Anora’s Mikey Madison is a slam-dunk to win the Best Actress Oscar on Sunday, 3.2.25 (six months hence!) because of a few combining factors but mainly two.
One, her performance is one of those guns-blazing, force-of-nature, hurricane-strength grand slams that can’t be brushed aside…a bloom-of-youth, prime-of-life fastball that streaks across the plate at 105 mph.
Not so much during the first third of the film, mind, but starting a bit shy of the one-hour mark after her sex-worker character’s fairytale fantasy (immense wealth through marriage! endless partying! security for life!) comes to an abrupt, screeching halt.
And two, despite the rage and chaos that pours into her life like a flash flood after the parents of her immature, waste-of-skin Russian husband get involved, Anora (she prefers to be called “Anni”) is essentially a Cinderella figure —- a young, struggling, hard-knocks scrapper who is scooped up and saved and then knocked down and brutally pushed around only to be re-saved (or at least blessed by a life-changing emotional breakthrough) at the very end.
Everyone loves a Cinderella story, especially if, as in Anora’s case, it avoids the sentimental, sappy stuff and goes for broke with relentless hellzapoppin’ and a “don’t fuck with me” spitfire attitude.
There are no other 2024 Best Actress contenders or performances (young, older, anyone) who come close to delivering this kind of current.
Madison will win for the same reason Jennifer Lawrence won for her eccentric, emotionally unbalanced but open-hearted protagonist in Silver Linings Playbook. You just knew Lawrence had it in the bag.
What other Cinderella-type roles have resulted in Oscar jackpots, or at least heavily favored Best Actress nominations?
Audrey Hepburn won for playing a spiritually confined princess who is released after falling in love with Gregory Peck in in Roman Holiday (‘53). She was Best Actress nominated the following year for playing another Cinderella character —- a chauffeur’s daughter —- in Sabrina (‘54).
Julia Roberts’ performance as Vivian in Pretty Woman (‘90) was also nominated for Best Actress, although she lost to Misery’s Kathy Bates. Roberts did, however, win the Golden Globe trophy for Best Actress a few weeks prior.
Who else?
