Hasn’t the release of Albert Nobbs this year been a foregone conclusion for a while now? Hasn’t it been more or less presumed that the Best Actress race will likely include Glenn Close performance in Rodrigo Garcia‘s period drama because she’s playing a gender-swap role?

L.A. Times guy Steven Zeitchik is reporting that Liddell Entertainment and Roadside Attractions will open Nobbs domestically in the fall with an Oscar campaign for Close.

In this 1860s Dublin drama, Close is a woman pretending to be a male butler so she can keep up with her bills. The story, Zeitchi reports, “turns on a relationship Nobbs has with a male painter who turns out to have a secret of his own.” Meaning he’s either gay or another woman pretending to be a man…right?

I’m guessing that 2011 Best Actress race will probably include Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady (i.e., because she’s playing Margaret Thatcher), Charlize Theron in Young Adult (because she’s playing a neurotic and curmudgeonly writer) and Close. Who else?

Albert Nobbs costars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, Brendan Gleeson, Pauline Collins, Brenda Fricker, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Janet McTeer.