Carrey Mulligan on The Late Show

Carey Mulligan made her first talk show appearance last Wednesday night to promote An Education. She's going to have a busy season on the publicity train, since she is without a doubt the lead contender in the Best Actress race at this point.

As for this first stop - let's ignore the glaring similarities between An Education's plot and Letterman's current personal crisis - Mulligan does a fine job. Maybe not the most entertaining guest ever, but perfectly charming.

Best Actress Contenders

Poll: Which Breakthrough Performance Are You Most Looking Forward to This Year?

As I mentioned in a post yesterday, there are several great performances from relative unknowns coming up this season. Which are you most anxious to see? Are there any other breakthroughs on your radar? Who?

Ebert on An Education

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Roger Ebert arrived today in Toronto for the upcoming festival and has seen An Education. Apparently he liked it, as he had some strong words of praise for the film, Peter Sarsgaard and newcomer Carey Mulligan.

"Some of the TIFF films, many of them strong, were screened early for Chicago critics. The one that stood out for me above all the others was Lone Scherfig's "An Education," starring Carey Mulligan as a 16-year-old who starts dating a man well into his 30s (Peter Sarsgaard). In 1960s London, he's everything the witless boys her age are not - and also not everything he seems to be.

There's something about Sarsgaard's cool detachment that makes him ideal for roles involving plausible deception; we can even believe it when he convinces her protective parents to trust him. What a smoothie. What's special about the film is the way it takes a common enough movie situation and reinvents it from scratch, especially with the intelligent, far from clueless, teenage girl.

It has long been said that opening night at Toronto represents opening day of the Academy Award season. Waiting for the curtain to raise, who looks like a sure thing for a nomination? Carey Mulligan from "An Education," I'd say. The scenes in Paris will remind you of Audrey Hepburn."

New Kids On the Block

This year is looking to be full of breakthrough performances from young actresses, with at least four potential star-making turns coming up in the next few months. Every year it seems like there are a few actors who break onto the awards scene and become the talk of the town. These four young women are all in line for a lot of attention for much talked about work in four very different festival hits.

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First is Abbie Cornish in Bright Star, the Jane Campion film about the poet John Keats and his romance with Fanny Brawne. Cornish has starred in a few other films - Candy with Heath Ledger and last year's Stop-Loss - but EW's Dave Karger says that this is her star-making role. The film's debut at Cannes garnered quite a bit of attention, with Variety stating Cornish delivered "an outstanding performance." The Hollywood Reporter sang her praises too:

"Cornish has the acting skill to match her striking beauty and she makes the small loving gestures that the British might call soppy both real and touching."

Campion directed both Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin to Oscar wins in 1993's incredible The Piano, and Barbara Hershey to a nomination in Portrait of a Lady. Cornish could be the fourth woman to make a trip to the Academy Awards with Campion, but she'll have some stiff competition. Bright Star's limited release is scheduled for September 18th.

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Katie Jarvis landed her role in Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank after a casting agent saw her having a heated argument with her boyfriend at a train station and asked her to audition. She plays Mia, a troubled and aggressive working-class teen with a passion for dance and her mother's new boyfriend.

Those who have seen the film have been wowed, especially by Jarvis' performance. Guy Lodge's review for In Contention said Jarvis brought "vivid physical charge to the character" and called her "an astute and fully-formed actress (not to mention a great dancer) in her own right".

Fish Tank tied for the Jury Prize at Cannes, and has US distribution with IFC Films, though no official US release date has been named. UK theaters will begin playing the film this Friday.

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Carey Mulligan in An Education has been the one to keep an eye on since Sundance. She plays Jenny, a young girl torn between a college education and a romance with a much older man who shows her the ways of the world. Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere has been ecstatically shouting her name from rooftops since he attended a screening if the film in January:

"I know that special old-soul-mixed-with-youthful-effervescence quality that you see in very few actors and actresses over the years, and trust me, Mulligan has it. A wondrously true and satisfying film has broken out of the Sundance '09 pack, and a brand-new actress with just the right face and just the right approach and precisely the right touch of sadness in the corners of her mouth has hit one out of the park."

Mulligan's performance and the film have been capturing the hearts of almost everyone who sees them all year, with Mulligan widely thought to be the one to beat in this year's Best Actress race. Something about her is charming and winning, and I have to admit this is the performance I'm most anxious to see this year. Look for it in theaters October 9th.

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Another Sundance hit, Precious, stars Gabourey Sidibe in the title role. Precious is an illiterate Harlem teen pregnant with her second child by her father. She endures physical and emotional abuse from her mother and endless, cruel bullying from her peers over her obesity.

Most of the talk has been of Mo'Nique and her brutal performance as a montrous mother and Mariah Carey's non-glamorous role as a social worker, but Sidibe has earned raves as well. From the Hollywood Reporter:

"As Precious, Sidibe is superb, allowing us to see the inner warmth and beauty of a young woman who, to her world's cruel eyes, might seem monstrous."

It's a brave first performance to be sure. Precious hits theaters November 6th.

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All four names are sure to be floating around quite a bit as we come into the awards season. As far as Oscars go, Jarvis is a long shot due to her film's obscurity, and Sidibe will have a rough time keeping up with Mo'Nique's powerhouse performance. Mulligan is supposedly good enough to be a lock, and Cornish's chances are bolstered by the genre strength of the doomed period romance.

Sight unseen, my money is on Mulligan and Cornish, who will be battling it out in the coming months for the impressive newcomer vote.

As I've said, I'm most interested in Carey Mulligan, who's been drawing comparisons to Audrey Hepburn (who had her own breakthrough with Roman Holiday) for months. Who are you most excited about? Are there any other newcomers on your radar?

A Star Is Born

As part of the same series that brought the Penelope Cruz interview a few days ago, The New York Times now has a video of one Ms. Carey Mulligan, who is on everyone's Oscar radar this year with An Education. Keep an eye on this one. She's headed for the big time.

A Book, And Of Course A Movie

I just recently read the novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'd read just a little bit about the upcoming film adaptation and the story sounded fascinating so I thought I'd give it a look. I'm so glad that I did. The novel is an amazingly original science fiction tale, brilliantly written with such depth and emotion to the lead characters that no one would ever think to classify it as genre fiction.

Ishiguro, who won the Booker Prize back in 1989 for The Remains of the Day, tells the story of a young woman reminiscing on her early days at an unusual English boarding school, where she formed life-long but complicated relationships with two other students. These relationships take center stage, but the science fiction elements remain an integral part of the story, and the subtlety with which Ishiguro employs them makes them even more powerful, to my way of thinking.

Never Let Me Go made TIME magazine's list of 100 best English language novels and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005.

Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) will be directing the film adaptation for Fox Searchlight. It's currently scheduled for a 2010 release. What originally interested me was the cast. Young British actors Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Alex Garland have been cast as the three leads, with Mulligan as the main character, Kathy, and Knightley and Garland taking the roles of her friends, Ruth and Tommy. I was somewhat surprised (though pleased) to see that Knightley had been given the supporting role, since Mulligan isn't yet a household name or a big box office draw.

This is something that could change very soon, though. Mulligan is poised to have a big breakthrough year, with her performance in An Education garnering raves from just about everyone who sees it. Talk of her taking home an Oscar has been flying around since January, and if she gets enough attention this fall, Never Let Me Go could be a title to keep an eye on next year.

Pick up the book if you get a chance. It's definitely worth your time and the film is looking like a potential winner too.

That Old Familiar Feeling

Every year it seems there is one movie that I connect to months before its release, love passionately, see at least 5 times in the theater, and drag all of my friends and family members to whether they like it or not (they always thank me later). Last year it was Slumdog Millionaire, the year before, Juno. I inherently know my movie soulmates before I even see them. Really.

This year I'm getting that feeling about An Education. It's about a 16-year-old girl in 1960s England who takes school and getting into college very seriously, until she meets a much older man who teaches her about life outside the classroom. It was a big hit at Sundance this past January and has been wowing critics and members of the press left and right ever since. Most of the praise has been heaped on its young star, Carey Mulligan, who is THE person to watch this season. There's a lot of excitement surrounding her this year.

October 9th cannot come soon enough.