It happened last year for Cate Blanchett. The actress starred in a biopic that critics ripped to shreds, a film that basically bombed at the (American) box office, and yet she managed to score a Best Actress nomination for her reprised performance as the titular monarch of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Additionally, Blanchett earned another nomination for Best Supporting Actress the same year, for her portrayal of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. Now Josh Brolin could achieve a similar feat this year, not just by earning separate nominations for playing the titular president of W. and portraying politician-turned-assassin Dan White in Milk, but also by overcoming the difficulty of earning recognition in a lead category for a film that otherwise is not very well regarded. Are Brolin’s hurdles higher than Blanchett’s, though? With all the praise he’s received for W., he’s still far from being considered a sure thing candidate, regardless of his worthiness or the Academy’s history of oftentimes ignoring the critics and the grosses when nominating dependable, standout actors.
And boy, does Brolin stand out. Despite giving a strong, surprisingly grounded performance in W., the actor is almost in a world of his own in the film. The supporting players mostly miss their marks, whether through overshot caricature (Thandie Newton’s stroke-faced, alien-voiced Condoleeza Rice) or an apparent lack of effort (Scott Glenn looks bored and unrecognizable as Rumsfeld, while Toby Jones for some reason offers a Karl Rove who’s more huggable than slimy). Both problems may have been due to an unclear decision on the film’s intended tone, but regardless, the script is way too simpleminded, as if adapted from the sitting president’s Wikipedia page. Brolin is the only person who keeps the film interesting and engrossing by making the character his own rather than going for total impersonation. Some of his movements and inflections consist of outright aping, but his personalization allows for unpredictability in much of his execution. Certainly it’s a performance as good as Joaquin Phoenix’s in Walk the Line and Jamie Foxx’s in Ray. Perhaps if W. were about a musician-turned-president, with Brolin offering his own singing voice, his nomination would be more assured?
So far it seems he’s hardly being considered. Sites ranking the actor’s chances in chart form include And the Winner Is…, which places him tenth in the running, Entertainment Weekly, which puts him alphabetically somewhere between ninth and thirteenth while calling him a long shot, Movie City News, which lists him seventh with a comment that he deserves the nom “111%”, and In Contention, which also puts him at seventh place. Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells merely includes him as one of eight contenders for the lead actor category, which is at least more of an approval than the others.
So what are those hurdles that are keeping him out of the fortunate five? As of this past weekend, W. is down to 17th place in its fourth weekend at the box office, and it hasn’t yet even passed the $25 million mark domestically. Not that a film needs to be a hit with moviegoers to make a difference with the Academy, though, right? This time last year, Elizabeth: The Golden Age was similarly fading from the interests of ticket buyers in its fifth week, having made a meager $16 million. And of the ten Best Actor nominees of the last two years, half came from films that grossed less than W. Then there are the film’s poor reviews, which have earned W. a Metacritic score of 56. Compared to Elizabeth: The Golden Age’s score of 45, that’s not actually too much of a drawback. And if the Academy can nominate Sean Penn for I Am Sam in spite of that movie’s reception (Metacritic score of 28!), it shouldn’t have any problem with a performance from a picture that at least somewhat pleased more than 50% of critics.
Of course, Penn was and is an Oscar vet. So was Blanchett, who had already been nominated for the same role in the first Elizabeth. It wouldn’t be surprising if some Academy members voted for her Elizabeth: The Golden Age performance without even having seen the movie. Meanwhile, Brolin’s greatest film honor as of yet is being one-seventh of the SAG Award-winning ensemble cast of No Country for Old Men. Last year he may have deserved a double nomination for his lead performance in that film and his supporting bit in American Gangster, but he failed to garner the Academy’s notice. Though some people see Brolin garnering two nominations this year as a way of making up for his prior snubs, the actor’s lack of past favor shall also be a disadvantage for him. The best way for him to be locked for a nomination is to receive some tremendous love from the early determining critics circle awards. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen, because actors like Penn and Mickey Rourke are bound to fill the hearts of those awards’ voters.
Another hurdle seems to be the role Brolin plays, though not necessarily due to the focal figure being so contemporary. The portrait of President Bush is indeed one of the most present-minded biopics in years. However, with a retrospective window of only five years in its most recent setting, W. is hardly any different than The Queen, a not-quite-biopic film that presents an Oscar-winning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II set only nine years in the past. W. deals with a more touchy subject for Academy members, though, it being about a more disliked and derided leader who has actually been the president of most voters for the past eight years. And the same factors that are keeping audiences away from the film in theaters, regardless of what their politics may be, will probably similarly affect Academy voters’ hesitance to put on that screener DVD.
If Academy voters aren’t willing to watch the performance now, though, perhaps they can give it the same twenty years they had between Nixon’s presidency and Oliver Stone’s biopic of that other unlikable president. Maybe in 2028 W. could be the innaugural film nominated in a much-needed future category that retroactively honors should-have-been-awarded performances?
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