The Verdict -- Best Supporting Actress 1985

#5. Anjelica Huston in Prizzi's Honor: Anjelica is the first winner to receive a last place ranking from me, and that's due to her uneven but memorable performance as Maerose Prizzi. Her opening scenes rank among the best of these five ladies, but the amount of lackluster scenes that pile up after that dull her impact incredibly. Still, this is a performance with many classic lines and moments, and one that I used to despise and now only feel mostly ambivalent towards. Chalk that up as a small victory for Anjelica, I suppose.

#4. Meg Tilly in Agnes of God: Clearly the most out-there performance of the batch and thus the hardest to compare with her fellow nominees, but Meg Tilly sure does entertain as Sister Agnes. My closing thoughts in my review still stand, and I still have trouble describing my opinions on her memorably strange turn. She's a very unlikable and grating character, but she almost single-handedly makes the film work, and somehow makes her character not only believable but more believable than the two pedigreed actresses that costar in her film. Wonderfully weird is a good way to describe this one, I suppose.

#3. Amy Madigan in Twice in a Lifetime: I have literally never heard anything about Amy Madigan or this film before reviewing her performance, so I was pleasantly surprised to find her performance in Twice in a Lifetime to be a very strong one despite the dubiousness of the film. She's the film's trump card, and she makes the movie work almost single-handedly with her dynamic energy and forceful unwillingness to let her family off the hook. Her performance may not be as memorable or as over the top as her fellow nominees, but her restraint and self-awareness make this performance completely nomination-worthy.

#2. Margaret Avery in The Color Purple: These long four months have been the most beneficial to Margaret Avery, as her performance has climbed it's way up two spots after my initial viewing found me significantly less satisfied with it. But I'm glad I've seen the light, because this is a very elegant and graceful performance that fits very well with her director's style. Her Shug Avery may not be as fleshed out as she could be, but what she's lacking in raunch she makes up for in pure emotional impact and phenomenal chemistry with Whoopi Goldberg. If she had sung her own songs, this might have even been a half a point higher.

#1. Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple: Though I fell in love with both of the Color Purple ladies, there was no denying that Winfrey's Sofia is my choice in this strong year. She's the least realistic character in The Color Purple, and is very often cartoonish, but by the time she circles back around and absolutely breaks your heart you don't even really care about that anymore. Larger than life, and as entertaining as can be I have no shame in my love for this performance.

The Year in Review: The amount of time it took me to complete this year should not be looked at as a commentary on the quality of these ladies' performances, but rather a commentary on my lack of motivation and extreme business over the last few months. In what seems to be a running theme, of these 4 films I really didn't like three of them (I give you 0 guesses as to which ones), though for the most part these ladies were the best parts of their respective movies. In an ideal world, the three ladies from Clue would have been duking it out for the Oscar, and I'd be satisfied with any of them having won really. But alas. Not to take anything away from Oprah, who is fantastic. I have another year already lined up, but I'm going to play it smart and get at least two or three reviews in the can before I even announce it. I'll throw out a useless hint: It's a year from 2000s with 2 nominees sharing a single film.

Shoulda Been a Contender: Eileen Brennan in Clue; Madeline Kahn in Clue; Lesley Ann Warren in Clue


All Supporting Actress Nominees Ranking:

1. Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker" (1962)
2. Dorothy Malone in "Written on the Wind" (1956)
3. Thelma Ritter in "Pickup on South Street" (1953)
4. Linda Hunt in "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1983)
5. Anna Paquin in "The Piano" (1993)
6. Cher in "Silkwood" (1983)
7. Eileen Heckart in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
8. Emma Thompson in "In the Name of the Father" (1993)
9. Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights" (1997) 
10. Ellen Burstyn in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
11. Oprah Winfrey in "The Color Purple" (1985)
12. Patty McCormack in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
13. Claire Trevor in "Dead End" (1937)
14. May Whitty in "Night Must Fall" (1937)
15. Margaret Avery in "The Color Purple" (1985)
16. Mildred Dunnock in "Baby Doll" (1956)
17. Angela Lansbury in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
18. Ethel Waters in "Pinky" (1949)
19. Amy Madigan in "Twice in a Lifetime" (1985)
20. Meg Tilly in "Agnes of God" (1985)
21. Gloria Stuart in "Titanic" (1997)
22. Alfre Woodard in "Cross Creek" (1983)
23. Barbara Harris in "Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" (1971)
24. Geraldine Page in "Hondo" (1953)
25. Anne Shirley in "Stella Dallas" (1937)
26. Amy Irving in "Yentl" (1983)
27. Kim Basinger in "L.A. Confidential" (1997)
28. Shirley Knight in "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962)
29. Cloris Leachman in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
30. Margaret Leighton in "The Go-Between" (1971)
31. Rosie Perez in "Fearless" (1993)
32. Mercedes McCambridge in "All the King's Men" (1949)
33. Joan Cusack in "In & Out" (1997)
34. Anjelica Huston in "Prizzi's Honor" (1985)
35. Ann-Margret in "Carnal Knowledge" (1971)
36. Donna Reed in "From Here to Eternity" (1953)
37. Glenn Close in "The Big Chill" (1983)
38. Alice Brady in "In Old Chicago" (1937)
39. Mary Badham in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) 
40. Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993)
41. Celeste Holm in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
42. Ethel Barrymore in "Pinky" (1949)
43. Minnie Driver in "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
44. Thelma Ritter in "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) 
45. Winona Ryder in "The Age of Innocence" (1993)
46. Grace Kelly in "Mogambo" (1953)
47. Mercedes McCambridge in "Giant" (1956)
48. Marjorie Rambeau in "Torch Song" (1953) 
49. Elsa Lanchester in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
50. Andrea Leeds in  "Stage Door" (1937)

Meg Tilly in Agnes of God

Meg Tilly received her first and only Oscar nomination to date for her performance as Sister Agnes in Norman Jewison's Agnes of God. Tilly plays a novice nun who gives birth and claims the dead child was a result of a virgin conception. Jane Fonda and Anne Bancroft play a psychiatrist and mother superior respectively who butt heads in the resulting police investigation. The film itself is an exceedingly dull experience, with the two female leads giving weak, directionless performances that only highlight the stagey blandness of the material. Through the overall strange nature of her role, Tilly is immune to the banality of her film by being the only performer who holds your attention. Sister Agnes has to be one of the most unique and just plain strange characters to be nominated for this award, which makes Meg Tilly's performance a really hard one to review, much less to give a rating. The character is just on a whole other wavelength from most Oscar-nominated characters.

Sister Agnes isn't just a naive girl, she's a young woman who has spent the entirety of her life away from the rest of civilization under the sole care of an abusive mother who never taught her anything in the ways of sexuality or even just much general education. She's uncommonly confident in her skewed opinions and views, and sticks to the things her mother taught her despite everyone around her saying otherwise. Meg Tilly plays this bizarre (almost cult-like) dedication and naivety with various layers of sweetness. She has some obvious physical advantages, with her childlike face and baby voice (which is as grating as her sister's, albeit in a completely different way) allowing her immediate sympathy. Each scene seems to reveal an additional layer of Sister Agnes, and she gets progressively more unsettling, crazy, and otherworldly as the film progresses.

One thing Meg Tilly is not during this course of Agnes of God is subtle, but in this case that's probably a good thing. A character as unstable (and frankly, unrealistic) as Agnes isn't one that an actress needs to ground or base in reality because she's by design a unique, strange creation. Were Tilly playing Fonda or Bancroft's character her unsettling and glazed over delivery would be out of place, but it fits the role of Sister Agnes snugly. Tilly isn't afraid to dive into the outlandishness of her character, and she succeeds in making her the most interesting aspect of the film through pure watchability. It's a bold performance in which Tilly fully understands the absurdity of her character and embraces it wholeheartedly.

This performance is surely not to be for everyone, and I'd venture to guess that many probably even despise it. I'll admit that this was among the toughest performances for me to write about, much less rate. She just has a puzzling effect that changes from scene to scene. It's just so out there and it's own type of acting that comparing this to other performances of a completely different nature (sort of like Patty Duke's Oscar winning performance) is near impossible. Meg Tilly's presence is always felt in the film, and she does well in making Agnes memorable but never quite likeable. That's not to say Agnes needs to be likeable in the film, but makes it more difficult to rate. It's just a unique accomplishment that I feel will take me awhile to fully describe my thoughts on coherently. For now, I settled on 4/5 Fancy Funerals. That's just the rating that feels right to me.

Best Supporting Actress 1985

And the nominees were....

• Margaret Avery as Shug Avery in The Color Purple
• Anjelica Huston as Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor (winner)
• Amy Madigan as Sunny Sobel in Twice in a Lifetime
• Meg Tilly as Sister Agnes in Agnes of God
• Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple 

The Field: It's been a while since I've done a year from the 80's, so I was pleased to see this year come up, even if I was kind of hoping to do a year from the 2000's. But I'm a stickler for keeping it random, and this year is one I'm excited for too. The Color Purple is one of those classics that I'm ashamed I haven't seen yet, so that is easily the film I'm most looking forward to. I've seen Prizzi's Honor but don't have particularly fond memories of the film itself, so hopefully this time around the experience will improve. Amy Madigan is the first up, and hopefully sooner rather than later.