Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1939: Maria Ouspenskaya in Love Affair

Maria Ouspenskaya received her second Oscar nomination for her performance as Grandmother Janou in Love Affair.

Love Affair is a fine melodrama about a French painter and an American singer who meet and fall in love on board of an ocean liner: they promise to see each other on the top of the Empire State Building six months later, but things don't go as planned. It's a movie I liked well enough although I don't think it ever becomes anything really all that special: the central romance is both charming and moving enough although I think that the chemistry between the two leading actors actually left something to be desired, mostly due to the fact that Charles Boyer' performance is a bit of a mixed bag: he is well cast as a handsome charmer and his final scene is terrific but I think that his acting style is a bit too cold to project the needed tenderness in his scenes with Irene Dunne.

Acting teacher Maria Ouspenskaya plays the role of Michel's (Boyer) grandmother, whom he visits with Terry (Dunne) during their trip. Grandmother Janou is fairly little role and the first time I saw the movie I have to admit I was left rather disappointed by Ouspenskaya's performance; so it came to me as a huge surprise that I found her to be the most remarkable part of the movie on a rewatch - in her ten minutes on-screen, Ouspenskaya delivers a pretty wonderful turn that manages to steal the whole movie. From the little I've seen from her, I can say that even in the smallest, most thankless roles Ouspenskaya still manages to be somewhat impressive due to her unique voice and her terrific physical acting: she makes the most out of the smallest gesture while never making her performance feel mannered or overcooked. This is true for this performance as well, and the small, subtle details of her performance are quite astonishing (such as the way she looks at her hands before playing the piano, just great).

Before grandmother Janou's appearence, Michel says that she is waiting to die in order to be reunited with her late husband. Without ever mentioning it herself, Ouspenskaya excellently conveys this through her performance - there is a delicate sadness to her performance that suggests her character's loneliness, but at the same time Ouspenskaya expertly makes her performance rid of any sort of bitterness: she embraces her upcoming death but she still lives her day with a warm, tender spirit. In their very short time together, Boyer and Ouspenskaya are both very impressive at portraying the tenderness and affection between their two characters and the actress also strikes up a convincing and unexpectedly powerful chemistry with Irene Dunne - actually, it's through Ouspenskaya's loving performance that I started to really care about the romance between Michel and Terry. In her brief exchanges with Dunne, Ouspenskaya is very good as Janou tells Terry how she wishes Michel would settle down with a good woman and then I think she is quite amazing in the last minutes of her performance: the way she watches Michel and Terry while she plays the piano, smiling as she finally thinks Michel has found the right woman for him, and then the way her face slowly freezes as she realizes that they soon have to leave is just perfect. Her line-delivery of "I don't like boat's whistles" is absolutely heartbreaking, and her goodbye to Michel and Terry is a touching closure to her performance.

Ouspenskaya never appears again, but her presence can be felt throughout the whole picture. There's really not that much to say about her performance: she takes a role that is very limited both by the screenplay and the screen-time and manages to make the most out of it: in her ten minutes she's charming, warm and heartbreaking. It's a little, beautiful performance from a wonderful actress, and one that is quite unforgettable within its limitations.

4/5