Best Actress 2013: Marion Cotillard, Lowlife (aka Nightingale)

So, the AMPAS recently demonstrated again that Marion Cotillard has been rewarded enough (for now).  A few years ago, they chose to nominate Penélope Cruz over her for Nine, and despite being armed with every major precursor one generally needs to get into the Oscar race, they left her out, despite her baity role in Rust and Bone.  With so much seeming competition in 2014, does this mean one need not bother to anticipate her chances for Lowlife (aka Nightingale)?  In this immigrant drama-romance set in the earlier part of the 20th century, she plays a Polish woman duped into the vaudeville and burlesque life by a man of ill repute (Joaquin Phoenix), until his cousin magician played by Jeremy Renner comes along and helps her reunite with her ill sister.  The project sounds like a slightly darker version of Water for Elephants.  Director James Gray cowrote the screenplay with Ric Menello (Two Lovers).  This will mark Gray's fourth collaboration with Phoenix (The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers), who is also one of the leads.  Gray will also be working again with editor John Axelrad, production designer Happy Massee, and art director Pete Zumba.  I had challenges figuring out who the costume designer is, but their work shows a lot of promise.  Lensing the film, however, is Darius Khondji, who has often stepped behind the camera for such auteurs as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, David Fincher (Se7en), and, more recently, Woody Allen.  He received an Oscar nomination for Evita, and has also worked with Roman Polanski, Neil Jordan, Danny Boyle, Kar Wai Wong, and Stephen Frears.  Most recently, he filmed Amour with Michael Haneke after having teamed up on the Funny Games remake.  Produced on a $16.5M budget in New York, The Weinstein Company will be releasing the movie sometime this year.

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