Muriel Award: Best Supporting Actor

We've decided to shake things up a bit for this year's Muriel Awards. Where in past years, we've started with the Anniversary Awards, in order to ease people into the thing, this year we figured we'd take a cue from the Oscars and start with something more significant. The winner here isn't too surprising, but the overwhelming nature of his victory is. So, without further ado, here goes.

But first... runners-up!

Third place:



Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech [63 points/10 votes]

Second place:



Christian Bale, The Fighter [73/11]

And your winner....





John Hawkes, Winter's Bone [163/24]

"Debra Granik’s backwoods thriller Winter’s Bone centers around a poverty-stricken mountain community further crippled by the rise in homegrown drug labs. In this bleak landscape, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) searches for her missing father, a meth cooker who has risked the family home as bond for his release. Though she is kin to many of the area’s Carhartt-laden kingpins, Ree’s persistent inquiries about her father’s whereabouts are seen as threatening, and met with tight-lipped resistance and troubling violence. Even her father’s older brother, Teardrop (John Hawkes), initially insists that she call off the dogs right before underlines his point by attacking her in an act of thuggish aggression.

By all counts, Teardrop is a flawed, unpredictable man as well as a meth-head himself. But Hawkes slowly unveils the character’s desperate sadness when he eventually backs Ree in her search. At first, Teardrop reveals that he fears avenging his brother, since he would be the next in line for wrath. However, as pressures mount, he decides to unleash his inner vigilante a bit. In a standout scene, he accuses the local sheriff of selling out his brother, and forces a tense standoff. Gripping a shotgun, Teardrop glares at the officer in his rear view mirror, and offers a calm yet unrelenting challenge: “Is this gonna be our time?” The disarmed policeman can only retreat in response.

It’s the resigned way in which Teardrop takes this path that’s most striking, as if he realizes that, by remaining complacent in fear, he would suffer a worse fate. Instead, he chooses to defend his brother’s memory and perhaps even saves himself. In Winter’s Bone, John Hawkes confidently brings to life a role that is terrifying at times, soulful in measures and honest to its core." - Patrick Williamson

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