In 2019, Florence Pugh became a star. Though she had some independent film cred from 2016’s Lady Macbeth, Little Women (2019).
As 2020's awards season develops, Pugh’s snub looks more and more likely. Both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild ignored her; only the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) granted her a nomination for Best ing Actress. So what is the case for her candidacy?
Pugh’s 2019 began with the WWE dramedy, WWE under the ring name Paige. While this film is not a serious awards contender, what it demonstrates is Pugh’s impressive range. She’s believable in the wrestling sequences, and she brings realism to the character’s lower-class upbringing. But playing a Norwich wrestler was just the beginning; her other two roles were in dramatically different settings and times.
In Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Pugh leads the young cast in a psychologically gripping horror film. Following a group of sociology students to a Swedish commune, the film’s plot twists through the students’ suspicions about the commune’s motives and practices. Thematically, the film examines Hereditary - the film has been shut out of awards-contention by the Golden Globes, SAGs, and BAFTAs.
Little Women’s cast, is up for the challenge. BAFTA was the only organization to recognize her part with a Best ing Actress nomination, and her British nationality likely played a key part in that.
Cast as Black Widow, Florence Pugh will soon become a household name, but if the Academy wants to continue to be an arbiter of artistic excellence, then her excellent work, starting as a wrestler and ending as a 19th Century aspiring artist with a stop at psychological horror along the way, should be in the conversation when the Oscar 2020 nominations are announced on January 13.
