This season’s oscar buzz hums in harmony to a female sound of otherwise unspoken stories. So far the highest praises have been sung about films that combine the soul of an indie and female stardom for a soulful aria. Maybe major studios pow-wowed to decide this year’s theme: feminine taboos. Or, maybe, they are finally getting the memo that the richest content exists back down here, on planet earth. Regardless, these films depict mortals whose struggles (even if portrayed by genetic perfection) are hardly ordinary and refreshingly relatable.
Room
Single motherhood is hard enough, imagine if you were limited to an 11-by-11 ft space in which to do it. In this adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 award-winning novel, Ma (Brie Larson) does just that. We watch Ma through the eyes of her son, Jack. Emma Donoghue’s 2010 award-winning novel is a story beautifully woven through the purity of a child’s eyes. Each thread of his imagination leads us to a realization his mother has long sheltered him from: he is the product of her sexual enslavement by an abductor named Old Nick. Larson so admirably inhabits a dark corner of the world where, sadly, no Olivia Benson has come to the rescue. Room sheds light on a mother’s undying will to both protect her child from the dangers of the world and teach him about its joys.
Leading Lady: Brie Larson
- She is Ma in Room, but you know her as Amy’s sister in Trainwreck.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6fZ-fwDws
Joy
Jennifer Lawrence already showed us she could hustle. This time around, David O’Russell freed up the screen from the clutter of last film’s big-name male cameos for Lawrence to inhabit the world of the real Joy Mangano. The madame inventor of such household staples as the self-wringing Miracle Mop and Huggable Hangers, Joy Mangano struggles to break the mold of a housewife and bring practical patents to everyday domestic duties. By breathing life into the intricately spinning wheels of Mangano’s design, Joy depicts Lawrence’s battle to be the female executive of her own destiny, just as nobly as we saw her fight the fates of District 12. After publicizing her disappoint in studio executives to pay her that of her male co-stars in American Hustle, what better rebel with a cause to give female businesswoman a voice than Lawrence.
Leading Lady: Jennifer Lawrence
- She IS the girl on fire, enough said
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR-2TiQVY-k
The Danish Girl
Eddie Redmayne is quite the overachiever. Last year, he took home the Oscar for Best Actor for portraying the brilliant mind of Sir Stephen Hawking; Redmayne goes for gold again, but this time inhabiting an equally paralyzed body: a married artist who both longs and fears his desire to become a woman. This, too, is a true-story of a lesser known but an equally pioneering figure, transgender woman Lili Elbe, who was one of first to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Already Redmayne is being praised for an authentic portrayal, and so is his co-star Alicia Vikander. As his wife Gerda Elbe, who struggles to understand but wants to accept her husband’s identity, she epitomizes tolerance that the transgender community still strives for today. Thus, both Redmayne and Vikander craft wholly new types of leading ladies on-screen. The Danish Girl had many “at hello” (myself included) as even its trailer so tenderly paints the complication that comes from understanding and expressing oneself.
Leading Ladies: Eddie Redmayne (as transgender female icon Lili Elbe) and Alicia Vikander (her wife Gerda Elbe)
- Redmayne was last year well-deserved oscar winner for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything
- Vikander is a swedish actress who is rapidly gaining praise from roles such as Ava in recent sci-fi thriller Ex Machina
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d88APYIGkjk
Carol
Apparently two years proved more than enough downtime for Cate Blanchett, between her 2013 Oscar win for Blue Jasmine and her role in Todd Hayes’ British-American drama Carol. Blanchett plays the title character in this cinematic adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Price of Salt” about a passionate, but secret affair between two women in the 1950s. Carol (Blanchett) is a married mother who suppresses herself through high-society until she meets her soon-to-be younger lover, a Manhattan department store employee named Therese (Rooney Mara). What has captivated critics about Carol is the ability to simultaneously depict the facade of Post-WWII couples (such as we saw in Revolutionary Road) and the forbidden nature of gay love seen in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. Thus, Blanchett and Mara bring a chemistry that is not limited to those of us who have felt the sharp sting of loving someone you “are not supposed to,” but rather a more common heartache that comes from the tragedy of timing.
Leading Ladies:
- Cate Blanchett plays Carol after becoming the only actress to receiver only actress to get two oscar nods for the same role (as Queen Elizabeth) in both films. She is also one of the three actresses to take home both a Best Actress (in Blue Jasmine), and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (in The Aviator)
- Rooney Mara plays Therese (which has already won her Cannes 2015 Best Actress Award), but we know her as the “American” Girl With A Dragon Tattoo
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4z7Px68ywk
Audrey Imbs still thinks Leo deserves Best Actor for growing that beard.
