Wives square off for Oscar

2006-02-24 12:31

Los Angeles - A fearless wife and a frightened wife lead the supporting-actress race for the Academy Awards.

Rachel Weisz is the Oscar favourite for The Constant Gardener, though it's a tough category to call, loaded with a mix of veterans and young faces.

A winner at earlier key Hollywood awards, Weisz faces her strongest challenge from Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain, with Amy Adams of Junebug, Catherine Keener of Capote and Frances McDormand of North Country rounding out the field.

Best known for The Mummy movies, Weisz has a gift for imbuing characters with sly intelligence, whether in commercial flicks or artsier films. It was the first Oscar nomination for Weisz, who said she wishes co-star Ralph Fiennes could have been honored as well.

Dominating screen presence

"It's a supporting role I was playing, and I was supporting him, so it is disappointing he wasn't nominated," said Weisz, who won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for supporting actress.

Yet as good as Fiennes is in The Constant Gardener, Weisz dominates her scenes with him. She combines a playful spirit and a fierce independence for her role as a humanitarian-aid worker who gets in the faces of corrupt government and business officials over their questionable practices in Africa.

Seen mainly in flashbacks, her character is something of a mystery woman even to her husband (Fiennes), a British diplomat trying to unravel the puzzles surrounding his wife's fate and determine if their marriage was a sham.

Fellow first-time nominee Williams presents Weisz's main competition. In Brokeback Mountain, she plays a woman in denial over the gay affair her husband (Heath Ledger) is carrying on with an old ranch-hand partner (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Emotional standout

Brokeback Mountain heads into the Oscars as the favourite to win best picture and director for Ang Lee. But if the film grabs an acting trophy, it would most likely be for Williams, who has graduated from her teen TV years on Dawson's Creek to a steady list of indie-film credits such as Dick, The Station Agent and Me Without You.

In a film of intense but understated performances, Williams is the emotional standout, offering a heart-wrenching portrait of a woman torn between her desire to hold her family together and her rage and shame that her husband has passed her over for another man.

A four-time nominee and best-actress winner for Fargo, McDormand is a sturdy, resilient presence in North Country, in which she plays a miner suffering from a debilitating neurological disorder.

Weisz, Williams have the upper hand

Likewise, Keener, a past nominee for Being John Malkovich, is a solid embodiment of To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee in Capote, aiding her lifelong pal Truman Capote in his initial research for the true-crime novel In Cold Blood.

Neither Keener's nor McDormand's roles are the sort that scream Oscar, though, making them long shots against the flashier performances of Weisz and Williams.

First-time nominee Adams has a substantial list of credits behind her, but mostly in smaller roles, so she comes to the Oscars looking like this year's out-of-the-blue newcomer.

In Junebug, Adams is a breath of pure freshness as a wide-eyed sweetheart of a Southern gal entranced by her husband's worldly new sister-in-law. The role earned Adams an acting prize at last year's Sundance Film Festival.

But the more established actresses, Weisz and Williams, have the edge over Adams, who remains in shock over her sudden Oscar attention.

Said Adams: "It'll sink in in about a year."

- AP