Tuesday, February 1, 2011

AFT Awards: Best Actress in a Leading Role


This is the second category of the 4th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them and drawn from a pool of approximately 177 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):
Gemma Arterton (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), Gemma Arterton (Tamara Drewe), Alicja Bachleda (Ondine), Annette Bening (Mother and Child), Madeline Caroll (Flipped), Chiara Caselli (The Father of My Children), Julia Deakin (Down Terrace), Emilie Dequenne (The Girl on the Train), Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day), Portia Doubleday (Youth in Revolt), Greta Gerwig (Greenberg), Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs), Sally Hawkins (Made in Dagenham), Isabelle Huppert (White Material), Catherine Keener (Please Give), Demi Moore (The Joneses), Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right), Kelly O’Neill (Kisses), Vanessa Paradis (Heartbreaker), Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Emma Stone (Paper Man), Kristin Scott Thomas (Leaving), Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Naomi Watts (Mother and Child), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

Runners-up:
KIM HYE-JA (Mother)
NICOLE KIDMAN (Rabbit Hole)
TILDA SWINTON (I Am Love)
EMMA STONE (Easy A)
KATIE ASELTON (The Freebie)

The winner:
Lesley Manville (Another Year) buried herself into this year’s strongest Mike Leigh-directed performance, authentically and mesmerizingly playing an ordinary woman who couldn’t hope to recognize her dependence on others.

Other nominees:
Katie Jarvis (Fish Tank) delivered a raw, magnetic turn in her film debut. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) acted much older than her age as she played a teenager desperately to be an adult. Naomi Watts (Fair Game) embodied a real-life CIA agent and made her seem brave, tough, and strong without resorting to action-oriented tricks. Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) perfected her high-strung, sardonic archetype to hilariously and dramatically portray an atypical wife and mother.

2 comments:

Greg Boyd said...

"Fish Tank" is coming out in a few weeks, I think. I'm definitely planning on watching it. "Another Year" looks fantastic, and I've heard great things about Manville. I know you didn't care much for either film, but is there no room in your honorable mentions for Hailee Steinfeld or Natalie Portman? They were both great.

Movies with Abe said...

I figured people would point out the snub for Portman - the movie (and the performance) just didn't do anything for me. I wasn't too crazy about Steinfeld either because I didn't love that movie, and so I neglected to take her out of supporting, where you'll find her in my honorable mentions. If I had loved the film, I might have transplanted her from there, but I often end up keeping people in the places they end up being classified, like Manville here and past contenders like James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) in supporting.