Tight Oscar race comes right down to the wire

WILLIAMS AND CLOONEY. Are they the finest performers of them all?

WILL “The Iron Lady” finally break Meryl Streep’s 12-year “losing” streak at the Oscars—or, is Michelle Williams third-time lucky with her rapturous evocation of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic persona in “My Week With Marilyn?” Both actresses took home the coveted drama and comedy-musical prizes at last month’s Golden Globes, but Viola Davis (“The Help”) broke their momentum with her surprising triumph at the Screen Actors Guild awards.

The race between Williams and Streep—who’s on her 17th nomination since 1979’s “The Deer Hunter”—is closer than expected, however: When we polled 36 of Tinseltown’s award-giving bodies (Globes, National Board of Review, etc.), including 25 groups on the critics’ grid (NYFCC, LAFCC, Critics’ Choice, etc.), each of them came up with eight wins, while Davis had five.

Backlash

Ironically, Streep and Williams were followed by actresses who didn’t even make it to the Academy’s Magic Five: Kirsten Dunst (“Melancholia”), Tilda Swinton (“We Need To Talk About Kevin”) and Elizabeth Olsen (“Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene”) had three wins each.

Dunst, who won Best Actress at Cannes, should have made the cut—but, her chances may have been compromised by the backlash that followed director Lars von Trier’s pro-Nazi remarks in France.

Williams captures the essence and magnetism of the Blonde Bombshell, while Rooney Mara (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”) manages to bring out the vulnerability of her gruff and goth-coated character. For her part, Glenn Close (“Albert Nobbs”) is disturbingly empathetic as a woman masquerading as a man in 19th century Ireland—though, given her feminine features, it’s hard to suspend disbelief that she’s anything but a woman.

WILLIAMS AND CLOONEY. Are they the finest performers of them all?

This is what sets Streep’s performance apart. She “completes” her depiction of Margaret Thatcher by looking and sounding like England’s first female prime minister! Her film may lack cohesive focus, but the gifted actress’ portrayal is pitch-perfect and masterful.

The Best Actor derby is also a close call: Despite Jean Dujardin’s (“The Artist”) win at the SAG, Cannes and six other groups, George Clooney—with nine wins for his career-best performance in “The Descendants”—is expected to collect his second Oscar statuette. Like Streep and Williams, both won at the Globes.

Ironically, the Academy’s lapses in judgment are most baffling in the lead actor category—which should have included Venice film fest winner, Michael Fassbender (as a sex addict in “Shame”), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as a cancer victim in “50/50”), Michael Shannon (as a husband plagued by apocalyptic visions in “Take Shelter”), and Leonardo DiCaprio, who turned in the year’s bravest and most complex characterization in Clint Eastwood’s Hoover biopic, “J. Edgar.”

The performances of Brad Pitt (as a baseball team manager in “Moneyball”) and Gary Oldman (who is nominated for the first time, as a British intelligence agent in the ponderous “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) are nothing to scoff at—but, they’re nowhere as compelling as those turned in by the aforementioned foursome. Demian Bichir, who portrays a gardener in “A Better Life,” rounds out the Best Actor bets.

Out of the closet

Interestingly, two actors dominate the Supporting Actor category, each with 13 wins—Christopher Plummer (as a septuagenarian father who comes out of the closet after the death of his wife in “Beginners”) and Albert Brooks (as a terrifyingly sadistic mobster in “Drive”)—but, surprisingly, the latter didn’t even get an Oscar nod!

Joining Plummer in the Academy’s shortlist, instead, are Nick Nolte (as a remorseful alcoholic father in “Warrior”), Jonah Hill (as a statistician in “Moneyball”), Max von Sydow (as a deaf grandfather in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”), and Kenneth Branagh (channelling Laurence Olivier in “My Week With Marilyn”).

With five wins, Octavia Spencer’s (“The Help”) Best Supporting Actress Oscar chances are boosted by her triumphs at the Golden Globes and SAG—but, the thespic spotlight really “belongs” to chameleon-like Jessica Chastain, the year’s biggest breakout star.

Aside from her Oscar-nominated performance in “The Help,” Chastain was similarly memorable in five other award-worthy features: “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter,” “The Debt,” “Texas Killing Fields” and “Coriolanus.”

Completing the Supporting Actress list are Janet McTeer (as a lesbian with a wife in “Albert Nobbs”), Melissa McCarthy (as a raunchy gal pal in “Bridesmaids”), and Berenice Bejo (as an actress in the roaring ’20s). We put the Academy to task for overlooking the understated beauty of Sandra Bullock’s portrayal in the 9/11 drama, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

Meanwhile, the directors’ derby is a toss-up among auteurs, Terrence Malick (seven wins for “The Tree of Life”), Martin Scorsese (six for “Hugo”), Nicolas Winding Refn (six for “Drive”), Alexander Payne (two for “The Descendants”), and Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”), who leads the nine-way race with 10 nods.

Hazanavicius’ silent, black-and-white film tops the Best Picture category, with 14 wins—followed by “The Descendants” (nine), “The Tree of Life” (six), and Hugo (two).

At the heart of “The Artist” is the bond that develops between an older silent-film star (Dujardin) and a rising young actress (Bejo) in 1920s Hollywood, as silent cinema begins to fall out of favor with moviegoers upon the arrival of the “talkies!”