2015 Calvin Awards: Best Supporting Actress
By David Mumpower
February 12, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Boyhood has been the passion project of BOP fave Richard Linklater over the past 13 years. During that time, he has assembled the same cast for a few weeks each year, asking them to update their story to reflect the immediate as well as the long term direction of each character. As the adult overseer, Arquette provided the baseline for everyone else in the cast, including a pair of kids under 10 when the project began.
As a devout mother with horrible taste in men, Arquette’s Olivia suffers from perennial disappointments both personally and professionally. She never has enough money to raise her children as she would prefer, yet she always somehow manages to offer the kind word that sends everyone she contacts down the right path in life. Arquette herself went through a couple of high profile break-ups and a pregnancy during the extended shoot, but her apparel is the only clue that any of this transpired. As the everywoman mother who holds it all together, Arquette inspires from start to finish. Boyhood was the most ambitious release of 2014, and she is the glue that supports everything around her, making her the easy (and literal) choice for Best Supporting Actress.
In most years, a BOP fave like Emma Stone would be a slam dunk in this category for a role like Birdman. Stone plays the put upon daughter of a former superstar actor. The pressures of being raised in the spotlight have riddled her with insecurities as well as a chemical addiction. As she tries to overcome previous mistakes in her life, the harried personal assistant finds herself drawn to a bad boy actor even though his girlfriend is a part of the same play employing them. Stone has never played such a vulnerable character before, which makes her work all the more noteworthy. Ordinarily, she would be the winner for Best Supporting Actress with a point total in excess of 100. This year, she will have to settle for second. Maybe if she had slept with Ed Norton, she would have elicited enough sympathy from the voters.
Keira Knightley earns yet another selection this year. This time, the role is for The Imitation Game, and its placement mirrors her third place finish in Best Actress for Begin Again. Suffice to say that we believe that there were at most four actresses in 2014 who honed their craft at least as well as Knightley. In The Imitation Game, Knightley portrayed second class citizen Joan Clarke, who had the audacity to be born as a woman. As such, she was deemed unfit to help the World War II effort in any significant way right up until she passed one of Alan Turing’s tests. At that point, he vouched for her and she rewarded him by providing valuable insights into German coding practices. As a woman who gets her kicks above the waistline, sunshine, Clarke was even willing to marry a gay man in order to advance both of their causes during the war. Knightley earns BOP love the way that laundry machines get quarters but even by those standards, she was absolutely brilliant in 2014.
A standing favorite and a complete unknown comprise the rest of our top five. Nobody knew who Carrie Coon was heading into 2014. One caustic turn as Ben Affleck’s twin sister later, her career is in terrific shape. Coon plays the woman being told of the mystery, and her reactions to the unfolding drama are core to the appeal of Gone Girl. Coon was also lauded as the fourth best Breakthrough Perfomance of the year for the role.
Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain is a handful of 2014 Mama votes away from earning four consecutive top 10 finishes in Best Actress. After finishing 7th in 2012 and 2nd in 2013, she returns in fifth place for her work as a dedicated scientist and daughter in Interstellar. Suffice to say that our staff loves Chastain in basically everything.
Sixth and seventh place go to Tilda Swinton and Laura Dern. Swinton mesmerizes as what I can only describe as a PR exec for Hitler. Her entire purpose on the world’s last working train is to prevent would-be insurgents from inciting rebellion. And she is creepy as fuck in doing so. Nobody taunts a dude about losing an arm like Tilda Swinton. For her part, Dern earns lavish praise for being placed in a Jessie Royce-Landis-ish position. She plays the mother of Reese Witherspoon, an actress only a few years younger than her. Dern’s character dies when Witherspoon’s is still young, yet she is so inspirational that her daughter begins a journey in order to feel closer to her. Between The Fault in Our Stars and Wild, Laura Dern is officially back.
Our final selections in Best Supporting Actress are Carmen Ejogo, Rene Russo and Jillian Bell. Ejogo portrays Coretta Scott King, the wife of a spiritual and civil rights leader who happens to consider marital fidelity problematic. Ejogo brings tremendous grace to the role. Russo tries to hire a guy to boost her television program’s ratings. First, she gets blackmailed and then her situation gets really bad. Russo is one of the great actresses of our era, and it’s always nice to watch her remind the world of this fact. As for Bell, she kiss-fights Jonah Hill during the most unforgettable scene of the year. Anybody who has ever had a creepy roommate will absolutely adore her portrayal, and we believe that she has the potential to follow the same career trajectory as Rebel Wilson if not surpass her.
Narrowly missing selection this year are Anna Kendrick and Meryl Streep for Into the Woods, Jessica Chastain (yes, again) for A Most Violent Year, Sienna Miller for American Sniper, and Tilda Swinton and Saoirse Ronan for Grand Budapest Hotel. Split movie votes really hurt the candidacies of a few actresses this year.
2015 Calvin Awards
Calvins Intro
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture