The Oscars are once again upon us and Life goes out on a limb to pick the peaches.
Best Picture
In an ideal world, we all should be eligible to vote in the Oscars. Thankfully we're not living in an ideal world. That said, in something like an ideal world, Tár should win this year's Best Picture.
But the Oscars care nothing about ideals. Hence Tár is not going to win Best Picture. The film's exquisite ambiguity is too frustrating; the way it stalks the parameters of the subconscious too eerie; its arch anti-hero too cold and disagreeable; its final act too purposely maddening; its total immersion in the haute-culture of classical music too snooty for the majority of the (American) voters. Todd Field has made a disturbing film about an unpleasant person, and it is also the year's best movie. It is the best of cinema, with its precise structuring and detached cruelty evoking European art films of the mid-century, except for the much-debated angle on contemporary cancel culture.
So no, it's not going to be Tár. The choice comes down to either Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's quirky favourite Everything Everywhere All At Once, or the late-surging Edward Berger's German version of All Quiet On The Western Front, or Steven Speilberg's solid and classical The Fabelmans.
As I've said many, many times before, the Oscars love uplifting (and lately, inclusive) narratives. In recent years it has made efforts to show its generosity, its capacity for surprise, its embrace of unlikely talents operating just beyond (not too beyond) the conventions of the industry. And Everything Everywhere's story of struggling immigrants and their multiversal adventures fit the bills just too well -- on top of the fact that it's an ambitious, genre-bending and offbeat film that manages to find its true beating heart as well.
On a side note, why is nobody talking about Top Gun: Maverick? Twenty years ago when things were simpler, for better or worse, Tom Cruise's shamelessly entertaining fighter-jet melodrama would win every award to the incredulous gasp of critics. (Think Titanic). But I was daydreaming.
So it's going to be Everything Everywhere All At Once. I hope I am wrong.
Best Director
Usually but not always, this one goes the same road as Best Picture. So The Daniels, as the directing duo Kwan and Scheinert are known, are the frontrunners. But I have a nagging hunch that maybe, just maybe, this one might give us a surprise. In his long and illustrious career, Spielberg has won Best Director twice (for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan), and he seems to have the habit of not showing excessive competitiveness, or any at all, in the chaotic "Oscar race". He lets the movie do the talking, mostly. The Fabelmans is not a Spielberg film that you'd rank in his top five. Its buzz has faded since it won in Toronto last year, usually a reliable Oscar bellwether. But it's a solidly-made picture that runs on emotion and sincerity. I'd be happy to see the master win his third. (Spielberg didn't win with Jaws, his breakout hit; with that parallel logic The Daniels may be able to wait a little, too.)
Todd Field? Again, in an ideal world, Field should win Best Director and the orchestra should pump up the exuberant bars of Mahler's Fifth as he walks up on stage. But no, let's not repeat what I already said above.
But let's take the plunge and say it's Spielberg.
Best Actress
This is unfortunate. Both Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett could share the prize, like when the Olympics allow two high-jumpers to share a hotly-fought gold, for what's the point of signalling "the best" when we all know it's hopelessly indefinable.
Blanchett has given us another masterclass (maestroclass?) not just in acting technique but, as Tilda Swinton said when she was in Bangkok, in "deep disguise". Blanchett understands her character, the conductor Lydia Tár, but more than that, she understands the non-understandability of a human being, whether that human is a saint or a monster. She knows that a person cannot be read like a book, or a sheet of music, and that the layers of habit, impulse, instinct or monstrosity is the make-up of a person too tangled to be cleanly deciphered. "Complicated" is too modest a term.
Yeoh is wonderful in a different way. More humane, more accessible, more readable in her motherly confusion and as an immigrant trapped in the in-between existences -- legal, linguistic (her speech is half-English, half-Chinese), emotional, metaphysical. In a film as absurdly nutty as Everything Everywhere All At Once, she gives us an anchor. In philosophical term, her Evelyn is a female Sisyphus rolling a boulder up the hill, only to find that there are a hundred more Sisyphuses -- herselves in the plural -- doing the same thing and fighting the same battle against fate, determinism and heavenly ordain.
I would vote for Blanchett. But the momentum is behind Yeoh and she will win.
Best Actor
At first it seemed like a match-up between Colin Farrell from The Banshees Of Inisherin and Brendan Fraser from The Whale. Then Austin Butler won at the Golden Globes for Elvis -- how Hollywood loves actors playing dead actors -- and the race is now shaped around the competing narratives between a young, dashing star scoring a huge win (Butler) and the resurgence of a semi-forgotten actor making a leviathan-size comeback (Fraser, in prosthetics).
These two favourites do not generate excitement in me. They deliver, but it's all technique, all Hollywood theatricality. I would go for Farrell. But between Butler and Fraser, your guess is as good as mine.
Best Supporting Actor /Actress
Ke Huay Quan will win Best Supporting Actor. No need to elaborate.
Jamie Lee Curtis is unforgettable in the role of a paunchy taxwoman in Everything Everywhere -- a role that she clearly relishes and we clearly enjoy seeing her relishing it. Her contender is Angela Bassett from Wakanda Forever and here, should she win, the narrative will be the first Marvel superhero role to score an Oscar victory. Other notable performances are Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere, and Hong Chau in The Whale. But no, there will not be any upset here.
Jamie Lee Curtis, first-time nominee, will win her first Oscar. I've been a fan since Halloween.
Best Original / Best Adapted Screenplay
In the original screenplay category, we have three outstanding scripts that stretch the genre-writing playbook and take the audience to unpredictable places, out of this world or not. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All At Once; Todd Field's Tár; and Martin McDonagh's The Banshees Of Inisherin.
Again, the frontrunner is The Daniels, which means this Oscars will see an Everything Everywhere landslide. But again, the screenplay category usually has a soft spot for edgy, challenging writing (Promising Young Woman in 2021; Parasite in 2020, but my observation doesn't apply to last year's winner Belfast, its victory still a mystery), and I hope Tár has a chance to turn the tables and win something. The Daniels' screenplay is all smart and spectacular, a ballyhoo of bong-water bravado; while Field's script is all mood and menace, a spectre of unspoken feelings lurking beneath the cold surface. I'm rooting for Tár.
There isn't much left to speculate about the adapted screenplay prize. It will go to All Quiet On The Western Front by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell.
And the rest…
Best Cinematography: All Quiet On The Western Front (James Friend)
Best International Feature: All Quiet On The Western Front (Germany), which I find a little underwhelming
Best Animated Feature: Pinocchio, directed by Guillermo Del Toro. It could've competed in the Best Picture category and given all the frontrunners a run for their money
Best Documentary: All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, by Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John Lyons and Laura Poitras
Where to watch
- Thai cinemas are bringing many Oscar contenders back into their programme, such as Everything Everywhere All At Once, Tár, Elvis, The Fabelmans. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed is showing at Doc Club & Pub.
- All Quiet On The Western Front and Pinocchio are streaming on Netflix.
- The Banshees Of Inisherin streams on Disney+ Hotstar.
