Best Actress 1968: Patricia Neal in The Subject Was Roses

Patricia Neal received her second Oscar nomination for playing Pat, a woman who's son has come home for war in The Subject Was Roses.


The Subject Was Roses is a great film, really underrated, well that's because it's so fucking hard to find! Honestly, I haven't been able to find it anywhere! And I've looked my hardest (mostly) at all the places I've been to! Anyway, Patricia Neal brings some of the earthiness to Pat that she brought to Alma in Hud, but Neal's performance her is even better then that. Pat is a very repressed and distant person, (though maybe some of her distance comes from the fact that her son has just come home after so long), but there is much more to her then meets the eye. Neal never lets us see all of Pat and that helps her performance quite a lot. In her face, we see generations of sadness and repression. She beautifully rips off layer after layer until we see who she is (Or at least enough after her) and she has many great moments, especially when her husband (Jack Albertson) brings her the roses and when they get into a fight after a night on the town. She is so haunting in the scene where she runs away, it's quite sad, and she never says a word through out the whole thing! Her monolugue when she comes home is a terrific moment as well.

Patricia Neal gives a brilliant, deeply layered performance which is quite haunting which gets

Note: I know I did Kate's profile earlier, but I decided to delete it and do Neal's instead because I didn't pay attention through out the whole thing and I was a bit disappointed by her and that might be because of the fact that I didn't pay attention to all of it and stopped it too much . So, Kate will be last instead.