Robert Downey, Jr. simply gained the Oscar for Greatest Supporting Actor for his function in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. “I want to thank my horrible childhood and the Academy, in that order,” Downey quipped as he accepted his trophy. The award, which represents Downey’s first Oscar win and third nomination, is a barely odd achievement, one which highlights the ambiguities of the Academy’s two Supporting classes.
Downey unquestionably turns in a terrific efficiency in Oppenheimer, placing all his nervy, twitchy charisma on full show. But Downey’s portion of Oppenheimer can also be arguably the least important a part of the movie. It’s a bureaucratic subplot about Downey’s character Lewis Strauss making an attempt to get his appointment as Commerce secretary accredited by the Senate, many years after the development of the atomic bomb. You may learn thematic significance into the Strauss elements of Oppenheimer, however there’s quite a bit much less juice to them than there’s to the grand, tragic story of Oppenheimer constructing the bomb.
Da’Vine Pleasure Randolph, who gained Greatest Supporting Actress tonight, is in an identical scenario. Randolph, enjoying boarding college prepare dinner Mary in The Holdovers, makes her character work in full defiance of the script. Mary is essentially the most underwritten half within the trio on the coronary heart of the movie, however Randolph makes her tragically human via the sheer power of her presence.
These two wins operate as a case examine of kinds. They ask the query: Do the Greatest Supporting classes merely reward high quality of efficiency, taking nothing else under consideration? Or do they reward performances for the way effectively they assist a bigger story? Traditionally, the Academy has had hassle coming to a consensus on the best way to reply that query.
The Supporting classes are tough to outline, and so vulnerable to controversy that that is truly Downey’s second barely controversial nomination within the class. (He was nominated in 2009 for Tropic Thunder, a movie for which he donned blackface.) Some ambiguity is even baked into the design of the Oscars. The Academy’s official guidelines state that any performer can enter the competitors in both the lead or supporting classes, and that voters within the Performing Department of the Academy can determine individually the place every efficiency belongs.
This ambiguity makes the Supporting classes significantly vulnerable to class fraud, when studios enter actors who’re clearly in lead roles into the Oscars beneath the Supporting class in order that they’ll have a greater likelihood of successful. In 2018, The Favorite clearly had three main actresses, however to keep away from splitting their vote, the studio entered Olivia Colman as Greatest Actress and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as Greatest Supporting Actress. (Truthful’s honest: Colman didn’t have an Oscar on the time, however Stone and Weisz each did. Colman gained hers that 12 months after her co-stars acquired out of her method.) In 2016, Fences was a two-hander with screentime nearly equally break up between Viola Davis and Denzel Washington, however Washington was nominated for Greatest Actor and Davis for Greatest Supporting Actress.
On the different finish of the spectrum, some Greatest Supporting nominees barely even seem within the film for which they win. In 1959, Hermione Baddeley was nominated for simply two minutes of screentime in Room on the High, whereas Beatrice Straight gained for six minutes in Community in 1977. Extra just lately, Judi Dench infamously gained Greatest Supporting Actress in 1999 for enjoying Queen Elizabeth for eight minutes in Shakespeare in Love. “I really feel for eight minutes on the display screen, I ought to solely get just a little little bit of him,” Dench quipped of the Oscar in her acceptance speech.
The screentime controversies develop into particularly instructive after we take a look at the events the place they don’t come up. Like Dench in Shakespeare in Love, Viola Davis solely seems in Doubt (2008) for about eight minutes complete. But Davis’s efficiency is so riveting, so expressive of the shades of ambiguity and ethical compromise that makes Doubt work, that hardly anybody complained when she was nominated for Greatest Actress. To today, her work in Doubt is taken into account one of many nice small performances.
That Davis’s eight-minute nomination will get remembered as a triumph, whereas Dench’s eight-minute win is remembered extra as a type of Harvey Weinstein machinations, suggests that individuals aren’t involved about how lengthy the Supporting performers are on display screen a lot as they care about what sort of impression these Supporting performers are capable of create. For this weird, ambiguous class, what issues much less is screentime and extra what sort of impact you’re capable of put over in assist of an even bigger story.
That’s a check that Randolph passes in The Holdovers, however that Downey arguably fails in Oppenheimer. It’s been 16 years since I noticed Doubt, and I nonetheless keep in mind the best way Davis flicked her eyes to 1 facet as she thought-about what to do about her son’s questionable relationship with a priest. But as technically polished as Downey’s flip as Strauss is, I forgot what most of his deliveries gave the impression of inside weeks of watching Oppenheimer.
Downey is a wonderful actor. The big highlight of his presence is central to what made the Marvel Cinematic Universe not simply potential however, briefly, thrilling. He’s equally able to narrowing that mild into the centered depth of a efficiency just like the one he turned in with 1987’s Much less Than Zero. He’s a genius of calibration, and he deserves to have an Oscar. That his Oscar got here from this efficiency specifically feels prefer it’s going to be an odd little bit of trivia 10 years from now.
