Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1994: Rosemary Harris in Tom & Viv

Rosemary Harris received her only Oscar nomination to date for her performance as Rose Haigh-Wood in Tom & Viv.

Tom & Viv is a rather poor movie about the stormy relationship between poet T. S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood. The film might have a few decent moments and some aspects are actually good enough such as the costume design and the score, but otherwise it's extremely flawed. The direction is completely unremarkable and lets the movie be dictated by the screenplay - which is not very good either. My biggest issue with it is the writing of Vivienne's character: it's an absolute mess as the movie doesn't really seem to decide if it wants to portray her insanity as tragic (see the final scene) or almost comedic (such as the scene in which she throws her husband's clothers out of the window or that weird knife scene). I think this could have been a great movie as the story is a good one but this is a truly unsatisfying result. 

Rosemary Harris plays Rose Haigh-Wood, Vivienne's mother. It's not a role that is particularly rich or rewarding and it doesn't get that much screen-time either: considered the quality of the movie around her, you would imagine this performance was bound to be a disaster. But Rosemary Harris is an absolutely brilliant actress who can convey a whole lot of feelings while seemingly doing little and in Tom & Viv she manages to overcome completely the limitations of the script delivering by far the most powerful performance of the whole movie. We first see Rose when she finds out of Tom's and Vivienne's secret marriage: in this brief scene, Harris perfectly portrays Rose as the kind of character she's supposed to play - the proper, aristocratic lady. But in the few following scenes Harris unexpectedly reveals Rose as a much more open-hearted and warmer variation of this type of character (which has been seen so often on-screen). In her first scene with Willem Dafoe's Tom she is absolutely terrific as she portrays Rose as a much more tolerant person that expected - Harris brings such a great, welcome amount of warmth and gentleness to her part that she makes for an incredibly endearing presence and she establishes perfectly Rose's defining character trait: her love for her daughter. Sadly, Harris and Miranda Richardson don't share many scenes together but in their few moments Harris does a fantastic job at conveying both Rose' affection towards Viv but also a great concern for her mental health - it is in fact revealed that her worries about Viv's marriage with Tom was not due to the fact that she didn't approve of him, but rather due to Viv's extremely erratic behavior and mood swings. I particularly like the scene in which Rose carries Viv out of the dining room as Viv starts behaving strangely, even telling her husband that a friend of theirs wants to have sex with her: Harris is heartbreaking as she so flawlessly shows Rose' plight and helplessness as she witnesses her daughter's condition becoming progressively worse.

As I mentioned before, Harris doesn't really have that great amount of scenes throughout the movie but she can make a big impact only with her facial expressions and silent reactions. As the movie progresses, she movingly portrays Rose' developement throughout the years - she gradually becomes more lonely as she goes through the loss of her husband and she also becomes increasingly more worried and exhausted by her daughter's unpredictable nature. She is absolutely great in the scene in which the family has to decide how to split Rose's husband's goods and Viv seems to be only concerned with having a house and a car without even bothering to mourn her father: Harris is very touching at expressing her shock and disappointment towards her daughter's behavior - she barely speaks in the scene yet in the end she is the one to remember from it. 

But her very best scenes come in the movie's last half an hour. I think she is excellent in the scene where Rose speaks with Tom and the doctors who want to visit Viv to determine if she should be put in an asylum or not. Harris does some beautiful subtle acting here - she never even raises her voice but you can see her heart breaking as she speaks with them. There's no big moment, no big tears or shouting, but Harris manages to touch the viewer on a much quieter, more intimate level because she portrays so perfectly a woman who, in that precise moment, loses what she loves the most. And I love that small moment in which the doctor calls her Mrs. Wood and she replies in a firm voice "It's Haigh-Wood" - it adds a nice touch of dignity and strength to the character, a woman who manages to pull herself together even as she is devasted. And her final scene in the movie as she remprimands Tom for his selfishness while she packs is by far the highlight of the whole movie - no wonder it was used as Harris' Oscar clip: she delivers her monologue with outstanding subtlety and dignity, ranging from melancholy upon her daughter's fate to guilt for letting it happen to quiet but chilling coldness towards Tom. Her eyes alone manage to be more reproachful than many actresses do in an entire movie. Her line-delivery of "You swore to us, Tom, that you would always look after Vivi. And now you're famous on a bookshelf. What do we have left to give you?" is simply heartbreaking and painful in its quietness.

Overall, this is a fantastic performance by Rosemary Harris, who turns a potentially stock role into the movie's strongest assset. I know she is considered by many a filler nominee but I think she does an absolutely terrific job at becoming the movie's quiet, calm and finally devastating centerpiece. I really loved her work, and if I'll ever rewatch Tom & Viv it would only be to revisit this wonderful masterclass of subtlety. 

4.5/5