It's not set in silver, gold or stone, but here are a few predictions about who the Best Actress nominees will be come the third week of January when the nominees for the 80th Annual Academy Awards are announced.  The Awards will be broadcast live on Sunday, February 24, 2008.

So when January rolls around the actors that are expected to be on Academy voters' ballots will be those below.  The campaigning in Hollywood will begin for these following five leading ladies in the 2007 film year:

Julie Christie is sterling in her role as a woman in her sixties who suddenly develops Altzheimer's Disease, the consequences of which estranges her husband (Gordon Pinsent).  Ms. Christie, a veteran presence, delivers an alternately moving and vulnerable portrayal of Fiona, a woman who has literally disappeared into herself.  Like all good acting, her role is developed from the inside out -- and that interior soul is empty -- yet you know that she is feeling something deep, the remnants of which are twinkling around the edges of her face and in her eyes.  The performance is almost un-self-conscious, even as the character herself is absolutely resolute in her ways.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if Fiona is withdrawing from Grant (Pinsent) because she wants to fade with dignity, or if she withdraws because she has shame around her deteriorating condition.  "Away From Her", a small film, is very good -- one of the best films of 2007.  As directed by Sarah Polley, the Canadian actor, the film takes an un-romanticized look at Altzheimer's and Julie Christie (as well as Mr. Pinsent) takes us on that journey with them.






The favorite of this category will likely be Marion Cotillard, as Edith Piaf, in Olivier Dahan's severely underrated biopic on the life and times of the French songstress icon.  Cotillard superbly executes one of the most physical performances of the year, and Mr. Dahan didn't hold any rehearsals, which makes Ms. Cotillard's work here all the more remarkable.  Piaf comes to life not only through the director's vision, but through the astounding work of Cotillard, and even though the make-up department bears a significant amount of credit, Cotillard has to play a shy, yet confident, scruffy youngster, singing for a gig and recognition, then has to play a singer abused by the methods of an overzealous singing instructor, then has to blossom into the discovered superstar Piaf, then into the arrogant megastar, then as a woman struck by pain and tragedy.  Cotillard goes through all of these phases and does so impressively.  She inhabits the look, heft and emotional depth of the character and makes it her own, without going over the top, and her performance keeps improving as the film progresses.  Just a year ago she played a waitress in Ridley Scott's "A Good Year", and the transformation from that film to this one is shocking.  If anyone is money to win Best Actress Oscar plaudits in 2008, it's Ms. Cotillard.






Like the other performances on this list, few people saw the work of Marina Hands as the title character in Pascale Ferran's three-hour epic "Lady Chatterley".  Ms. Hands' performance is much more subtle than even meets the eye, and the internal flame that burns within her represents both passion and rebellion.  Ms. Hands doesn't make Constance Chatterley a rebel for rebel's sake; it is her unquenchable heart which has been barren of true love, and that heart rules the day.  She loves another man and wants him, and the slight ways in which Ms. Hands conveys this are stunning.  Ms. Hands also gives Chatterley an intelligence and thoughtfulness that brings her character to life, making her fully-realized.  She is not a "body" waiting to be ravished, she is a person who has a powerful mind that transcends the trappings of her empty upper-crust existence.  She has always been a bird, with wings that weren't clipped, but submerged, drowning in the yolk of expectation and convention, and when Ms. Hands emerges from that yolk, she is tender, alive, loving, tormented and sad, at various points.  There is a scene near the end of the film where Constance wrestles so vigorously within herself that it is almost painful to watch as Ms. Hands' character looks for the man she really wants and desires.  Marina Hands' performance is quiet, but also very powerful in its subdued ways, and her acting is worthy of a nomination.
 

Ms. Jolie may be getting lots of attention for her naked virtual animation image as Grendel's Mother in "Beowulf" (which opened on November 16), but she will be getting a whole lot more attention as a lead acting nominee for the film "A Mighty Heart", playing Mariane Pearl, the real-life widow of Daniel Pearl, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal and its South East Asia bureau chief, slain by extremists in Pakistan in early 2002.  Angelina Jolie is convincing as Pearl, who has to hope that her husband isn't in the danger that he in fact is.  The way she has to play innocently while knowing a deeper truth within that is undeniable is both scorching and painful to witness.  There is an especially noteworthy sequence as she has been, or is about to be told, of the murder of her husband.  This scene, plus one involving a child who is playing in the house in the back patio, while Jolie-as-Pearl has to absorb and digest the tragic news, are fascinating acting moments.  Ms. Jolie also has to portray a grieving mother to be, about seven months pregnant, while helping to investigate her husband's disappearance.  In all of these respects, Jolie has to balance all of these variables while remaining true to Mariane Pearl, who is alive and well.  Though other actors (including Tamara Tunie and Sophie Okonedo) would have also done well -- and look more like the real Ms. Pearl than Angelina Jolie does, Ms. Jolie, an Oscar-winner for "Girl, Interrupted" does very well indeed in the film directed by Michael Winterbottom and based on Mariane Pearl's book of the same title. 






Laura Linney has been very busy this year -- in no less than five films -- "Breach", "Jindabyne", "The Hottest State" among them, but it is her work in "The Savages" that should grab Academy voters' attention.  ("The Savages" opens on November 28 in the U.S. and Canada.)  The stage-trained Linney, a New Yorker, delves into her role as Wendy, a self-deluded and compulsive liar in Tamara Jenkins' comedy-drama about a dysfunctional sister (Linney) and brother (Philip Seymour Hoffman, pictured above) who have to decide on an assisted living facility in which to put their ailing and abusive father (Philip Bosco.)  Linney gives Wendy a ruthless and imposing neediness and keeps pushing her character's wants and needs -- however reckless they are -- until the dam breaks.  Wendy is lonely, and as the child of an abusive father -- the scars of her past experiences are reemerging, even if she may have chosen to repress them long ago.  Linney just keeps rolling with the punches that Wendy throws, and she rarely comes up for air.  Wendy is one of Ms. Linney's most blissfully unaware characters.  It is only a matter of time before Laura Linney wins an Oscar, and that time may well be soon if she is nominated here.