Best Actress 1994
Winner: Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
Nominees: Jodie Foster, Nell
Miranda Richardson, Tom & Viv
Winona Ryder, Little Women
Susan Sarandon, The Client

The Field: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


Ranking Oscar's Ballot
 
 My Pick:
Winona Ryder, Little Women ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
After pallid turns in Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Age of Innocence, and even more after her delicious, screwy vivacity in springtime's Reality Bites, Winona Ryder hardly seemed in need of another 19th-century role. But her work in Little Women is instantly more intriguing than she ever was in Dracula or Age, partly because director Gillian Armstrong makes her earn our attention instead of ceding the screen to her outright. Jo March is no more central than any other sister in the opening scenes, and Ryder seems much more comfortable with the ensemble's casual vibe and with the film's subdued style than with Coppola or Scorsese's grandiloquence and the imposing stature of her co-stars in those films. More specifically, she conveys Jo's restlessness without overplaying it, and she bonds compellingly with Christian Bale's Laurie as well as Gabriel Byrne's Professor Baer, so that we have to listen to Jo to understand her ultimate choice, rather than let the actress play obvious favorites among her subplots. Traces persist of Ryder's gauzy bewilderment and stiff bearing—she really should have been nominated for Reality Bites, not just because she breaks out so energetically but because she's so beguiling when she does, and because the limits of the actress meld so much better with the gradually confessed limitations of that character. Still, in admittedly the weakest field this category has ever seen, Ryder's Jo is a laudable achievement. Like Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice, she may not see all the way to the bottom of the character, but she credibly connects with her essence. Without exploiting the pedestal of literary notoriety, she engages the audience's interest and sympathy on her own terms.

From There:
Jodie Foster, Nell ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Jessica Lange, Blue Sky ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Susan Sarandon, The Client ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Sarandon had never won, and The Client made real money, and I guess SAG nominee Meg Ryan as an alcoholic and Globe nominee Meryl Streep as a white-water action hero were too much for the Academy to buy into, so instead this three-time loser got a fourth shot at bat in the fifth-wheel Crowdpleaser slot. She finally won the next year for Dead Man Walking, which is a much worthier tribute to her forceful if fairly predictable acting than The Client ever is. Sarandon hits Sarandon notes—insolent intelligence, solicitous care of children, mature sexiness, wide-eyed but stern alarm—but never throws enough curtain over the fact that she knows the movie is bogus. She, like the audience, comes most alive when she gets to fend off Tommy Lee Jones' comically unctuous but still intimidating turn as a semi-villainous lawyer-politico. Still, while fulfilling the script's request that she basically be her flinty self, Sarandon misses lots of opportunities that a hungrier talent would have seized: annoyance, addiction, uncomfortable intimacy with her mother, an unclear relationship with money, a sidekick rapport with an utterly extraneous Anthony Edwards. Not a bad job of singing for her box-office supper, but below the mark of many other dead-center mainstream performances that are typically overlooked.

Miranda Richardson, Tom & Viv ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Who gets your vote in this field, and on my dream ballot below? VOTE HERE!


My Favorites from 1994:
(As determined by years of Oscar eligibility)

My Pick: Julianne Moore, Vanya on 42nd Street
Nominees: Linda Fiorentino, The Last Seduction
Nominees: Juliette Lewis, Natural Born Killers
Nominees: Melanie Lynskey, Heavenly Creatures
Nominees: Winona Ryder, Reality Bites

Honorable Mentions: Karen Sillas, What Happened Was...; Kate Winslet, Heavenly Creatures; Alberta Watson, Spanking the Monkey; Winona Ryder, Little Women; Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; Sigourney Weaver, Death and the Maiden; Judy Davis, The New Age; Lena Olin, Romeo Is Bleeding; Isabelle Adjani, Queen Margot; Kathleen Turner, Serial Mom


Gourmet Prospects: Crissy Rock, Ladybird, Ladybird

Further Research: Emmanuelle Béart, L'Enfer; Judy Davis, The Ref; Debra Eisenstadt, Oleanna; Verónica Forqué, Kika; Ghalia Lacroix, The Silences of the Palace; k.d. lang, Salmonberries; Demi Moore, Disclosure; Natalie Portman, The Professional; Galatea Ranzi, Fiorile; Meg Ryan, When a Man Loves a Woman; Kristin Scott Thomas, Bitter Moon; Emmanuelle Seigner, Bitter Moon; Sharon Stone, Intersection; Marisa Tomei, Only You; Charlotte Véry, A Tale of Winter; Tran Nu Yên-Khê, The Scent of Green Papaya

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