I don’t have the time this year to produce my usual detailed Oscars preview and post ceremony review, but some of the categories up for grabs are worth a quick mention.
Firstly, the great cinematographer Roger Deakins has been nominated for the 14th time for Blade Runner 2049. Whilst, he rightly has strong competition from Hoyte van Hoytema for Dunkirk, surely it is time the he is awarded? He is the favourite with the bookies, but he has been that before and ended up disappointed.
All of the acting prizes seem to be settled already with Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour), Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) massively odds on for best actor, actress and supporting actor respectively. For a while, it seemed that there could be a closer race in the supporting actress category with the two leading contenders appearing in films I saw this week. Both play the mothers of the central characters and both have strained relationships with those daughters.
In Lady Bird, Laurie Metcalf is Marion McPherson, a nurse who’s family are struggling financially, especially when her husband, Larry (Tracy Letts) is laid off. Her daughter, Christine (Saoirse Ronan), is more preoccupied with her attempts to get into a college as far away from her home town of Sacramento as she can, and her burgeoning interest in boys.
This film could come across as a typical, and unremarkable, coming of age story. Christine, the self styled Lady Bird the title is frequently selfish and self obsessed, but with a superb, fresh, script from Greta Gerwig, it becomes a much more layered, deeper film than it might first appear. Lady Bird’s trials…a boyfriend with a big secret, another potential love interest who is dark and mysterious, the falling out with her best friend when a more popular girl befriends her…have all been seen before but rarely explored so well.
It helps that Ronan gives another great lead performance – just a couple of years after she was so good in Brooklyn – but also that the supporting performances are also outstanding. Her relationships with both of her parents are more complicated than you would normally see and both Letts and Metcalf are brilliant.
Lady Bird: 9 out of 10
Metcalf was initially hotly tipped for an Academy Award, but it now appears that she is certain to lose out to Allison Janney for her part in I, Tonya. In the build up to the 1994 Winter Olympics, the United States number 1 female figure skater was attacked as she came off the rink. Her legs were badly damaged and the police investigation so turned to her main rival in the US Olympic team, Tonya Harding.
In this telling of the infamous story, Harding (Margot Robbie) is portrayed as as much of a victim as Kerrigan. From a poor background, she was bullied by her mother into becoming the skater she did and ended up in a physically abusive marriage with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan).
It also shows that Tonya had no prior knowledge of the attack organised by Jeff’s delusional friend, Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) and was merely guilty of being part of the cover up afterwards.
Now, I have no idea if that is true, but the story does feel very one sided, and Harding has been involved in a lot of the publicity for the movie, so no one could claim it was balanced. That would not matter so much if the film was more successful at what it was trying to do. The mockumentary approach taken at times during it, isn’t followed through, the breaking of the 4th wall as characters talk to the camera felt unnecessarily gimmicky and the jokey tone was frequently jarring.
On the plus side, the story, in itself, is sufficiently interesting to mask some of the film’s flaws as there are some good turns from Hauser, as well as Julianne Nicholson and Bojana Novakovic as Harding’s coaches. Robbie is an actress that I continue to remain unimpressed by and it is left to Janney to steal the film as the foul mouthed, over bearing LaVona.
Still best known for the West Wing, Janney has been excellent in pretty much everything she has appeared in in the years since and continues to do great work in the under appreciated sitcom Mom – please British TV networks, someone pick that up now that ITV2 has stopped showing it! She may lack the nuance of Metcalf’s performance, but I will not begrudge her picking up the award on Sunday.
I, Tonya: 6.5 out of 10
A film bafflingly, to me, excluded during the awards season is Last Flag Flying. Given a limited release a few weeks ago, and still playing in some art house cinemas, it has also just appeared on Amazon Prime as it was financed by Amazon studios. In 2003, three men, played by Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, who served in Vietnam reunite when Carell needs to collect the body of his son who has been killed whilst fighting in the marines in Iraq.
Once again, director Richard Linklater takes a simple story and weaves a beautifully told tale. The relationship between the three men, with their horrendous experiences uniting, and in one case, potentially dividing them, is completely believable and very moving, without being maudlin or over sentimental. Linklater is a dab hand at making people talking cinematic but this type of film lives or dies by its performances. Cranston is great fun in the most showy part, it is always good to see Fishburne is a rare appearance in a major role but Carell is the heart of the film. He has the most tricky part, and is fantastic. It is the latest in a series of fine performances from the actor, and one that should have seen him in contention for best actor prizes.
Last Flag Flying: 9 out of 10
The film would not have been out of place in the list for Best Movie at the upcoming awards. A list that Lady Bird makes but I, Tonya does not. It is the most interesting of the categories because, not only is it the most prestigious prize it is the hardest one to call. I would pick Dunkirk as the best of the bunch with The Post a close second, but neither of those are in the running. Call Me By Your Name (which will probably pick up a screenplay prize), Darkest Hour, and Phantom Thread are also out of contention.
However, you can make a good case for any of the remaining four winning. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – my third pick – was an early front runner but it has been dogged by controversy surrounding the redemption of Rockwell’s racist character. The Shape of Water is the new favourite, but I do wonder whether, with Guillermo Del Toro almost certain to win the best director prize, if the best film award will be given elsewhere, and there are two outsiders that seem to be picking up momentum. Lady Bird has a lot of admirers, and in the current climate, giving the award to a film directed by a woman would be popular. Get Out, though, appeared high in most critics end of year lists, and despite being released early in 2017, it seems to be gathering a head of steam. Overrated in my view, but I would not now be surprised to see it win the top award.