Sunday may be a night that goes down in Oscar infamy: There appears to be a chance that Brooklyn’s own Lupita Nyong’o will NOT win Best Supporting Actress for her brilliant work.
The overwhelming majority of Oscar prognosticators, including Kyle Smith and me, are still predicting a win for Nyong’o, who gives a searing performance as a plantation owner’s unwilling black mistress in “12 Years a Slave.’’
But Oscar blogger Scott Feinberg of the Hollywood Reporter makes a compelling case for how Jennifer Lawrence of “American Hustle’’ could pull off the kind of upset that often occurs in the Best Supporting Actress category.
JLaw, he says, upset Nyong’o to win at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTA awards — and “no actress in the 21st century has ever lost an Oscar after being recognized by both international groups.’’
An expert statistician who picked 21 out of 24 races last year, Feinberg notes that “American Hustle’’ is one of only 14 films in academy history with four acting nominations — and that only two of them got shut out completely. He states — correctly, I think — that Lawrence has the best shot of the “American Hustle’’ stars.
There is one statistic standing in Lawrence’s way, he acknowledges: Only five performers have ever won back-to-back Oscars. And Lawrence won just last year, as Best Actress, for “Silver Linings Playbook.’’
I am no Jennifer Lawrence hater. Even my lukewarm review of “Silver Linings Playbook’’ heaped praise on her star-making performance — I didn’t think the film would have worked at all without a force-of-nature like her at its center.
And she certainly deserves enormous credit for turning “The Hunger Games’’ into a female-driven franchise. “Catching Fire,’’ the second installment in 2013, was the first top-grossing film of its year starring a woman since “The Exorcist’’ 40 years earlier.
I can’t argue with Feinberg’s contention that Lawrence “steals every scene’’ she’s in in “American Hustle.’’ If it were another year and this were her film debut (instead of the year after she won Best Actress), I wouldn’t have a problem with her winning in this category at all — she’s no Mira Sorvino.
But through no fault of the hugely (and deservedly) popular actress, it’s an inherently showy part in a lightweight caper film that’s largely “about’’ ’70s hairstyles and costumes.
It’s certainly more “fun’’ than “12 Years a Slave,’’ which forces audiences to ask tough questions about their perceptions of American history.
Unlike Lawrence, Nyong’o has a large role that could easily have been nominated for Best Actress — but the film’s producers decided to push her in the less competitive Best Supporting Actress category, a not uncommon strategy.
When Nyong’o lost at the Globes and then at the BAFTAs, my Twitter feed was filled with outrage — aimed not at Lawrence, but at the utterly clueless voters for both organizations. The New York Film Critics Circle, which suspended my membership for publishing vote totals, also chose Lawrence over Nyong’o for their annual awards.
I get the distinct feeling that a loss by Nyong’o at the Oscars will be taken by many as a slap in the face to African-Americans — a group that happens to be one of Hollywood’s most loyal audience groups — and as one of the academy’s biggest blunders.
I’m hoping academy voters, who are somewhat image-conscious, get this. Balloting closed Tuesday night; we’ll see what happens on Sunday night.