Sneak Peak: Best Actress

18 November 2008

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Right so the awards season is almost upon us once again, god it's come around quick, and now the blockbuster summer is well and truly over the Oscar contenders have come out of the woodwork in droves.

So it's time to put my money where my mouth is and highlight some of the actresses who could be fighting it out for Best Actress come February.

With the festival circuit coming to a close for 2008 there are a few early contenders. Leading the British charge early on is Keira Knightley for her role in The Duchess that won over the critics at Toronto, she was nominated in 2005 for her role as Elizabeth Bennett in pride and Prejudice but was a surprise exclusion this year for her role on Atonement.

Also gaining recognition and winning over American audiences is Sally Hawkins for her role as an upbeat teacher in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, which warmed the hearts of the Toronto Film Festival crowds. Kristen Scott Thomas is also an early contender for I've Loved You So Long.

The festival circuit has also drummed up support for American actress Anne Hathaway for her role in Rachel Getting Married as a young woman who has been in and out of rehab for the past ten years and it is perhaps the role that stakes her claim as a serious actress.

However Best Actress looks like it's going to be the hardest fought category during the whole awards season with Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet all about to join the race.

After the blockbuster summer with Wanted and Kung Fu Panda Angelina Jolie returns to a serious role in Clint Eastwood's Changeling.

Based on the actual incident that rocked California's legal system Jolie stars as Christine Collins who's son vanishes in 1928. Months later a nine year old boy is returned to her.

Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter. Slandered as delusional and unfit, Christine finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (Malkovich), who helps her fight the city to look for her missing boy.

The filmed was screened at Cannes in May to critical acclaim and many expect Angelina Jolie to be a very strong contender come February after she was overlooked for her role as Marianne Pearl in A Mighty Heart.

There's a double chance for Kate Winslet, who already has five Oscar nominations under her belt but failed to take home an award, as she reunites with Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road as well as starring in The Reader.

Based on the award winning novel The Reader is a story of love and secrets in post war Germany. When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15 year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna (Kate Winslet), a woman twice his age.

The two begin an unexpected and passionate affair only for Hanna to suddenly and inexplicably disappear. Eight years later, Michael, now a young law student observing Nazi war trials, meets his former lover again, under very different circumstances.

Directed by her real-life husband Revolutionary Road is set in 1955 and focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbours in the Revolutionary Hill Estates.

April is an aspiring actress who yearns to move to Paris, while Frank copes with toiling away at a corporate job he despises by drinking too heavily and engaging in an affair with a co-worker. The couple's marriage slowly dissolves into an endless cycle of bitter arguments and jealous recriminations.

With fourteen Oscar nominations in her illustrious career no one can count out Meryl Streep who, after a summer of Mamma Mia, is back with her new movie Doubt.

She stars as Sister Aloysius Beauvier, a nun who confronts a priest after suspecting him of sexually abusing a new black student, charges that he denies.

But with Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie both having won Oscars in the past, yes I know Angelina's was for best Supporting Actress, surely the Academy cannot overlook Kate Winslet again?

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw