Sabin wrote:- We're looking at the Golden Globes giving their award to Andra Day and Rosamund Pike, SAG to Viola Davis, and BAFTA... well, we don't know for sure, but it seems like Frances McDormand or Vanessa Kirby are the likeliest. So, we're looking at a race where no single major group agreed on the same performer. When was the last time that happened?
- Is there any precedent for these groups giving their awards to all different performers and then Oscar voters selecting someone different still? To say this doesn't help Carey Mulligan is an understatement.
I mock the Broadcast Critics as much as anyone, but, like it or not, they're part of the TV awards quad, and they DID pick Mulligan. If Mulligan's out of the race now, so is Bakalova, since the Broadcasters is the only group she's won.
Meantime, I think the weirdness of BAFTA this year makes their choice...I don't want to say irrelevant, but less dispositive than usual. Mulligan can't win there simply because she was boxed out of a nomination, by a set of guidelines that specifically worked against her (a Caucasian woman)...even while the general membership liked Promising Young Woman enough to give it one of the five nominations for best picture. She's kind of in the position Nomadland was in at WGA -- might have won, had she not been left off the ballot for arbitrary reasons. I'm not saying it's been a great season for Mulligan, but she's not in a hopeless situation.
Meantime, I think the awkward question you raise about Davis v. Day makes the situation even more murky. The Awards Watch kids have been all "Davis knocks out Mulligan, so now Day wins", which, when you get right down to it, is pretty patronizing to Viola. It reeks of "You did your job, now go home, and we'll give it to the other black actress". I think it's possible Viola is a major contender now...which, as you don't quite want to say, could cloud the issue -- especially for those who think it's time for another black best actress, but won't have a clear bead on who it should be.
Likely either McDormand or Kirby will win BAFTA. Which will, as far as I can see, leave no one as clear leader. It should be the sort of messy race we haven't had very often lately -- at best, recent contests have been, if not run-the-table, binary. This would be a 3-or-4-way contest, and those can lead to surprising results. Remember how Ex Machina came out of nowhere to win visual effects? That had something to do with Fury Road, The Force Awakens, The Martian and The Revenant all competing with no one taking clear focus. We haven't had anything like that in an acting category for a LONG time.
And one more thing: remember, Ma Rainey was very strong at SAG, getting an Ensemble nomination -- something Promising Young Woman (and Nomadland) failed to do. Its situation at the Oscars is quite different; there, it's a movie that failed at either best picture or best screenplay...where Nomadland is front-runner, and Promising Young Woman scored in all the glamour categories. All these things could end up factors.
On something besides best actress:
Four of the five Ensemble nominees were people-of-color-dominant -- and voters chose the all-white-man movie, Chicago 7. Even while giving all four acting prizes to people of color. I don't think we need to look too deeply at this; Chicago 7 almost surely won simply because it was actor-dominated with the largest cast. It's still hard for me to believe it's that much a best picture threat -- especially when, based on WGA, it appears to be trailing Promising Young Woman for screenplay. But I'm of course open to surprise.
