Heat on for best actress Oscar

AS AWARDS season draws ever nearer, the most exciting best actress race in years was manifesting before the eyes of critics and industry folk gathered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from Sept 7 to 17.

Following their initial screenings, films boasting two immensely different, yet equally as towering, performances were on everybody’s lips – Frances McDormand for her no-nonsense role in director Michael McDonagh’s black comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and Sally Hawkins, the star of Guillermo del Toro’s standout The Shape of Water.

McDormand plays the steely Mildred Hayes in one of those galvanising roles that causes viewers to rub their hands together in glee.

Meanwhile, Hawkins turns in an astonishing performance playing the mute Elisa Esposito communicating her way through del Toro’s fantasy tale using sign language.

A few days into the festival, however, another actress entered the race: Jessica Chastain, who stars in Aaron Sorkin’s very-wordy directorial debut Molly’s Game, a memoir adaptation recounting the story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic skier who became investigated by the FBI after running her own poker empire.

Chastain is an actress long overdue an Oscar win (she has had two nominations), and in Molly’s Game, she builds upon the powerhouse performance she gave in the underrated Miss Sloane to deliver perhaps her best one yet.

Margot Robbie has also been