Dying is easy, comedy is hard. However, in the eyes of the Oscars, comedy isn’t equal. Comedies are rarely taken seriously and when they are they are rarely broad comedies.
With Olivia Colman taking home the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in comedy The Favourite, I took to #FilmTwitter to find other comedic performances that should have been nominated for Oscars. Here are some of those answers.
When I first posed the question — and yes, I see the typo — the first performance that came to mind was Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. As ridiculous as the movie is — the bend and snap scene, her Harvard admissions “essay” — what lands her on this list are the smaller moments.
Witherspoon’s performance as Elle Woods has a lot of nuances. There are small moments in her physicality and facial expressions that make Elle a three-dimensional character. One of my favorite moments is her introducing herself to a group of students. Her physicality is so confident and unaware that she’s different. It’s those character moments that make her performance great.
Lady Bird, at its core, is a film about learning that the interior lives of those around you are just as complicated as your own. While Laurie Metcalf received the sole supporting acting nomination for the film, Beanie Feldstein deserves her due as the titular role’s best friend Julie. Throughout the film Feldstein brings so much warmth to her scenes, giving Lady Bird’s social life a depth that is missed as she goes through dalliances with popular friends and boyfriends which pull her away from her best friend for much of the film’s second act.
When we finally see Julie again on prom night, Feldstein delivers the gut-punch, ‘some people just aren’t built happy, you know?’ It is a turning point for both Julie and Lady Bird who spend the rest of their senior year together closer than ever for maybe the last time in their lives. Feldstein’s charisma, longing, and easy chemistry with Saoirse Ronan is what makes this side of Lady Bird’s journey work and brings this theme to the forefront in a way that completely compliments Metcalf’s and she should have been given the consideration her work deserves.
Emily Blunt not getting an Oscar nom for nearly overshadowing Meryl Streep’s excellence in The Devil Wears Prada? That, I can’t even talk about. Playing an eccentric character sharing her own name (further evidence that she was destined for the role) Ms. Blunt stole the show by subtly layering her character—what could have been a cliché, two-dimensional trope was instead a fully formed woman struggling in the ruthless fashion industry with whom the audience could empathize.
I should know—I quit the fashion world gig for greener pastures. Fashion people come off as shallow and cut-throat but share a drink (or a cube of cheese) with a fashionista, and most people will find a cunning individual in pursuit of cultural excellence.
Blunt understood this, and portrayed Emily as the fully realized demi-Miranda: struggling with the same limitations as her foil, Andy, but overcoming them with gusto—and some well-chosen Valentino. But the sight of Blunt tearing up as she reminds Andy that the couture clothes she’s been bequeathed will need to be taken in, lest they drown her (after all, Andy ate carbs) is what really should have locked in the prize for her: a declaration that Emily may have been cold and demeaning and occasionally rude, but she only did so because she loves her job (she loves her job, she loves her job.) That’s all.
Can you believe Blunt achieved instant-classic status as an acid-tongued assistant to Meryl Streep’s fashion mogul—serving devastating snark and the film’s most quotable one-liners—and didn’t get Oscar recognition for her comedic brilliance? “No, I shan’t.”
Jack also has a great post with his list of comedic performances that deserved Oscar nominations on backstage.com!
Regina King has turned in so many incredible performances throughout her career — including a career-best in Support the Girls — but her career highlight will always be her performance as Brenda in the Scary Movie franchise.
Throughout the four films that she was in, she delivered one-liner after on-liner without missing a beat and nailing her delivery every time. From “you on candid camera now!” to “Cindy, the TV’s leaking” there isn’t a line she delivers without making it truly iconic. She is the scene stealer to end all scene stealers.
The last thing I want to do is overstate things, but Picasso is to modernism as Joan Cusack is to comedic line delivery. Her role as the perky serial killer Debbie in Addams Family Values is a triumph throughout, but the frenzied climax of the film shows Cusack at her manic best. Imagine a world where her charmingly unstable monologue delivered to a family of Addams strapped to electric chairs was part of Joan Cusack’s Oscar clip back at the 1993 Academy Awards ceremony.
Sadly, true geniuses are rarely recognized in their time. But the way she rants, “I was a ballerina: graceful, DELICATE!” – it’s true art. And honestly, game recognizes game. The decision to make her victims sit through a slideshow of all her perceived grievances is a ridiculously over-the-top power move and I respect the hell out if it.
Richard Linklater’s School of Rock is a near-masterpiece that pits passion against place and dreams against ambition. As Dewey Finn (or Ned Schneebly as he’s known by most throughout the film), Jack Black impressively embodies a character who has reached a crossroad in his life in which the person he wants to be is at war with the person he is. At the end of his rope but dreaming out loud, Dewey fakes his identity and becomes a substitute teacher at a prep school where he forms a secret band with the students in his class.
While Dewey is teaching music and off-kilter but nevertheless important life-lessons to young students – as well as leading their class band – Black’s vibrant enthusiasm and passion for the material is unparalleled, and one has to wonder where the character ends and Jack Black begins. It’s the performance of a lifetime, and the very soul of Linklater’s film.
Reviews may have been mixed when this film debuted, but this surprise box office hit has become a cult classic thanks to its triple dose of comedic chemistry. With well-known leads who had just stepped into their 50s, it defied the notion that films of its kind couldn’t draw in audiences. Few actresses of that era could have pulled off the role of Elise Elliot with as much indelible gusto as Goldie Hawn.
Under her crafty characterization, the boozy, self-centered aging movie star is rescued from being a mere caricature, and is instead imbued with a sharp, crackling presence. By the end of the film’s infinitely quotable confrontation, she gives a performance that unexpectedly shifts from absurd petulance to subtle vulnerability.
The yin to the yang of Billy Crystal’s Harry, Meg Ryan’s Sally may be most famous for a certain scene in a diner, but this performance, while brilliant in the few loud moments it provides, shines most brightly in its quieter moments. The blankness of her face when she discloses the one distinguishing factor in her recurring dreams. Her casual insistence that she never would have felt a certain way about the ending of CASABLANCA (when her emphatic declaration earlier in the film suggests otherwise).
Her brief glow and glimpse of affection that suggests the possibility of being more than friends with Harry – and the instantaneous disappearance of that glow. Her uncanny transition from tissue-soaking sobs to laughter… then back to sobs. Ryan’s Sally is wholly realized – far more human than any page can convey – which makes her rapport with Crystal’s caustic Harry all the more believable and charming. The American romantic comedy wouldn’t be the same without this masterful performance from one of cinema’s most incandescent actresses.
One of Sam Rockwell’s great abilities is the complete effortless way he is able to maneuver between drama and comedy. When he commits to the latter, it can be a truly wonderful thing to behold, and you certainly see that in his performance in The Way Way Back. Rockwell inhabits a familiar prototype: the adult confidant of a bookish teenager whose boorish antics help to pull the young person out of their shell.
But Rockwell still manages to make this character feel so engaging. His razor-sharp quips are handily employed, and he has excellent chemistry with the entire ensemble. Even still, he can produce a more grounded portrayal for tender pathos that doesn’t lose the comedic edge. Rockwell never becomes the focal point of the film, but his warm presence and care-free attitude combined with sincerity for the friendships around him make his performance the most captivating element of it.
There is no recipe for an Oscar-nominated performance, but we all know drama is an ingredient the Academy tends to prefer. Even though Keri Russell has great dramatic moments in Waitress, she soars when the bittersweet humor is the focus of the wonderful script. The way the actress changes her face from confusion to happiness in a particular scene should be enough for any award to consider her performance one of the best of any year.
She nails the tone, letting us laugh at how her character deals with different situations and showing how complex and flawed she is. Keri Russell’s subtle performance has the right amount of graciousness, vulnerability and confidence, which makes it easy for us to fall in love with her the same way everybody falls in love with the pies her character bakes.
Jeff Bridges deserved an Oscar for The Big Lebowski because of his incredible ability to portray a slacker in the best way possible. Many mainstream comedies with that same kind of character miss the point entirely and aren’t able to craft a good character or performance. But Bridges had it in the bag. To perfect his performance, he just didn’t care.
Many of those same mainstream comedies try to push this idea that a slacker character like The Dude would actually care about anything going on around him. That is what The Coen Brothers and Jeff Bridges realized, a character or even a real person like The Dude just wouldn’t care.
Catherine O’Hara has turned in so many incredible performances, especially in Christopher Guest movies like Best in Show and For Your Consideration. But, without question, her greatest achievement is her performance in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.
Not only is she a one-liner scene-stealer, her lines are almost so ridiculous that it’s a wonder she could deliver them without being completely over-the-top or corny. The character is ridiculous, but she does so well at grounding it in a real personality — one that we all know too well. It’s a miraculous achievement.
There are so too many options to list — you can see the whole thread here — but here are a few of my other favorites:
Dance musical Illinoise takes the songs of Sufjan Stevens's album of the same name and… Read More
Challengers follows a decade-long love triangle between three would-be tennis stars that culminates in a… Read More
A group of journalists and war photographers trek from New York to Washington, D.C. while… Read More
Preceding the 1976 classic, The First Omen follows a young nun-to-be who discovers an insidious… Read More
Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man follows an Indian man on a mission for revenge… Read More
After a homophobic attack, a gay man sets out for revenge on his assailant when… Read More
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