Ariana DeBose, Tory Kotsur and Jessica Chastain all picked up top acting gongs
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)The Oscars are always a fairytale for someone, and this year’s Cinderella was Sian Heder, director and writer of CODA, the coming-of-age drama from Apple TV+. Heder’s film defied the odds to snag Best Picture. The 44 year old, from Massachusetts, also took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
You’d have to be crazy to begrudge her that success (did you watch her speech? She’s lovely). You’d also have to be crazy to view CODA as a masterpiece. For the last two years, Academy voters have given their highest honour to stories that swerved schmaltz (Parasite; Nomadland). I predicted both of Heder’s wins. But, damn, I didn’t want to be right. I have a friend who’s always looking for something to watch with her family at the end of the week that’s fun, maybe moving, definitely not gruelling. CODA is the quintessential Friday Night Film.
That The Lost Daughter, Licorice Pizza and Spencer all went home with nothing is tragic. Otherwise, it was all good.
Jane Campion, as expected, got the Best Director trophy for The Power of the Dog. Back in 1994, Campion was up against Steven Spielberg (it was The Piano vs Schindler’s List). This time, she triumphed. Meanwhile, Troy Kotsur thoroughly deserved his trophy for Best Supporting Actor as CODA’s Frank Rossi, a non-hearing man in a hostile world. In the film’s genuinely rousing second half, he, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant (all deaf) completely own the movie.
As for Ariana DeBose, the vivacious and vital Anita in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, it was bliss to watch her thank the first screen Anita, Rita Moreno, for paving the way “for tons of Anitas like me”. It was almost as emotional as the bit in the film where Moreno, playing glorious new character Valentina, sings Somewhere. DeBose and Moreno: these women are really good at making us cry.
How cool, too, that Kenneth Branagh got the Best Original Screenplay prize. Belfast is a hymn to the complicated business of being from Northern Ireland, crammed with earthy details you only notice on second viewing (it’s the most toilet-centric yarn since James Joyce’s Ulysses; anyone who’s ever used newspaper as loo roll will appreciate the scene set in the grandparents’ outdoor bog).
Also spot on: the wins for Questlove’s documentary Summer of Soul, (a portrait of a 1969 Harlem music festival that digs into the politics of the time and couldn’t feel more passionately relevant if it tried) and Best International Feature Film, Drive My Car. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s adaptation of several Murakami short stories is an ingenious, rule-flouting meditation on guilt and story-telling, a quietly urgent ghost story, dominated by a gifted and damaged woman. It’s long, but time glides and you don’t want it to end.
Clearly, fans of Zach Snyder feel the same way about Netflix zombie heist thriller, Army of the Dead (which won the unoffocial “fan-favourite” award, organised with the help of Twitter). Personally, I thought it was 148 minutes too long. Nor do I understand the hysteria concerning Snyder’s Justice League (Ezra Miller’s admittedly sparky character, Flash, earned best “cheer moment”, for “entering the speed force”, ie getting whizzy). Last year, in Spider-Man: No Way Home, three super-heroes converged. Is Flash really more popular than the Spideys? Whatever, the Oscars acted like Tom Holland didn’t exist and were the poorer for it.
This year’s bash was anything but dull. And the choices made certainly weren’t a disgrace. But a vintage year? Nah. I’m already looking forward to 2023.
