If you were an Academy member, for whom would you vote?
I’ve seen all five performances, and based solely on the performance itself, I’d vote for Helen Hunt’s very subtle, nuanced turn. But Hunt is pretty clearly a lead in the movie, so my favorite actual supporting performance is Amy Adams.
I didn’t see Adams’ (whom I love) or Hunt’s movies. Out of the three I have seen, all were good, but I would have to go with Hathaway.
Yeah, I haven’t seen the performances by Adams (whom I love in all her work, all the way back to Enchanted) nor Hunt (who by all accounts is dazzlingly naked in The Sessions) … but Hathaway has to be the front-runner. Her version of “I Dreamed A Dream” is an emotional punch in the gut that causes open sobbing in the theatre audience. She’s fantastic. Field was also very good, and I would not be upset if she somehow snatched away the award from Hathaway. Weaver, though … I just don’t see her performance as worthy of a nomination. She was okay, but nothing special. After seeing SLP, my wife and I looked at each other and said, yeah, Cooper and Lawrence are outstanding, and DeNiro has a really good scene, but why Jacki Weaver?
Anne Hathaway by a mile. Thought Samantha Barks would be my pick from the same movie if they nominated the correct actress from that film. 
My problem with Hathaway is that while her song is genuinely devastating, I really don’t care for her performance leading up to it. It’s fine, but nothing I found too special. I would say Barks has a better arc, but because the film is missing the intermission in the musical, she vanishes almost as quickly as she appears.
Field is very good, but I’ll be honest–she has 2 already. If I were an Academy member, I wouldn’t be in any rush to have her record be 3-for-3, especially since the wonderful Adams (who has to fend off the ferocious Phoenix and Hoffman) will probably go 0-for-4 after this ceremony. She gets my vote.
I vote Hathaway with 3 of the films under my belt. I should back a winner every so often just so I don’t lose all my cred.
weekend bump
I haven’t seen The Sessions yet, but out of the remaining four I voted for Anne Hathaway.
I thought her performance was going to be overrated before I went to see the movie because it’s such an easy role to phone in. However, Hathaway’s performance really caught me off guard by how great it was. You could see the hope drain out of her face as she was singing the song. None of the other actors had such an emotional connection with the music in their scenes.
Fields and Adams were good, but they weren’t surprisingly good. They were as good as I expected them to be. Maybe their performances just got drowned out by all the good acting around them. Hathaway’s performance towers over everyone else in Les Miserables.
Having only seen Lincoln, Les Miz and Silver Linings, It would be a toss up between Field and Weaver.
Anne (with an e) has been given the award before anyone ever saw her performance. Kind of the way Natalie Portman won hers. (in a really bad movie)
Really Weaver and or Fields are betters supporting players. Their performances support their fellow actors. Making them and the movie better. AH barely has any scenes with her fellow actors.
The problem with Hathaway’s performance, good as it was, is that it didn’t fit the rest of the film. Whilst everything else was over-the-top, colourful and sometimes grotesque, sometimes ethereally beautiful, she was none of those things. She was the only realistic, subtle performance in the film, and it was so jarring it spoiled the first 30 minutes of the film for me.
I’m sure that was what the director wanted, but I’ve no idea why.
I’m not sure who I’d vote for, the Academy seems to have a weird idea of what a supporting actor is these days anyway.