By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
In 2010, a low-key, low-budget film that opened the previous summer to good word-of-mouth but earned only $12.6 million made it past all the hurdles to win the best-picture Oscar. The trajectory of that movie, The Hurt Locker, reinforced the notion that a worthy gem can find its way to the top — even up against Avatar, the Goliath of blockbusters.
As the year's most indelible performances and noteworthy films are debated, certain candidates gain traction, while others of equal worth are mysteriously left out of the equation. Handsomely financed marketing campaigns play a big part in the process.
To remedy that, USA TODAY film critic Claudia Puig examines some of the less-discussed, less-seen movies, filmmakers and actors who should not be overlooked by Oscar voters when Academy Award nominees are announced Jan. 24.
PICTURE
Last year, the main contest seemed to center on The King's Speech vs. The Social Network. This year's race is more wide open, though terrific movies from late in 2011 such as The Artist and The Descendants will surely figure into the mix. Here's hoping that academy members also remember these smaller films:
•Win Win. This cleverly written and superbly acted gem sadly wasn't seen by enough people, making just $10 million. A deceptively modest chronicle of a family told with humor and tenderness, it may not center on a startling tragedy like The Descendants does, but it is no less moving in its incisive portrayal of complex human behavior. Anchored by Paul Giamatti as a cash-strapped lawyer who makes questionable decisions, the film, written and directed by Tom McCarthy, avoids predictability.
•Beginners.Writer/director Mike Mills weaves an inventively structured, semi-autobiographical tale of a thirtysomething son (Ewan McGregor) whose 75-year-old widowed father (Christopher Plummer) reveals he is gay and has terminal cancer. While the film is wistful and melancholy, it also has a sense of wonder, celebration and wit as the son comes to terms with love's possibilities after his father joyously embraces his final years of life.
•50/50. This film addresses the humor in a cancer diagnosis with surprising finesse and heart, bringing to life characters who feel authentic and in whom we easily invest our emotions. The sweetly funny story is based on writer Will Reiser's own experiences of an illness transformed by friendship. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen are terrific, funny and believable as best friends.
DIRECTOR
The year's end featured movies by Hollywood's heaviest hitters, including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, but there were a variety of stellar filmmaking achievements last year that rivaled or outshone War Horse, Tintin and Hugo:
•David Yates, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Yates has directed the last four films in the Potter franchise with assurance and technical acumen, but the swan song of the bespectacled boy wizard has the most thrills and visual dazzle of them all. It's impossible not to be swept up in the exquisitely staged battle scenes.
•Asghar Farhadi, A Separation. The Iranian director illuminates the complexity of family relationships and keeps a consistently suspenseful tone as a couple in a dissolving marriage in a repressive regime face unexpected consequences. Farhadi weaves this intricate tale with clarity and a remarkable even-handedness.
•Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive. In fashioning the year's most stylish action-thriller, Refn creates a striking blend of hypnotic images and graphic violence that comes off as artistic and gritty. He also constructs a deliberately paced but taut thriller that stars Ryan Gosling as a Los Angeles driver for hire who falls in love with a single mom (Carey Mulligan). While consistently suspenseful, it's more cerebral than most action films.
ACTOR
It's tough to compete with George Clooney or Brad Pitt, but these actors gave superlative performances in little-seen films, and their substantial talents should not go unrecognized:
•Michael Shannon, Take Shelter. Shannon's portrayal of Curtis, a loving husband and father and a foreman for a sand-mining company, is intriguingly ambiguous. At times he seems strangely savvy, other times just daffy. As he unravels, Shannon's anguish and spiraling panic keep us mesmerized.
•Demián Bichir, A Better Life. As Carlos, a hardworking immigrant gardener confined to the margins of society, Bichir is superb. The Mexican-born actor brings nuance, a hardscrabble dignity and heart-wrenching sadness to the part of a stoic father determined to make a better life for his teenage son.
•Brendan Gleeson, The Guard. Playing an oddball small-town Irish cop with a sly sense of humor, he gives an offbeat and likable performance, upon which the darkly comic story of drug trafficking and murder hinges. His character joins forces with a straitlaced FBI agent (Don Cheadle), and the pair clash over methods and morality.
ACTRESS
While it has been a notable year for memorable performances by well-known actresses such as Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Viola Davis, these lesser-known portrayals all have remarkable layers of dignity, depth and dimensionality:
•Amy Ryan, Win Win. As Jackie, the down-to-earth and loving wife of the distracted and stressed Mike (Paul Giamatti), Ryan is strikingly natural and unmannered. She nails the character's innate decency and serves as the film's moral compass, without ever coming off as smug.
•Brit Marling, Another Earth. A Sundance breakout sensation last year who also co-wrote the script, Marling has a range matching that of higher-profile contemporaries. She plays Rhoda, a young woman accepted into MIT who is forever altered by a single life-changing moment. Crippled by guilt in the aftermath, she is haunted and speaks few words but communicates volumes with small gestures and expressions.
•Mia Wasikowska, Jane Eyre. The Australian-born actress delivers possibly the best portrayal of Charlotte Brontë's heroine. She brings the character to life in a more personal and immediate way, palpably conveying Jane's strength and resolve to surmount her terrible childhood. We believe her capable of powerful, but rigidly contained, passions. She adroitly captures the character's quiet intensity and fierce intelligence.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
While front-runners range from venerable veteran Christopher Plummer in a plum role to Jonah Hill in his first serious part, these less-discussed performances are equally worthy:
•Charles Parnell, Pariah. His haunting but understated performance as an NYPD detective, husband and father is complex, fascinating and unpredictable. As Arthur, he is charismatic, alternately affectionate and aloof. He clearly loves his 17-year-old daughter but is in denial about her budding maturity and independence. There is so much that goes unspoken between father and daughter, but Parnell communicates it in the nuances of his character.
•Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Serkis offers one of the year's most mesmerizing and under-appreciated performances. With the aid of motion-capture CGI technology, he brings emotional life and dramatic heft to Caesar, a chimp raised from infancy by Will (James Franco), a scientist seeking a cure for Alzheimer's. Largely because of Serkis' convincing performance, we believe the loving bond between him and Will.
•Patton Oswalt, Young Adult. He nearly steals the movie from Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary with his witheringly witty lines and outwardly cheeky portrayal. Oswalt takes a role that could have been one-note — Matt, the overlooked geeky guy who is quick with a wisecrack and whose locker was next to the popular Mavis' — and gives it dimension, intelligence and poignancy.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
This category has a host of lesser-known or up-and-coming names competing, notably Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer in The Help and Bérénice Bejo in The Artist. But a couple of veterans deserve their due, too:
•Maya Rudolph, Bridesmaids. Co-star Kristen Wiig had the showier role as Annie, but Rudolph's Lillian — the bride over whom all the fuss was about — is superb in a fully fleshed role of an unswervingly loyal friend, convincing in her overall decency but never a pushover.
•Maggie Smith, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. When Smith waves her wand and brings to life the statues around Hogwarts, exclaiming with dignified exuberance, "I've always wanted to do that," we're reminded how much the character of Professor Minerva McGonagall is a magical cornerstone of the series. Smith has been a consistent delight as the strict but kindhearted champion of Potter and his wizardly pals, and in the final installment, she is a highlight.
•Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus. The British actress stands out amid the noise and clatter of this updated Shakespearean tale, nailing the character of an almost diabolically ambitious mother. Her determination to make a politician of her son (Ralph Fiennes) is the film's best performance.
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