One film celebrates the courage and generosity of a white middle-class "soccer mom" who transforms the life of a disadvantaged and illiterate teenager from Memphis. The other tells the bleak but uplifting tale of the troubled teenage years of an obese, pregnant black girl living in Harlem, New York.
So far, so different. But the leading actresses in both The Blind Side and Precious – two of the most powerful hits of the year – are in strong contention for the Academy award for best actress in Los Angeles tonight.
Sandra Bullock, who plays the Christian heroine of The Blind Side, has been widely praised for her convincing portrayal of a well-off woman who is determined to do good for teenager Michael Oher. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, on the other hand, has been hailed as a subtle new talent in the taxing lead role of Precious, a girl who only just manages to pull herself clear of her underclass roots.
Whoever claims the prize, the victory will be about much more than acting skill: the two films have gained acclaim from two very different political constituencies. Since its release in America last year, in time for Thanksgiving celebrations, The Blind Side has been championed by many of the same rightwing activists who took Sarah Palin to their hearts during the presidential election campaign a year and a half ago.
In fact, Bullock's characterisation of the pencil-skirted, prosperous Leigh Anne Tuohy, an emblem of the religiously principled backbone of America, has been repeatedly likened to Palin, particularly as rumours of a new presidential push for the former governor of Alaska gain credence.
Liberal critics have taken a rather different view, describing the film as patronising and condescending towards black youth. Some have dubbed the movie an exercise "in white guilt", while the New York Times has pointed out how little screen time is afforded to Oher's deprived background, going on to suggest the film makers are "interested only in that world as an occasion for selective charity".
Instead they champion director Lee Daniels' portrayal of Claireece Precious Jones as a triumph of gritty social realism. According to the distinctly Democratic-leaning Rolling Stone magazine, the film "tunnels inside your head, leaves you moved like no film in years and then lifts you up in ways you don't see coming. Despite the pain at the story's core, the movie has a spirit that soars. Gabourey Sidibe's astounding debut brims with grit and amazing grace, digs aspiration out of buried dreams. I don't know how director Lee Daniels works his magic. But once Precious gets its hooks into you, no way is it letting go."
Bullock's film, which is released here on 26 March and was directed by John Lee Hancock, is based on the fairy-tale, true-life account of the journey taken by the young American Football player Oher. Born into a dysfunctional family in Hurt Village in Memphis, the third poorest district in the country, Oher is offered a lifeline up into the middle classes by Tuohy. She welcomes him into her family home and then supports and guides him towards a career as a highly-paid sports professional.
For Oher, whose father and maternal grandfather were both murdered and whose uncle was on death row for killing his wife, to have gained entry to this privileged world with the help of the Tuohy family is seen as the ultimate blessing. At school Oher had repeatedly played truant and was originally assessed as having an IQ of only 80. He had not only never touched a football, he did not understand the concept of the ocean. Once Tuohy had persuaded her wealthy husband, Sean, to take him into their home to live alongside their cheerleader daughter, Collins, and their son, Sean Jnr, he was promptly groomed both as a sportsman and as a student, eventually becoming one of the most sought-after high school football talents of his year.
Precious, on the other hand, is a slice of grimness served up specifically to reveal the gaping holes in the American system. Based on the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire, it follows the teenager through incestuous rape and HIV infection as she scrambles her way towards self-improvement against all the odds.
The political interests vested in the fight for the best actress award are just one layer of anxiety in the fraught night ahead. To plagiarise Johnny Carson's famous remark about the length of the ceremony, the Oscars offer television viewers two hours of intense nervous tension, cruelly spread out over four hours of coverage (although the broadcasters are hoping for only three hours this year).
Comperes Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin will have to work hard maintaining pace and the sense of fun as the winners are encouraged to speak for just 45 seconds in a year when the shortlist for best film has been lengthened to 10 for the first time, and when campaign strategies have been more controversial than ever before. Earlier this year, Nicolas Chartier – one of the producers of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow's screen treatment of the work of bomb disposal teams in Iraq – was banned from attending tonight's ceremony because he had misguidedly texted friends in the Academy – in other words, other voting members – encouraging them to cast their ballot for his film rather than that of the other favourite for best film, James Cameron's record-grossing Avatar.
Sensitivities abound in this most prestigious category because Cameron is Bigelow's ex-husband and because the two films have become symbols of two very different brands of Hollywood product. Cameron's film is pure spectacle, inventive but escapist and very expensive. Bigelow's war film, in contrast, makes deliberately uncomfortable viewing, will have more limited box office appeal and was made for a smaller budget (although one which still dwarfs most British productions).
Proof of the efforts made to strike exactly the right tone, on a night which will lay bare the divisions in the Los Angeles entertainment community, has come in the last-minute decision to ditch a comic sketch that targeted the fantastical content of Cameron's sci-fi epic.
The British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was to have appeared in a short sequence alongside the American comedian Ben Stiller but the plug was inexplicably pulled this month, with the explanation that there had been "artistic differences". Cameron, who won a slew of Oscars for Titanic, may have pulled off another box office coup, but it appears the Hollywood blockbuster machine is in defensive mode tonight.
If Bigelow does win best director for The Hurt Locker, however, her most important achievement will not have been to have triumphed over a former husband or over a cinematic juggernaut, but to have become the first female director to take the statuette. She is already one of only four women to be shortlisted for the best director award in the Academy's 81-year history.
