2016 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance (Female)

Is it just me, or has the supporting actress category been awesome for the past few years? I used to struggle to fill out this category with worthy nominees, but now I find myself having to make some difficult choices to narrow it down to five. Anyone else having that problem? Anyway…

Third place:

Viola Davis, Fences [134 points / 19 votes]

Second place:

Michelle Williams, Manchester By The Sea [143 points / 23 votes]

And the Muriel goes to…
 

Lily Gladstone, Certain Women [195 points / 26 votes]

“On the face of it, the casting of Lily Gladstone in Kelly Reichardt’s triptych of stories about women in Montana, Certain Women, is strange and almost counterintuitive. The other main roles are filled in by venerated, established actresses: Laura Dern is perhaps one of the finest working actors currently working, Michelle Williams is in essence Reichardt’s muse, having appeared now in three of Reichardt’s six films (which are arguably her best, in no small part due to Williams), and Kristen Stewart is one of the faces of independent cinema today. So it might seem a surprise to cast in such a visible role an actor for whom this is her first starring role, but it is clear from the very first frame of her segment why Reichardt chose her.

“It is important to note the context in which Gladstone’s story emerges. The final segment in Certain Women follows in the mood of ever-so-slight frustration of the previous two segments, where Dern’s character acts essentially as a lawyer-turned-hostage negotiator on behalf of her former client and Williams’ character negotiates to buy a pile of sandstone, respectively. Her ranch hand character, Jamie, has in many respects the most straightforward and yet the most ambiguous segment: a emergent friendship and possible romance with Beth, a lawyer and teacher played by Kristen Stewart.

“Gladstone’s performance exists in this ambiguity, in the way Jamie’s gaze seems to say everything and nothing. Much of her time is spent taking care of a farm during the winter, and Reichardt’s filmmaking in turn becomes even more contemplative, precisely observing her movements through semi-frozen landscapes. These scenes are conducted in silence, and there isn’t much more dialogue when she and Beth sit face-to-face in a diner as she looks gently at Beth’s comparatively harried countenance. What instead emerges is a kind of emanation, a radiance from both actresses that freely mixes kindness and a quiet pain that speaks volumes. It is this kind of feeling that comes to embody the whole film, tied to landscapes and faces, and Lily Gladstone’s is the most striking, the most moving of them all.” ~ Ryan Swen

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