Charlize Theron among frontrunners for 2019 Oscars
LOS ANGELES: Actress Charlize Theron, who gained 15 kg to portray a stressed- out mother in the movie Tully, is among the frontrunners for the Best Actress award for next year’s Oscars.
Also tipped as frontrunners are Keira Knightley ( Colette) and Carey Mulligan ( Wildlife).
In Tully, Theron takes on the role of a depressed new mother.
Theron stars as Marlo, a former Brooklyn free spirit who once upon a time got married and moved to the suburbs and now somehow finds herself as a putupon, stressed- out mother of two, with a third on the way in a matter of days.
Her husband, played (or rather, nicely underplayed) by Ron Livingston, is the kind of guy who means well but who’s also largely absent at work all day while she teeters precariously on the edge of losing it, from either her son kicking the back of her car seat, or his principal suggesting a tutor she can’t afford, or the judgemental comments from people who look at her sideways when she orders a decaf coffee.
Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan appears in Wildlife by Paul Dano, an official selection of the US Dramatic Competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
Actor Paul Dano’s directorial debut Wildlife is a ’ 60s dysfunctional family tale preserved in amber and observed by the 14-year-old son (Australian discovery Ed Oxenbould) of unhappy, unfulfilled parents (Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, who gives an awardsworthy performance). The bleak drama could get a boost from its berth in the Cannes Directors Fortnight.
On the other hand, Wash Westmoreland’s Colette is a conventional arthouse play, predictably picked up by Bleecker Street. The charming Britishaccented biopic stars Keira Knightley as a smart young French beauty plucked from the country in Burgundy to marry a sophisticated older Parisian, womaniser Henri GauthierVillars (Dominic West).
She ghostwrites his “Willy” potboilers for him until she eventually grows into her own identity as a woman writer ( Gigi, Cheri), stage performer and lover of women. Knightley and West are both superb in the well-mounted period movie, which could ignite long-term interest.