Best Actress in a Supporting Role 2007: Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone

Amy Ryan received her only Oscar nomination to date for her performance as Helene McCready in Gone Baby Gone.

Gone Baby Gone is a very effective thriller about two detectives who investigate a little girl's kidnapping in Boston. It's a pretty great effort from Ben Affleck whose direction feel assured and rid of any trace of inexperience; the screenplay is extremely well-written and even if I thought that Morgan Freeman kind of gave away the twist too early I still find the ending of the movie extremely powerful because of how effectively it shows the moral dilemma at its center. The cast is mostly good: Casey Affleck is an impressive lead and he carries the movie flawlessly; Ed Harris and Titus Welliver are very memorable in their supporting roles and even if she is not given nearly enough focus as she deserves Michelle Monaghan delivers a fine enough turn as well. 

Amy Ryan portrays Helene, the abducted girl's mother. It's an extremely difficult role for many different reasons and one that is very easy to do wrong - in fact, Helene has the trait to become a walking stereotype as she's basically white trash woman that has been seen multiple times on screen: she's loud, crass, uneducated, immature and completely incapable of taking responsability. Considering that Amy Ryan doesn't even get that much screen-time to develop the character, Helen McCready could have really been an unbearably over-the-top caricature. Thankfully, though, Amy Ryan handles the role with utter realism and makes Helene the most puzzling and interesting character of the whole movie. Amy Madigan's character in the movie describes Helene as an "abomination" and Amy Ryan perfectly makes you see why: she makes Helene a true force of nature that is both compelling and repulsive to watch. Ryan is properly loud in her performance but she never becomes excessively over-the-top, and her heavy accent, which could have easily been distracting, is completely convincing, also because Ryan never makes it the focus of her performance but just makes naturally it a part of the character. She properly portrays Helene as the mess she is supposed to be and I just love how she portrays her inability to acknowledge her own faults: when she is questioned about her drug-addiction and her activity as a drug mule, Helene defends herself by saying that her life as a single mother is difficult and insulting Beatrice (Madigan) for her inability to have children. It's a brilliant moment perfectly handled by Ryan who in that moment manages to tell a lot about the character's personality: it's particularly impressive how well Ryan manages to characterize Helene as technically the character stays on the same note but she nonetheless succeeds in finding some interesting nuances within that limitation. Her following scene in the car with Monaghan and Affleck is another memorable moment out of which Ryan makes the most and she makes you understand completely both Angie's disgust and Patrick's empathy towards her. 

It's pretty clear from the beginning that Helene is far from being a good mother but Amy Ryan never lets it oversimplify her performance - she easily could have taken the easier route straightforwardly portraying Helene as a monster but she thankfully didn't. On one hand, she does a great job in portraying the reasons why Helene is quite an unfit mother and how her own immaturity and emotional problems prevents her from being a caring figure for her daughter. On the other hand, though, Ryan clearly shows that despite her multiple flaws Helene does love her daughter and is genuinely worried about her: through her performance, Helene's ability to take care of daughter is clearly questionable but her affection towards her is not. She does a fantastic job in portraying Helen's growing worry as she starts to realize how serious the situation might be for her daughter and the scene in which she breaks down and asks Patrick to promise her that he'll her daughter is actually her best moment in the movie and she does again an amazing job in portraying her character's dualism: when she says she'll stop taking drugs in order to be a good mother, you know she won't keep this promise but Ryan makes you see how in that moment Helene truly means it.

Helene then disappears for a large chunk of the movie and reappears on screen in the final scene of the movie. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it but I'll just say that it is an extremely powerful scene mostly thanks to Casey Affleck's terrific acting. Amy Ryan does a terrific job too properly making Patrick's choice questionable and making the whole ending of the movie disconcerting and haunting just as it it supposed to be.

Amy Ryan never judges the character of Helene, and therefore gives a truly three-dimensional performance making Helene the negative character she's supposed to be while still not making her completely unsympathetic. She realistically portrays her character without ever sugar-coating or going too far either, and adds depth and complexity to the whole movie thanks to her brilliantly layered characterization.

4.5/5