Photo Finishes and Foregone Conclusions: A Review of the Key Races ahead of the 90th Annual Academy Awards
There are several guarantees when it comes to the 90th Annual Academy Awards (airing live tonight at 8pm EST/ 5pm PST on ABC).
1. The red carpet will be an awkward affair with Ryan Seacrest taking charge again despite his recent sexual harassment allegations.
2. Host Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue will combine self-deprecating humor about the self-congratulatory nature of the event and the hypocrisy of Hollywood with scathing satire of the Trump administration and brutal one-liners about Harvey Weinstein and the slew of fellow sexual predators in the industry who fell from grace this year.
3. There will be plenty of jokes about last year’s epic Best Picture mix-up, a viral moment the Academy has clearly doubled down on with its decision to invite that infamous presenting pair Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to do the honors again this year.
4. There will be numerous musical performances and unnecessary montages that will disrupt the flow of the proceedings.
5. The presenters will be a mix of Hollywood A-listers, legends you weren’t sure were still alive, and a slew of hot young stars (and former hot young stars) who probably shouldn’t have scored an invite to Hollywood’s biggest night, let alone a chance to be on the stage.
6. Guillermo Del Toro, Gary Oldman, Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and Allison Janney will win Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. These wins are almost certainties given that this award season has been the most predictable race in ages in several major categories. Interestingly, the only real drama is in the night’s top category, Best Picture, which lacks a real frontrunner going into the night.
Below is a breakdown of the competition in what I consider to be the 8 major key categories, including my objective predictions of who will win based on historical trends and hard data alongside my completely subjective views on who really deserves the win.
Best Picture
Throughout most of Oscar history, the night’s top award was locked down early on in the award season to the degree that even Oscar enthusiasts often did not mind turning the show off and heading to bed before it was announced. This has changed drastically in recent years, with no year having a surefire winner since 2011’s The Artist (and even that year there were some who were skeptical that the Academy would give the top award to a throwback to the silent film era.) Since then, each race has been a nail biter and this year is no exception. What’s the cause of the change? Is it the Academy’s increasingly diversified membership? Change in voting procedures? The answer is not clear, but the trend is undeniable.
How it will play out: This year’s slate of nine nominees can be divided into three groups. One is the “no shot in hell” group. This group contains Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s period piece about a controlling fashion designer; The Darkest Hour, Joe Wright’s biopic about Winston Churchill; The Post, Steven Spielberg’s historical drama about the publication of the Pentagon Papers; and Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age drama about two men who fall in love in Italy in the 1980s. Each of these film has their passionate supporters, but each failed to land supplemental nominations in key categories and underperformed consistently throughout award season, two factors that make a surprise win here extremely unlikely. The second group is the “possible spoilers.” This group includes Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s recreation of the evacuation of Dunkirk during WWII; Get Out, Jordan Peele’s horror film that doubles as a wickedly clever satire on modern race relations; and Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s comedy about a young woman navigating the choppy waters of adolescence. Each of these films combines near unanimous critical acclaim, strong box office, and a smattering of citations from other award-granting bodies, which makes them the most likely spoilers if neither of the two front runners manage to muster enough support. The third and final group is the “presumed frontrunners.” These are The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro’s Cold War-set, genre-defying film about social outcasts banding together to free an aquatic creature being mistreated by the U.S. government, and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic film about a mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in Middle America. Both of these films have dominated the precursor awards with Water winning the top awards from the Producers Guild and Directors Guild and Three Billboards taking top honors from the BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Oscars), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and the Golden Globes. Bot have strong detractors, with Water failing to win over those preferring more traditional films and Billboards igniting heated debate about whether it is a brilliant satire or a socially irresponsible film with a highly problematic storyline. I give the slight edge to The Shape of Water, especially considering that Billboards’ failed to score a Best Director nomination and there are only three instances in the past 89 years when a film won Best Picture without a corresponding nomination for Best Director.
How it should play out: Hands down, my vote goes to Lady Bird. The film has it all — a brilliant acting ensemble that features fantastic performances in each role (no matter how big or small), a witty screenplay featuring painful truths and big laughs, sensitive and skilled direction, and superb editing that makes the film feel remarkably lean (it packs the most punch of the nine nominees despite having the shortest running time by far.) I would also be pleased with a win by The Shape of Water and Call Me By Your Name, which I found to be superb accomplishments all around. I would, however, be massively disappointed by a win for Three Billboards. The film has a brisk pace, moments of undeniable power, and a few strong performances, but upon closer inspection the film fails as social commentary, a character piece, or an effective drama.
Best Director:
How it will play out: Guillermo Del Toro has this category in the bag. He has won virtually ever precursor award and even among those who did not passionately embrace the film there is a sense of general respect for his work on it. Interestingly his win will mark the fourth time in five years that a Mexican-born filmmaker has taken the award (Alfonso Cuaron won for 2013’s Gravity while Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won back-to-back Oscars for 2014’s Birdman and 2015’s The Revenant).
How it should play out: I will applaud the inevitable win for Del Toro here, but my vote would be for Greta Gerwig. I found her solo directing debut to result in the most assured, affecting, and flawless film of the year.
Best Actor:
How it will play out: Gary Oldman’s performance as Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour is everything that Oscar voters have traditionally loved: an actor impersonating a well-known historical figure, a physical transformation involving a lot of prosthetics, a performance filled with scenery chewing, and a late-career triumph for an actor who has never won. Also there is only one case in modern history where someone won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actor and then lost the Oscar — Russell Crowe for 2001’s A Beautiful Mind (who won that quartet of awards but then lost to Denzel Washington for Training Day). But Crowe was facing a slew of bad press and had won the year before for Gladiator. Oldman may be facing his own bad press (resurfaced allegations of spousal abuse), but he’s so far out in the lead I don’t see an upset happening.
How it should play out: I actually found Oldman’s performance and the film it was in to be of significantly higher quality than I was expecting and he will make a worthy winner. But nevertheless, my heart and vote lie with Timothee Chalamet, the 22-year-old whose achingly authentic performance as a teenager struggling to suppress his sexual desires is a masterwork.
Best Actress:
How it will play out: Frances McDormand will undoubtedly be getting her second Oscar for Three Billboards (she won previously in the category for 1996’s Fargo). She is beloved in the industry, her performance is impossible to look away from, and no Best Actress candidate has ever swept the top four precursors (BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Critics’ Choice, and Golden Globe) without winning the Oscar.
How it should play out: Saoirse Ronan has my vote. Scoring her third Oscar nomination at the age of 23 (she was previously nominated for her brilliant work in 2007’s Atonement and 2015’s Brooklyn), Ronan gives one of her finest performances as a rebellious teenager torn between big dreams and what she considers to be the stifling reality of her financially struggling family and her home town of Sacramento. It should be noted that this is an incredibly strong category, perhaps the strongest Best Actress lineup in recent memory. Sally Hawkins was flawless as the mute janitor whose passion and courage is aroused by the cruel treatment of a creature in the laboratory she works at. Margot Robbie shattered all expectations with her fearless embodiment of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding. Meryl Streep gave a subtle, nuanced performance as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham that I found to be her best work in years. And, even though I believe that the flawed screenplay prevented her from reaching her potential in the role, I found much to admire in McDormand’s performance.
Best Supporting Actor:
How it will play out: Sam Rockwell is a well-respected character actor who finally got attention from Hollywood as a dim-witted racist cop in Three Billboards. And as was the case with Best Actress, no Best Supporting Actor candidate has ever swept the top four precursors (BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Critics’ Choice, and Golden Globe) without winning the Oscar.
How it should play out: In my opinion, Rockwell’s character did not feel remotely authentic from a psychological perspective and the film’s tireless effort to redeem him epitomizes everything that was wrong with the film. In fact, I thought his costar and co-nominee Woody Harrelson did a lot more with less and outacted him significantly. My vote would be for Richard Jenkins as Sally Hawkins’ closeted neighbor in The Shape of Water. He has many of the film’s best lines and one of the film’s most heartbreaking scenes. Plus, he is a veteran character actor even more deserving of Hollywood’s attention than Rockwell.
Best Supporting Actress:
How it will play out: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, no Best Supporting Actress candidate has ever swept the top four precursors (BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Critics’ Choice, and Golden Globe) without winning the Oscar. That means there is little chance of anyone taking the stage other than Allison Janney, who will add an Oscar to her near-record stash of seven Primetime Emmy Awards (for her work on the political drama The West Wing, the sitcom Mom, and the historical drama Masters of Sex.)
How it should play out: Janney is one of our finest and most versatile working actresses and it is great to see her getting her due from the Academy. Nevertheless her performance as Tonya Hardings’ unfathomably cruel mother veers into caricature at times and her character disappears for much of the film’s second half. In contrast, Laurie Metcalf’s performance as a mother struggling to make ends meet and keep her family together in Lady Bird is a consistent presence throughout the movie and never feels anything less than 100% authentic. If I could will any upset in the acting categories into existence, it would be that Metcalf adds an Ocar to her three Emmys (for her supporting role as Roseanne’s sister on her eponymous sitcom) and her Tony (for her starring role in A Doll’s House, Part Two.)
Best Original Screenplay:
How it will play out: Second to Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay is the only major category of the night that is a real race. Conventional wisdom suggests that it will go to Martin McDonagh for the heavily awarded and highly buzzed Three Billboards. However, most detractors of the film cite the screenplay as being the most problematic element. This could pave the way for Jordan Peele or Greta Gerwig, with the first time nominees’ doing utterly brilliant work in Get Out and Lady Bird, respectively.
How it should play out: Jordan Peele’s screenplay for Get Out was daring, clever, and entertaining, but the key twists felt a bit undercooked and confounding to me. Thus, it is no question for me that I would throw my support behind Greta Gerwig, whose screenplay for Lady Bird is a work of art from all aspects, including character development, plot structure, and emotional authenticity.
Best Adapted Screenplay:
How it will play out: Historically, the Best Picture frontrunners dominate this category. However, this year only one of the nine nominees (Call Me By Your Name) featured a screenplay that was adapted from a pre-existing source. That alone would be enough to make it the frontrunner for the win, but the identity of its scribe puts it way out front. The film was written by 89-year-old James Ivory, who is the second oldest Oscar nominee in history and has never won despite three previous nominations for directing 1986’s A Room with a View, 1992’s Howard’s End, and 1993’s The Remains of the Day.
How it should play out: Although it would be great to see a woman of color win this award (Mudbound cowriter Dee Rees is only the second woman of color ever nominated in this category) and I thought the screenplays for Molly’s Game, The Disaster Artist, and Logan all had moments of brilliance, but ultimately none of those four films cohered into a powerful and affecting whole the way James Ivory’s adaptation of Andre Aciman’s 2007 novel did.
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