Best Actress 2005

1998 through 2007

Best Actress 2005

Judi Dench - Mrs. Henderson Presents
3
7%
Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
27
60%
Keira Knightley - Pride & Prejudice
2
4%
Charlize Theron - North Country
0
No votes
Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
13
29%
 
Total votes: 45

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Re: Best Actress 2005

Post by Big Magilla »

In revisiting 2005, Felicity Huffman in Transamerica remains my choice in a year that had a number of good performances by lead actresses, but no really great ones. Two actresses in little seen films, Joan Plowright in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and Julianne Moore in The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio remain my closest runners-up.

I have no great love for Mrs. Henderson Presents, but I still have Judi Dench as a distant runner-up, but as with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in the best actor race, I have a hard time remembering much of what Reese Witherspoon did to merit all those wins as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. My fifth slot now goes to Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee.
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Re: Best Actress 2005

Post by bizarre »

My choices:

1. Q'orianka Kilcher, in "The New World"
2. Cate Blanchett, in "Little Fish"
3. Keira Knightley, in "Pride & Prejudice"
4. Emmanuelle Seigner, in "Backstage"
5. Cameron Diaz, in "In Her Shoes"
ALT: Isild le Besco, in "Backstage"
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Post by Hustler »

The great Huffman was robbed that year. I voted for her.
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Post by Uri »

Mister Tee wrote:The whole point of pretty much every Austin vehicle is that the younger sister is the beauty, but that the more perceptive man will know to look beneath the surface and choose the brilliant sister.

You're not really a devoted, hard core Austenite, are you?




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Post by mlrg »

Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
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Post by Damien »

I think Mrs. Henderson Presents is Judi Dench's finest screen performance. She's particularly memorable in getting down just the right balance of her character’s foolishness and resolve, her amiability and steely seriousness. Her final speech is just wonderful. (I'm also very fond of the film itself, though, admittedly, I'm a sucker for World War 2 homefront movies. What starts off as a typical dotty old British woman romp develops into a picture of great charm and, even more impressively, real emotional depth. It's a very moving film about courage and camaraderie and conviction and show business and love and memory, even if Stephen Frears is one of the most visually lacklustre of contemporary directors considered major.) I wholeheartedly vote for Dame Judi.

WItherspoon is fine and she's fun but she's overshadowed by Joaquin Phoenix.

Huffman is fine and likable, although rather one note, and she's overshadowed by lovely work by Keven Zegers and Graham Greene

The other two have the feel of fillers.

My Own Top 5:
1. Joan Allen in The Upside Of Anger
2. Alice Teghill in Caterina In The Big City
3, Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents
4. Q'Orianka Kilcher in The Lost World
5. María Alche in The Holy Girl




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Post by Reza »

Have yet to watch Theron's performance but everyone on the list appears to be a filler and I am hardpressed to find alternate choices with the exception of two.

Voted for Huffman here.

My top 5:

Joan Plowright, Mrs Palfrey at the Clairemont
Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Judi Dench, Mrs Henderson Presents




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Post by Sabin »

Emmanuelle Devos in Kings and Queen being the prime example.

Good call -- she absolutely deserved far more attention than she got this year and easily rated a spot on the Best Actress ballot.

Not to mention Mathieu Amalric. 2005 is an outstanding lineup of Best Actor nominees but Amalric certainly deserves mention (as do Jeff Daniels for The Squid and the Whale and Romain Duris for The Beat My Heart Skipped among others).
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Post by OscarGuy »

Some of the actresses I enjoyed from 2005 were Scarlett Johansson in Match Point, Diane Keaton in The Family Stone, Jodie Foster in Flightplan and Li Gong in Memoirs of a Geisha along with Witherspoon. But, I don't really feel any of them were nomination worth and Witherspoon was my choice out of a lackluster year.
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Post by The Original BJ »

Precious Doll wrote:Emmanuelle Devos in Kings and Queen being the prime example.
Good call -- she absolutely deserved far more attention than she got this year and easily rated a spot on the Best Actress ballot.
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Post by Precious Doll »

Nulled my vote for the second time.

In all fairness to the Academy, 2005 was a pretty terrible year for leading roles for English speaking films, which are the type of films they tend to nominate. It's a shame that Claire Danes lovely performance in Shopgirl slipped into obscurity. And that the inspired LA Film Critics choice failed to lead to an nominate for Vera Farmiga.

However it's the New York Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics that deserve scorn for their selection Reese Witherspoon. Critics have proven time and time again (Yolande Moreau last year being a good example) that they are capable of looking outside the box when making their selections. So it was very disappointing that they went for Witherspoon over a number of far worthy performances in non-English language film. Emmanuelle Devos in Kings and Queen being the prime example.
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Post by ITALIANO »

I've seen them all - the Best Actress nominees since Oscars started, I mean. Well, not all, but almost. And I've always voted in this game - even in the very few cases when I had missed one of the nominees.
But self-respect prevents me from voting here - and it's the first time I will choose "Null Vote". Because this is - and I repeat, I saw almost all - the worst Best Actress race in Oscar history. Forget about 1975 - there were at least two remarkable performances there (though one, I admit, in the wrong category). Thirty years later, American cinema finally reached its nadir - or at least its actresses did. Italian cinema nowadays isn't what it used to be, less and less movies are produced every year, and the David di Donatello - our Oscar - has problems sometimes in finding five worthwhile nominees. But never, even here, has the quality been as bad as in this Best Actress contest.

They picked what was probably the most popular actress of the bunch (I say "probably" because Witherspoon is one of those American actresses who are almost unknown on this side of the ocean). And maybe they even did the right choice, considering the level of the other nominees.
Back then - well, 2005 is the day before yesterday actually - there was an attempt to make the race seem better by trying to convince people that Felicity Huffman had given a great, unusual, courageous performance as a transexual in Transamerica. Now that it's over we can face the sad truth: the movie was dreadful, and the actress wasn't much better.
I've nothing against old English professionals, one can usually count on them, and I've even voted for Judi Dench once before, but in Mrs Henderson Presents she's really embarassing - an unintentionally grotesque performance. Keira Knightley was unimpressive as usual in another misguided film version of a classic of British literature and even the most basic tv-movie can boast better performances than what Charlize Theron did in her awful movie.
I know, I sounded like an Italian version of Damien - "all bad, all bad". But I swear that I'm objective. Impossible to make a choice this time.




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Post by The Original BJ »

This is the kind of year where you wonder how many votes "NO" would get, were it an option. Even some of the better also-rans (Kilcher, Farmiga, Allen) I'd barely consider in stronger years.

Knightley is practically the definition of place-filler.

Theron does her best with what she's got, but even a great actress couldn't do much with this material, and obviously Theron doesn't even come close to being that.

Mrs. Henderson Presents is the epitome of the default-to-Dench nomination. She got this nod because she was Judi Dench and appeared in a period costume piece released at the end of the year. As far as I'm concerned, she basically slept-walk through this role.

The only two acceptable choices for me would be Huffman and Witherspoon. Huffman has some good moments, but Transamerica is a pretty dreary movie, and by this point I was really sick of the deglam-to-Oscar stunt. Huffman elevates the material, but I saw more of the gimmick than the character here.

So, Witherspoon. It's obviously not a dominant Best Actress role, but she was really charming, her musical performances were entertaining, and dramatically, I think she shows more depth than any of her competition.

Tangent: I wonder if, over the years, Down to the Bone's reputation might end up a little higher than most of us thought it would at the time. It's a pretty dull movie -- generic indie addiction fare -- notable only for the performance of its lead actress. But as Vera Farmiga seems poised to become a really memorable actress throughout this upcoming decade, I wonder if the film might gain a cultish reputation as the first time many of us took note of her as an impressive screen presence.
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Post by Sabin »

In lieu of a null vote, I'll toss it to Huffman. The film doesn't ask enough of her but she's up to the task.
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Post by FilmFan720 »

I agree that this is a pretty weak line-up. There is little here to get excited about. Theron and Knightley are dismal in paint-by-numbers films, as can be expected from them. I haven't seen Dench's film, but this seems to scream of "Judi Dench made a film this year, so let's nominate her"-ism.

Huffman and Witherspoon are the only two here I would have nominated. Huffman certainly transcends her weak material--having revisited the movie about a year ago, I had forgotten how dumb and cliched a lot of it really is--and I gave her the vote here. Witherspoon is electric in her role, and brings so much to the film (as many others here have already mentioned).

My Best Actress of the year is Joan Allen, who is mesmerizing in a wholly underrated film (Costner should have also been nominated). I would fill out the ballot with Kilcher and Juliette Binoche in Cache. Bello is a strong choice in Supporting.
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