Four days ago I declared that Kristen Stewart‘s Best Actress campaign is all but finished after being excluded from the 2022 SAG Award nominations. A couple of hours later I asked “What Took KStew Down?”
The latest thing, suggested by Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, is that KStew is now an underdog, and may slip into Best Actress contention on the basis of people feeling sorry for her.
I’ve been a KStew admirer for a good 15 years, give or take. Her greatest, most culturally resonant performance is in Personal Shopper. (Olivier Asssyas!) But right now Stewart is almost certainly toast as a Best Actress Oscar nominee. “I don’t give a shit” did that, I suspect. Plus (I hadn’t considered this at first) there may be a hint of homophobia out there (not very much but a little bit).
The bottom line is that Spencer is a fairly ridiculous film. That AWFUL moment when Diana stumbles into the cafe and says “excuse me but I have to get somewhere….where am I?” Even as a metaphor for something or other, eating the sauce-covered pearl at the dinner table was appalling, and that drop-in-the-bucket Sally Hawkins moment (“By the way, speaking as a servant I love you”) was ghastly. Plus Stewart over-whispered her dialogue. Plus…I can’t continue.
Spencer simply isn’t likable or enjoyable (except during the final music sequence). It was AGONY to sit through. I wanted to throw fruit at the screen. Worse, I was surrounded by an adoring, cheering Telluride audience inside the Galaxy theatre. Torture.
Homophobia sidequote #1: “When it comes to Best Actress there has always been a fuckability factor. ALWAYS. Even with the older actresses. Every so often an unfuckable actress wins. Stewart is out and gay and getting married. I don’t know whether that factors in but I would not be surprised if it didn’t.”
Homophobia sidequote #2: “How ironic that The Power of the Dog could wind up winning the Oscar because of its ‘powerful anti-homophobic, anti-being-in-the-closet message’ (yawn) while KStew gets shut out, in part, because she’s loud and proud and out-of-the-closet.”
Previously listed reasons for the demise of KStew’s Best Actress campaign:
HE theory #1: It wasn’t the quality of Stewart’s performance, but the psychotic dreamscape “Diary of a Mad Princess” vibe of Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer. I never argued that Stewart didn’t give her all — she obviously dove into Larrrain’s vision hook, line and sinker. But the movie was agony to sit through.
HE theory #2: Ever since SAG merged with AFTRA ten years ago, the annual nominations have adopted a downmarket character and, especially since ’16 or thereabouts, focused on representation as much as quality of performance. Stewart might have been edged out, I suspect, by votes for Respect‘s Jennifer Hudson — never a truly serious candidate due to the film’s mediocre reputation, but popular with the SAG-AFTRA rank and file.
HE theory #3: On 11.18.21, Variety‘s Clayton Davis posted a Stewart interview in which she said “I don’t give a shit” about winning an Oscar for Spencer. This might have been a factor.