Now that Juno has won a big festival prize and Fox Searchlight has revamped its release plan to make the teen sex melocomedy look more like a prestige picture, various bloggers are have begun to seriously consider the film’s Oscar chances. I still think Searchlight would be better off selling this movie to teenagers than to the Academy dinosaurs, but if everyone else is doing it, I’ll play along.
I’m sure Searchlight will push for nominations for screenwriter Diablo Cody and lead actress Ellen Page. I think both pieces of work are sufficiently spectacular (in multiple senses of the word) to secure a nod, but despite the Academy’s love of ingenues, I think when it comes down to vote time the general consensus will that both will do better work once their talents mature a bit. This must be what everyone else is thinking, too, because out of nowhere, people are starting to talk (see the comments on this post) about Jennifer Garner’s work as the title character’s would-be adoptive baby mama as worthy of a Best Supporting Actress nomination. It’s not–which doesn’t mean it won’t get nominated, but I think that would be serious over-praise. It’s not bad work by any means, but there are at least three finer performances in that movie.
Searchlight probably doesn’t have the guts to push Jason Bateman for Best Supporting Actor, but man, I’d like to see them try. He’s absolutely the catalyst for everything Garner does, as well as much of Page’s performance in the film’s middle section. He transforms from the heroine’s confidant to, essentially, the film’s villain in the space of a single scene. And we’ve never seen subtlety like this from Bateman before. Even fans of his straight-man work in Arrested Development should be impressed. The big story of 2007 will be the emergence of the comedy with unexpected depth (it’s actually a throwback to the 30s, but that’s a discussion for another time). The performances of Bateman, Page and Michael Cera in Juno embody that theme, and deserve to be recognized as such.
A side note: Searchlight’s sudden post-fall festival focus on Juno must suck for the team behind Waitress. Certainly, no one could be mad that a film made for about a million dollars has grossed $20 million, but back in June, Keri Russell looked like a lock for a Best Actress nomination. Now … she doesn’t.
