Emma Stone was the weakest link
She was badly upstaged by five other actress's, three of which all won awards while she went home with nothing. This affected her career for years until she got another chance with "lala lala land".
To be honest, she wasn't a good actress in the film. She was too inexperienced at that time, couldn't even do a southern accent and was too young for the role. She was only a few years younger than the character she played by she still looked like she was in her teens at the time. Her character got branded useless and a "white savior" stereotype mainly because of her poor portrayal. She literally almost ruined the film.