of the doll, the only reason America Ferrera is in this movie is to give the big Oscar Bait sanctimonious speech at the end. Literally any other character could have said it, particularly Weird Barbie since she wasn’t duped by the Kens, but because we wanted this link between an idealized world and the challenges for women in ours, she has to be the conduit to deliver the moral that’s already been drilled into our heads satirically for the previous 20 minutes, and she does so in the most tropey fashion possible.

So much was made about the injustice of Ken being nominated but not Barbie herself, but what about this horseshit? The most boring, milquetoast character is nominated instead of the bright, multifaceted lead that embodies the spirit of the property and its message, and is almost single-handedly responsible for making this film as fun as it is. Why isn’t THAT a controversy? Literally no one is going to watch Barbie in 10 years and tell other people it was because of fucking GLORIA! Again, I like America Ferrera. I’ve always liked her. But you might as well nominate Leonardo DiCaprio for his role in The Beach if this is going to be your standard going forward.

Jodie Foster – Nyad

Here’s the other nominee who is a wonderful performer but has absolutely no business on this ballot. Jodie Foster is one of the best actresses of all time. This is her fifth nomination, and she has two wins from her previous nods. However, she hasn’t been up for the award since Nell, and “tay-ay ina WEEEEND” isn’t exactly the best benchmark to sit on for close to 30 years. So she’s up here.

That’s really the only thing that can explain her inclusion, because Nyad is a basic as hell sports movie, and Foster’s role as coach and friend Bonnie Stoll is a basic as hell emotional support character. She exists only to offer concern for Diana Nyad’s well-being, tell her to “keep pushing,” and give her a big hug when she succeeds. You get the occasional moment of “this is crazy” thrown in to pad the runtime, and there’s one scene where Bonnie learns from John Bartlett that he’s dying, just to make sure she has one minute that doesn’t explicitly revolve around Diana, but that’s it.

What are we supposed to go on here? What exactly sets this apart from every other generic coach role in every sports drama? I got nothing, which is what Foster herself will be saying when they open the envelope.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Finally, here at the end, we come to the leader in the clubhouse. As school cook Mary, Da’Vine Joy Randolph delivers both punch lines and gut punches in equal measure, and the balance she maintains between the two extremes is incredible. I’m not just talking about the range of her character moments, but her methods of dealing with Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa.

The textbook definition of an underappreciated genius, Mary basically keeps the entire school running behind the scenes, even though most of the shit heels in both the student body and the faculty treat her as an afterthought at best and a glorified slave at worst. She has to act as a surrogate parent to Tully while she mourns the loss of her own son (another testament to her yeoman’s curse, as she took the job to help pay his tuition, only for him to die in a pointless war, his prep school education intended to give him other options than the military), and as confidante to Hunham, keeping his cynicism in check while facing her own crisis of faith.

What really sells the performance is the fact that she’s not the stereotypical “magical” racial character, because she isn’t always cheerful and filled with hope in the face of adversity. This is a woman who has seen too much darkness in life, and is desperate to find some light. So who does she get as Christmas chums? A curmudgeon and an entitled brat. Once again her work is never done.

But she makes a difference with every action she takes. She does manage to teach Tully some manners. She does manage to get Hunham to lighten up a bit. She does manage to be seen as a person and not an instrument, especially when she gets drunk at Miss Crane’s party and commandeers the stereo. She does manage to find value in what she does, even if she disagrees with her station and lot in life, getting the comfort she needs from her sister, who is soon to become a mother herself.

Mary is an ideal example of what a supporting character should do. She helps drive the plot, and she assists the main characters, but she never fades into the furniture. A big part of her story arc is to make sure that the in-universe characters see her as the audience does – a hard-working, good person who deserves a break in life, some good karma for all she’s suffered. Many of us would not be able to maintain any sense of humor if we went through what she does, and she’s able to keep us laughing through the hurt almost effortlessly, all the while conducting herself with the grace and dignity of the queen she knows she is. Her role may fit into established Academy paradigms on what they like in supporting characters, especially women of color, but there’s something to be said for not fixing what isn’t broken.

***

So yeah, at best this is between two women, both of whom give lively and memorable performances. Randolph certainly has the inside track, but Brooks could come away with the victory and no one would feel like Randolph was hard done if she does. The rest of the field is designed to be a trio of also-rans. Blunt is great in a generic role, while Foster and Ferrera just feel like warm bodies to make sure that there’s no real debate on the issue. I hate when the Acting Branch does this, but I have no power to stop them. And as the largest branch in the Academy, I doubt the Board of Governors does either.

My Rankings:
1) Da’Vine Joy Randolph
2) Danielle Brooks
3) Emily Blunt
4) Jodie Foster
5) America Ferrera

Who do you think should win? Vote now in the poll below!

Up next, we tackle one of only five categories in this year’s Blitz that actually required me to watch something after the nominations were announced (and three of those five are the Shorts). It’s Cinematography!

Join the conversation in the comments below! Which of these performances was your favorite? Who do you feel was wrongfully left out? Seriously, how was Julianne Moore not nominated just for the reveal of how she played Natalie Portman? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content!