It’s hard to know why perhaps the story of a mother who hates her children is too off putting or perhaps it’s regarded as too small in scope. It started off as a favourite but has ended up an also-ran. Something strange has happened to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter as awards season has progressed. Plus, she can sing, dance and act which makes her a rare and true Hollywood player. But DeBose makes herself the centre of attention, with a dynamism and emotional register that reveals the lack of depth in some of the other performances around her. It’s the most committed and passionate thing in a film that, for all its skill and daring, has failed to register much love this awards season. Her performance as Anita in West Side Story has swept all before it. The trouble is, he makes Phil so dislikable, he may have alienated voters. It’s an astonishing performance, so removed from his normal range that it seems uncanny. The British actor’s failure to take the BAFTA means his Oscar chances are slimmer than slim, yet he is unlikely to produce a better performance on screen than as the dark and repressed Phil Burbank, whose sheer malignity and sly brutality create the evil centre of The Power of the Dog. Victory will make him only the fifth Black man to win Best Actor after Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, and Forest Whitaker. Smith brings a weary dignity and a sense of purpose to a role that could all too easily have been sentimentalised. He’s already taken the BAFTA, the SAG award and the Critics’ Choice for his portrayal of Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, and the man who planned and predicted their success. If the popular Smith doesn’t waltz off with this Oscar, then a lightning bolt will probably strike the Dolby Theatre.
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