The 2010 RopeofSilicon Movie Awards

It frustrates me that the best performances of each year typically go to grief stricken, emotionally wrenching performances. As if that’s the only kind of character that truly requires an actor to act. However, it’s these performances that cause for the greatest emotional connection with an audience, which is why they stay with us for so long. So I’m not ashamed to say Javier Bardem’s performance in Biutiful is the one I consider the best of the year, but on top of everything I’ve said, I don’t think this is a performance that merely wallows in his character’s grief.

Yes, there’s grief, there’s sadness and there’s pain in Bardem’s performance as Uxbal, but there’s also hope, kindness and love and it’s a combination of all these factors that keeps this performance with me ever since seeing it in Cannes last May.

As for my list of runners-up, Colin Firth made a good case for winning my Best Actor award for the second year in a row after I named him the best of 2009 with his performance in A Single Man. James Franco is earning a lot of love for his 127 Hours performance, which is a good one, but his performance as beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl is far more intricate and penetrating.

While people have primarily been concerned with the MPAA rating for Blue Valentine or have been over-praising the film, the best part of Derek Cianfrance’s feature are the performances and Ryan Gosling turns in one more for his growing list of excellent roles. And finally, one of the most overlooked aspects of Mike Leigh’s Another Year are the performances of the film’s two leads. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen are the glue that keeps that brilliant film together and I couldn’t not mention him here.

Other performances I considered here included Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Robert Duvall (Get Low), Jeff Bridges (True Grit) and Jim Carrey (I Love You Phillip Morris).

This was not an easy pick, but just like Bardem’s performance stuck with me so did Nicole Kidman’s in Rabbit Hole. But I think on top of everything she brought to her character it was the perfect balance of emotions that really impressed me.

As Becca in John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole, Kidman could have very easily overacted nearly every scene, but she remained within herself and within the reasonable realm of human emotion and it rang true throughout. Whether it was the shouting match opposite her co-star Aaron Eckhart or the quieter, personal moments opposite Dianne Wiest, this was the best lead female performance of the year.

The reason this decision was so hard is evident by my runners-up beginning with both Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), two young actresses that absolutely owned their roles and were able to stand tall alongside additional great performances. Lawrence had to do with some tough subject matter while Steinfeld had to deal with being a newcomer and her first starring role being in a Coen film opposite Jeff “The Dude” Bridges and neither wavered.

Natalie Portman’s performance in Black Swan was a showstopper and Sally Hawkins in Made in Dagenham continued to prove to me she is one of the best actresses working right now.

Also for this category I considered Ruth Sheen (Another Year), Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right), Julianne Moore (The Kids are All Right) and Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine).

At first I had Geoffrey Rush as my winner, then I decided on Christian Bale, but not before a split second of consideration was given to both Peter Wight and John Hawkes and I’d be open to any argument suggesting Andrew Garfield’s Red Riding performance was the best of the year. But only one an stand at the top of the heap and for me that’s Bale’s limp-noodle, emaciated performance as the crack addict boxing trainer Dicky Eklund.

Bale’s method style of acting gave his performance an authenticity not found elsewhere. Of course, I would understand the argument that it’s much harder to create a character than it is to mimic one an actor’s been able to spend time with and study. This is something I debated in my selection here as Bale’s performance is extraordinarily similar to the mannerisms of the real life Eklund, but I just couldn’t let such things sway my decision. Not this time.

Additional names considered for this category included Oliver Platt (Please Give), Matt Damon (True Grit) and Michael Shannon (The Runaways).

Lesley Manville’s performance in Another Year is easily the best supporting performance of the year. It’s the best female performance of the year. And I say this fully realizing this was an amazing year for female performances to the point I have six additional names I considered beyond the five I have listed here.

In the runners-up, Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass is the only reason to watch that movie. It could have been edited down to her scenes alone, been called Hit Girl and I wouldn’t have minded the lack of narrative structure. Dale Dickey in Winter’s Bone was one of the year’s most menacing villains and the fact she’ll likely be snubbed by the Academy is just sad.

The only performance that really stood out for me in Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is probably the least talked about. Michelle Williams as Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife gives a devastating performance and without it the emotional arc of that film collapses. And Amy Adams in The Fighter proved she doesn’t always have to play the sweet Disney princess, she can play a hard-nosed “MTV Girl” and isn’t afraid of throwing a few punches of her own.

Others considered in this category include Rosamund Pike (Barney’s Version), Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer), Elle Fanning (Somewhere), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Dianne Wiest (Rabbit Hole) and Bryce Dallas Howard (Hereafter).

I’ve seen a lot of comments referring to Inception saying something along the lines of, “Why does everyone act as if this film is so confusing? There’s nothing confusing about it.” I find this comment to be a testament to Christopher Nolan’s fantastic direction. He not only manages to tell a layered story that could have simply fallen all over itself, but he does it with flair. When Nolan blows things up you aren’t trying to sort through the rubble in search of a narrative, instead it’s just one more piece to the spectacle and with Inception it was a perfect storm of awesome.

As for the batch of runners-up it was a tough decision leaving out the Coen brothers seeing how I declared their film my favorite of 2010, but in terms of direction there were a few others that stood out a bit more. Mike Leigh showed he could make a dinner scene suspenseful at the end of Another Year, Debra Granik turned the Ozark woods and a late night boat ride into her own kind of horror, Darren Aronofsky showed the lengths one must go for perfection and Rodrigo Garcia’s Mother and Child navigated the lives of three separate women with such ease that had the ending of that film been better I am almost certain we’d be talking about it for a Best Picture nomination.

Others considered in this category obviously included Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit), but also Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3), Danny Boyle (127 Hours) and Sofia Coppola (Somewhere).