Will Elizabeth Olsen score any Best Actress nominations for ‘Wind River’?

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Here are some photos of Elizabeth Olsen at a cocktail reception/Oscar-campaign event in LA for Wind River. Olsen has been low-key Oscar campaigning for months for Wind River – she hasn’t been in our faces with her campaign like Jennifer Lawrence, but Olsen has made sure that she’s mentioned and seen at all the right moments and places. I recently saw Wind River, and I thought it was a good but depressing movie. Olsen was good in it, but if she’s aiming for a Best Actress nomination, I’m not sure if she really qualifies. I think you could definitely make a better case for Jeremy Renner getting Best Actor nominations though – his performance was more “showy” and there were certain scenes where it just seemed like “well, here’s the clip they’ll use for the Oscar montage.”

Honestly though, I kind of see Wind River falling through the cracks of this year’s Oscar season. Olsen is doing a good job with keeping herself in the conversation, but it was always going to be an uphill battle for such a small and depressing film. Plus, there’s the behind-the-scenes drama – Wind River was originally produced and distributed by The Weinstein Company and it was said that Harvey Weinstein was going to oversee the Oscar campaign. Once Sex-Predatorgate 2017 happened, the film’s distribution and Oscar campaign was moved over to Lionsgate. Olsen recently sat down with National Public Radio to discuss Weinstein and the film and more. You can read the full piece here.

On the Weinstein name & why they removed it from the film: “It’s beyond, I think, toxic. It’s completely against all the reasons we made this film. His actions are completely antithetical. And so I think when we found out about The New York Times article, Taylor Sheridan, our writer-director – the first thing he did was basically lawyer up and try and figure out how we can get the rights back because our film does deal with sexual assault and violence against women.

Whether she was excited about the film being distributed by TWC before all of this: “Yeah, I was. I’ve never had a film with the Weinstein Company before. I know they create a good platform for films during the awards season. And the way we talk about campaigning for this film specifically is – when you get to have that platform for being nominated for your film and then being on these different platforms, whether it’s on television or it’s being written about, people then go see your movie. And so this is a story that we all want people to see and know about and learn. And that’s why you want that campaign platform.

Why she hopes people will see the film: “I think it’s a story that can stick with you for many different reasons. If you leave a film, if you put down a book, and there is something that you didn’t know before or something that has informed you about the world you live in — that you care about that you didn’t know before — if you can walk away from any kind of story with that, I think that’s the goal of storytelling. And so that’s what I love about this film, is it really has moved people and it’s become more, I think, socially important today than it was when we made it. There’s been a lot more attention being given to indigenous Native American people within our country since we made the film, and there’s also this whole epidemic that everyday we’re learning about men and power and sexual assault, and those are what this film is about in a very specific story.

[From Texas Public Radio]

She’s right about the story sticking with you. I was still thinking about it for days afterwards. It actually took me a good hour after the film was finished to figure out how Jeremy Renner’s character made that big discover towards the end and how he put the pieces together so quickly. The film is haunting. But is it Oscar worthy? I don’t know.

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

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20 Responses to “Will Elizabeth Olsen score any Best Actress nominations for ‘Wind River’?”

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  1. third ginger says:

    Here I go again. Please excuse me. I do Oscar analysis as a hobby. Olsen has virtually no chance at a nomination this year. The field is far too crowded. You have to look at precursor awards and noms. Earlier this week, the Critic’s Choice announced. This group is not old or prestigious, but it has an uncanny track record with foreshadowing the actors who are serious contenders. Actress front runners: Ronan, Streep, McDormand, Hawkins, Chastain, Robie. Also, the Academy has only 5 slots in acting categories. Olsen’s best bet would be Globes. Also not likely.

    • Jerusha says:

      I’m assuming Sally Hawkins will be up for TSOW, but she was amazing in Maudie. Wonderful film, great performance. Have you seen it? Ethan Hawke was excellent in it, too.

      I loved Wind River, directed by Taylor Sheridan, of Hell or High Water fame, thought all the performances were stellar, but agree EO won’t be on the Oscar list.
      And somebody needs to put Jon Bernthal and Tom Hardy in a movie playing brothers. Very close resemblance.

      • third ginger says:

        I have not. I am really rooting for Hawkins for TSOW. I think my family and I are seeing that on Christmas. We are Del Toro fanatics. Oh, HELL OR HIGH WATER was a standout for me also.

      • Jerusha says:

        See Maudie! It’s based on a real woman and set in Nova Scotia. Not the type of film the multiplexes play.

  2. Happy21 says:

    Wind River was a terribly sad movie but it was very well done. Just the scenery alone was amazing. Jeremy Renner, honestly, always has me mesmerized in almost everything he’s in so I can say rather biasedly that I’d love to see him nominated.
    Elizabeth was good but I don’t think she was THAT good. And I hate, hate to say it but what distracted me with her in the movie is that her nose is freakishly getting into Michael Jackson territory…

    • amilu says:

      I agree. Though I’m no great fan of Renner, I thought he was fantastic in Wind River. Olsen’s performance was not Oscar-worthy. She’s good, but…

    • lucy2 says:

      I dislike Renner, but admit he is a damn good actor and was very good in this movie. It was extremely sad and depressing, but it did stick with me, I still occasionally think about it, and it was very well done. The scene at the end with Renner’s character and the young woman’s dad…

  3. MostlyMegan says:

    I like Olsen as an actress but I thought she was terribly miscast in this movie. Elisabeth Moss or a (young) Jodi Foster-type actress with an edge of steeliness about her would have been much better in the role. I know her character is meant to be a fish out of water, but Olsen literally looked like she was air-dropped in from a beach in Santa Monica (complete with ‘LA Face’) for the role. Totally unbelievable as an inexperienced FBI agent laced with inner toughness and grit, which is what the role called for. And the film is not Oscar-worthy I’m afraid. It was interesting and sparse but no where near Oscar level in terms of story or acting, in my opinion.

    • Squiggisbig says:

      I think Elisabeth Moss would have seemed a little too old to play a character that is supposed to be young and super inexperienced. I loved the movie and thought that the Elizabeth Olsen “miscast” fit with her position as a real outsider. That said I personally didn’t think her performance was oscar worthy.

  4. Layla Beans says:

    I loved the movie, her and Renner. Such a haunting film.

  5. GreenQueen says:

    I loved this movie, and you know what it absolutely should not fall through the cracks. This is the exact kind of violence and sexual assault against women we should be discussing in society right now. The fact that TWC produced it should not in any way hinder the very important message this film provides. The strength of the victim should be tauted. The strength of Olsen’s character as well. All the men thought she was this nobody FBI agent. That the agency didn’t care about this situation because they sent a young blonde hottie to deal with it. There are so many important issues it touches on and it would be a tragedy to discredit it because of the Weinstein name.

  6. WestHollywood says:

    Nothing against Olsen, but I thought she wasn’t that necessary in the movie at all… I mean, it would’ve been even more intense and dramatic if no FBI agent arrived due to winter storm and Renner’s character had do investigate everything on his own (he mostly did anyway) cause the murder touched him personally…

  7. GigiC says:

    Maybe I’m just biased because Wind River is my rez, but I really hope this movie doesn’t fall through the cracks this award season though I believe it will. I really appreciate how Sheridan put the violence that indigenous women go through in the spot light. There are so many women in Indian country who are killed or go missing and are never investigated.

  8. Heat says:

    The movie was good. Renner was excellent. I was disappointed in Elizabeth’s part. Not how she played it, but it wasn’t a great role, so in my opinion she has zero shot.

    Sally Hawkins is amazing in both Maudie and TSOW. I think Maudie will be overlooked, but it’s one of my faves of the year, and I’d throw Ethan Hawke in Best Supporting as well.

  9. OG Cleo says:

    I loved “Wind River,” it was definitely one of the first GREAT movies from 2017 (after “Get Out” and “Dunkirk”) and I thought all the actors were good, but the real star was Gil Birmingham, the missing girl’s father. He was absolutely heartbreaking. And the music was incredible and terrifying.

  10. Fish says:

    Off subject, but she has the worst nose job. Noses don’t look like that. It’s like she has her nostrils chopped off. Look at her sisters’ Mary Kate & Ashley’s noses and that’s what she probably used to have. Is that weird I can barely watch her in a movie because I keep looking at her bad nose job?

  11. A says:

    lbr they took the movie back from Weinstein Co because they knew it would kill their chances of Oscar nomination or win. They need to stop acting like they only found out about his behaviour after he was exposed because it was an open secret in Hollywood since forever

  12. Dttimes2 says:

    Not a great movie and she was HORRIBLE in it. All big eyed dramtic looks and that was pretty much her performance in my opinion.