Melissa Leo: could she be a frontrunner?

So far, 2008 hasn’t presented a surfeit of cast-iron Best Actress contenders. (Consider that by this time last year, we all knew Marion Cotillard and Julie Christie were locks.)

Angelina Jolie seems to have been installed as the de facto frontrunner since Cannes, but I’m not really buying it – her performance has some high-profile detractors, and I’m not sure many people feel she’s earned entry into the double-champ club. Sally Hawkins would be in if I had my way, but as Kris has pointed out, the performance can be divisive. For the rest, we only have unseen prospects to contemplate.

Into this blurry picture comes 47 year-old character actress Melissa Leo, playing a broke single mother who gets involved in illegal immigrant trafficking in zero-budget Sundance champ “Frozen River.” She is currently riding a wave of unanimous critical adulation that is swiftly translating into Oscar buzz. Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone has been supporting her enthusiastically, bluntly stating:

The great Melissa Leo … is going to be among those left standing by the year’s end if anyone with half a brain is paying attention. Her performance WILL stand out among the performances of this year, male or female.

This is no blogosphere conjecture either: Leo is getting significant press coverage, most notably a major profile in the New York Times, which notes the “thrill” of watching Leo get “enough room to explore one of the complicated, surprising women she’s so good at sketching in smaller roles.”

The Village Voice’s Ella Taylor concurs, invoking her Oscar-worthiness as follows:

If Leo were Charlize Theron with artfully applied bags under the eyes, an Oscar nomination would surely be forthcoming for her truculent turn as Frozen River‘s Ray Eddy.

With write-ups like this, she may not need to be Charlize Theron. I’m not going to say anything about the “babe factor” that supposedly figures into Oscar voting, partly because I don’t believe in it, and partly because Tom O’Neil will doubtless do more than enough of that in the months to come.

Which brings me neatly to the subject of how O’Neil appears to be the one person trying to spoil the party for Leo. He has had her on his Oscar radar for a little while, and now cites the dazzling press she has received – specifically Thelma Adams’ Huffington Post interview with Leo, in which Adams makes no secret of her allegiance to the film and to Leo herself:

I literally wept in two ways. I wept because this particular story moved me emotionally but, also, to watch someone you love create a work of art is extremely affecting.

O’Neil, however, takes a rather bizarre stance on certain cherry-picked strands of the interview, where Leo discusses the inevitable tensions of working with a first-time director. I’m not going to give his argument credence by quoting it in detail, but suffice to say that a disagreement between two flustered individuals on an evidently challenging shoot does not constitute a “diva fit” on Leo’s part. I usually have respect for O’Neil and his work, but that is way out of line. I see Jeff Wells agrees.

No matter. I have yet to see the film myself, but am more excited than ever to do so. I have a longstanding admiration for Leo – as someone who believes “Homicide: Life on the Street” could be the greatest TV show of all time (sorry, “Wire” fans), it would be one hell of a buzz to see a member of that supreme cast on the red carpet. (Not least Leo, whose portrayal of Kay Howard was something of a milestone in the depiction of professional women on American television, until bone-headed execs booted her for not being pretty enough.)

She’s already been robbed of one Oscar nomination in her career. (Her work in the generally shafted “21 Grams” was in a league above the Supporting Actress class of 2003.) Here’s hoping she can cash in that IOU this year.