![]() Viola Davis has earned acclaim, and a place on our critic’s best acting of 2022 list, for her role as the leader of an all-female West African battalion in “The Woman King.” Her face becomes a map of brutish sorrow. ![]() Watson shows us the anguish born of torn loyalties. In the little-seen Irish film “God’s Creatures,” Emily Watson is a doting mother who lies to the police to protect her criminal son, played by Paul Mescal (who was rightly nominated for best actor as a troubled father in “Aftersun”). In this film, she looks both indomitable and ravaged. There has always been a fierceness to Davis’ acting, even in repose. ![]() I didn’t detect a false note in it.Īmong the unnominated, I did especially admire Davis’ performance as the leader of an all-female West African battalion in the slave-trading early 1800s. Her darting, ardent performance avoids all the scenery-chewing clichés endemic to these sorts of roles. She plays a West Texas former lottery winner and single mother whose boozy life is in free fall. (It came and went almost without a trace last year.) Her inclusion made some feel that other acclaimed performances, like those of Viola Davis in “The Woman King,” or Danielle Deadwyler in “Till,” got pushed out. It’s too bad that Riseborough’s nomination was attacked in some quarters for its movie-star-driven Oscar campaign, mostly by people who hadn’t seen the movie. Andrea Riseborough is nominated for an Oscar for “To Leslie.” She offers a darting, ardent take on a West Texas single mother and former lottery winner trying to get her life back on track.
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