Ms. Blanchett disappears into Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There", but she also successfully accomplishes two things: playing a representation of Dylan in the body of another person, and on top of that, interpreting Dylan's persona without it becoming a caricature.  This is not an easy feat to do, especially with about 20 minutes of total screen time to work with.  Another actor may have overplayed the role and made it a gimmick or an impression; Ms. Blanchett, now one of the world's best actors, makes it her own.  She is not playing Bob Dylan, but a perception of him, so it is easy to forget that whom we see on the screen is a woman, but Blanchett plays Dylan so well, so to a tee, that she looks the most like Dylan of all of the men who portray him in the periods of his life.
 

 

Olympia Dukakis plays Marian, a woman whose husband has disappeared under the cloud of Altzheimers, and tries to gain a semblance of normalcy in "Away From Her".  Her character yearns for companionship and she seems to deny herself that inalienable right throughout Sarah Polley's excellent film, but sooner or later the calm methodical demeanor she possesses gives way to an unquenchable feeling.  Ms. Dukakis plays the character as a self-deluded, scornful person, but the way in which she flashes bouts of contradiction in her language and rhetoric is exciting to watch.  Marian's internal wants are completely betrayed by what's occurring on the surface.  There is something almost sensual about Dukakis's performance that just leaps out of the screen -- in the very contradictions that she spouts. 

 

 

 

Her riveting performance as Helene may just get Ms. Ryan the Oscar here, in Ben Affleck's film -- she is mostly unsympathetic, yet strangely righteous and resolute, even in her inactions and inattentiveness as a drug-addled mother who runs with the wrong crowd.  The most interesting thing is that Ryan has a heart of gold as she plays a character who has the heart of ugly, yet loves her precious child.  Amy Ryan also appeared in three other films this year, making the Academy's bet to nominate her here, where she has the showiest performance, a high likelihood.  Ms. Ryan turns herself inside out, and to spectacular effect, crafting a character that is frightening, garish, child-like and scared.
 

 

 

Ms. Sarandon has such expressive eyes and they come into play so memorably in "Elah", with a quiet but highly resonant performance as Joan Deerfield, a grieving mother.  She is especially good in the moments where she has to say na'ary a word.  She is on screen for less than 15 total minutes, but her impact is devastating and her acting fits perfectly within the context of Mr. Haggis' mournful but earnest film.  She speaks loudly in the quietest moments, without even saying a word.  As a contrast, she can currently be seen in "Enchanted", where she hams it up in a showy, theatrical performance, and for all the extravagance of her acting there, neither conveys or approximates the expressiveness of her Joan Deerfield in "In The Valley Of Elah".
 

 

 

Tilda Swinton's quiet work in "Michael Clayton" should also be lauded on nominations day by the Academy.  She plays Karen Crowder, a lawyer systematically committed to the fate of the agricultural corporate giant UNorth, ethics be damned.  Crowder is an unblinking, tremendously self-contained corporate counsel for the large behemoth that George Clooney's title character has to fix, but she never comes undone, even in the end, yet there are traces of the cracks in her armor, the anomalies which indicate so very delicately, so very subtly all along, that the stress of doing the wrong thing in an environment where it is easy to evade the glare of a potential whistleblower, is getting to be a burden.  There is one moment in Swinton's performance that sensationally illustrates this -- and the way that the camera lingers on her during this particular moment is remarkable.  The camera lens is not a voyeuristic insight, it is merely the viewing of the unraveling of a character who silently insists that she is a mistress of the universe in the legal world.  Quite simply, devastating, understated work from Swinton that deserves recognition.

 
 

 

 

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