Scott Feinberg has wrote a 1200 word essay on why
Rooney Mara, the 25 year old actress who played 'the one that got away' from Facebook co-creator Mark Zuckerberg in
The Social Network, should be considered a serious Best Supporting Actress contender. Despite the passion with which Feinberg puts forward his case, I don't believe anything of what he says. Now yes, some of you might say
I've kind of had a thing against Mara ever since her completely bland and non-descriptive cover version of Nancy in the remake of
A Nightmare on Elm Street but one well acted opening scene in a much superior film - where she serviceably kick-starts Zuckerberg's narrative by showing her dislike of his ideology and subsequently breaks up him - just ain't gonna cut it.
And it's got nothing to do with her limited screen time either so don't throw that at me. It's the lack of Mara needing to play anything other than one dramatic and emotional key and her one or two brief follow-up moments later on in the film not registering as anything more than what they were - servicable dialogue delivered well. This isn't
Viola Davis going through an impressive array of emotions in her similar in length, individual scene in
Doubt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iy23LVFG1w Compare Mara's lasting affect in The Social Network with that of
Marion Cotillard whose nightmarish vision of Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) psyche literally haunts the whole of
Inception. With around the same screentime - Cotillard is challenged physically and emotionally on far deeper levels than a one-on-one conversation in a bar where
Aaron Sorkin's screenplay and
Jesse Eisenberg's performance are the real scene stealers. Cotillard's role instantly felt like an Awards contender. Mara was fine and all in Network, but she isn't in the top five performances you remember from that film. Well maybe actually she's the fifth.
As far as the State of the Race goes for Best Supporting Actress I've only found Cotillard's multi-layered and memorable Inception performance and depending on whether you consider it to be Supporting over Leading -
Lesley Manville's extraordinary turn in
Another Year as being absolute stonewallers so far this year. Did I forget anyone?