Best Actress in a Supporting Role 2006: Adriana Barraza in Babel

Adriana Barraza received her only Oscar nomination to date for her performance as Amelia Hernandez in Babel.

Babel is a great movie about four different stories that are all somewhat involved into the shooting of a woman on a bus in Morocco. I think it's a very compelling movie from beginning to end and each of the storylines is interesting in its own way. The editing is terrific and the storylines intertwine beautifully. The cinematography and the score are also excellent. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's direction is excellent and his nomination was well deserved.

All of the storylines in Babel are heavily dramatic: I think this works perfectly for the film (also because they never become overly sentimental) but it makes the roles extremely demanding for the actors. First off, because of the extremely difficult and emotional scenes they have to play, but most importantly because the heavy drama leaves little space for the actors to get into the depth of the characters and give them a proper characterization. Thankfully, most of the actors manage to pull it off by being very convincing in their big scenes but also managing to make their character three-dimensional and realistic (and that's why the movie works so well). Adriana Barraza is the best example of this: she gets to play a character that is rather one-dimensional on paper and yet she manages to make it one of the movie's most affecting and vivid characters. Right from her first scenes, Barraza does a fantastic job in portraying the deep affection that Amelia feels for the two children she takes care of: each of their interactions are wonderful to watch because Barraza plays them with a great amount of warmth and tenderness. Barraza underplays those scenes but she nonetheless makes the viewer understand how much Amelia cares for the children - even when she makes some very questionable choices later on the viewer never once doubts about Amelia's good-hearted motives and this is entirely thanks to Barraza's performance.

Amelia decides to bring the children to her son's marriage in Mexico, since she didn't find anyone who could took care of the children and their parents were still in Morocco. In the scenes during the marriage I think that Barraza is actually fantastic: she doesn't have too much to do yet I think she does a wonderful job in clearly showing that the character has a life outside of what happens directly in the movie. Her interactions with her daughter, her brief sexual encounter with a man at the marriage are all outstanding moments out of which Barraza makes the most, adding interesting and unexpected layers  to Amelia. Unfortunately, the return to the United States is not as easy as she expected: Amelia's drunk cousin trespasses the border as he is chased by the police (Amelia doesn't have papers signed by the children's parents that allowed her to bring them to Mexico) and leaves Amelia and the children in the desert without food or water. In those scenes Adriana Barraza is downright amazing in portraying her character's desperation and she creates some truly haunting and devastating images: she makes those scenes extremely hard to watch and brings them the emotional power they need and she is phenomenal in portraying her character's physical exhaustion in such a realistic and convincing way.

And then there is her final scene at the Border Patrol station in which she is told that, while the children are okay, she is going to be deported from the U.S.. It's a brilliantly acted moment by Barraza who perfectly portrays Amelia's despair and her plea to let her stay is simply heartbreaking. Her speech about how much she loves the children (that she calls "her children") is deeply moving because it rings true, due to the fact that she previously did such an amazing job in portraying her affection towards them. It's a truly outstanding moment that might even be the best scene of the whole movie.

Adriana Barraza perfectly and realistically hits all of the emotional notes of the character but she also does a great job in adding some depth to a role that might have been a bit too thin otherwise. It's a truly harrowing performance that simply gets better after every rewatch.

4.5/5