While I don’t feel like this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees is as strong as years past, watching every movie in the most prestigious Academy Awards category is a tradition I’m happy to uphold for the seventh year in a row. When the nominations were announced, I had only seen two of the ten, so that left me with a lot of ground to make up. I’ve been fortunate to have had years where I’ve seen every one of the nominees in a cinema, but not this year where I only got to do so with eight of the ten. Still a good ratio, but as someone who loves being in a cinema, I do find the increasingly short runs that movies have in theatres before relegation to a streaming service quite distressing.
Much has been made of the exclusion of movies like Challengers and Hard Truths from this year’s ceremony. Since I saw neither of those, I can’t comment. However, I do feel both Civil War and Smile 2 have left a lasting impact on me (and I’m sure many other filmgoers). Both of those movies were such visceral experiences and I feel if they had been included in the nominations, this Awards season would be the better for it. Let us shed a tear for what might have been.
As per usual, this is not a list of predictions of who I feel will win the big prize. I’m not a psychic. If I were, I’d be doing a lot better in my fantasy hockey pool. (To be fair I did get off to a great start at the beginning of the season. I’ve since fallen off hard.) Instead, I want to tell you my thoughts of each of this year’s best picture nominees. I’m going to begin with the movie I think least deserves to win, and work upward to my favourite of the bunch.
Let’s begin.
10. Emilia Pérez
Let’s put aside all the controversy surrounding Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, with the vile social media posts that have been dredged up targeting Muslims, Chinese people, Black Lives Matter protesters and more. Let’s put aside all of the negativity that has risen up around this movie since it scored a remarkable 13 Oscar nominations. Let’s put aside it’s big win at the Golden Globes last month in the musical and comedy category. (I don’t take the Globes seriously for a reason.) Having now seen Emilia Pérez, I simply don’t see how it deserves to be nominated for this award. Hell, I don’t think it should have gone to camera before the screenplay and the songs got a rewrite or two.
Emilia Pérez is the story of the leader of a drug cartel who undergoes gender reassignment, and strives to redeem herself with her new identity. Or, it’s the story of Emilia’s lawyer, who finds a new sense of purpose through her client’s work. It’s hard to tell. Gascón, who plays Emilia, takes a long time to appear in the movie. The opening 15 minutes of the movie is dominated by the downtrodden lawyer named Rita, portrayed by the always bad-ass Zoe Saldaña. Her faith in Mexico’s justice system is shaken after successfully helping a murderer go free. She gets two musical numbers before we get our first appearance by Gascón. It’s easy to think, therefore, that Rita is the main character, but no. So many of Rita’s motivations and struggles are left unresolved as the movie trudges on.
But there are more problems. The choice to make this a musical is bewildering. Having seen it, I’m unsure what the songs add. Sure, some of the choreography is impressive. (I shouldn’t be surprised that Saldaña is a strong dancer.) But much of what gets communicated through the songs is either extremely on the nose dialogue akin to “I want to love myself,” or internal character drama that simply goes nowhere. One of this movie’s two songs that are nominated for the Best Song Oscar is “El Mal,” during which Rita has this internal struggle with the nefarious people Emilia has recruited for her virtuous non-profit organization. Rita’s struggle is never alluded to again. Also, the bulk of the song revolves around one note, which is probably a mercy since both Saldaña and Gascón reveal themselves to be pretty weak singers. That’s a problem. Director Jacques Audiard might have wanted to hire actors with strong singing voices when he decided to film a musical.
But even the main plot is bizarre. It’s obvious that we are supposed to empathize with Emilia. The movie’s ending practically elevates the character to sainthood. Gascón’s first musical number has her character explaining her desire to transition, and how she just wants to experience the chance to live as her authentic self before she dies. There’s something understandable in that, but I can’t help but think that the only reason she has the means to do that is because of all the murder and mayhem she wreaked across Mexico in the identity she’s leaving behind. That is a big thing you’re asking me to overlook, and I don’t think that’s a feat I can manage.
Emilia is a character with an annoying sense of entitlement. Rita was enlisted to help her find a surgeon willing and able to perform the gender reassignment surgery, and Rita did that. Emilia said she wanted her previous identity to be presumed dead, and that she would be gone from her wife and children’s lives, but she reinserts herself to Rita’s life demanding to have her family back. Then she wants the goodwill of the Mexican people for finding mass graves of her disappeared countryfolk so their families can find closure. I’m just supposed to overlook the reason she was able to find those graves?
There is nothing wrong with a flawed protagonist. Flaws can make a protagonist more relatable and nuanced. But Audiard has set up Emilia as this Christ figure, and the character simply has not earned that status. That is my biggest problem with Emilia Pérez.
In the seven years I’ve been doing this, my previous least-favourite Best Picture nominee was Vice, that movie about Dick Cheney that couldn’t figure out what it was trying to say about him. Emilia Pérez is easily worse than Vice. I don’t know what Academy members were smoking when they nominated this film, but I suppose it isn’t the worst thing a bunch of people did with ballots recently.
9. Anora
Maybe I’m allergic to palmes d’or.
Two years ago, one of the nominees for Best Picture was Triangle of Sadness, a class warfare epic set predominantly on a cruise ship. I found it to be way more unpleasant than it needed to be, and rife with character inconsistencies. But what do I know? It won the Palme d’Or, the top prize of the world renowned Cannes Film Festival.
This year, that prize went to Anora, which follows the adventures of a sex worker who runs afoul of the Russian mafia. Going into the movie I was bombarded with a ton of rave reviews. Were my expectations too high? I suppose that’s possible, but I don’t think that explains all of my disappointment.
Just like I feel I was supposed to empathize with Emilia Pérez, I suspect I’m also supposed to empathize with this movie’s title character, played in an Oscar-nominated performance by Mikey Madison. But I found that so difficult. At the start of the movie, I don’t know what Ani cares about other than money and pleasure. When the movie ends, I’m not sure if her values changed or not. Yes, Ani goes through some scary and rough events throughout this story, but is she wiser now? Is she?
Mark Eydelshteyn plays Ivan, the son of a mafia don who meets Ani at the strip club where she works. He likes her, so he buys more and more of her time, and she’s more than thrilled to keep taking his money. She allows him to get closer to her than her other customers, explaining that she likes him. However, at no point was I made to feel that Ani’s feelings toward Ivan went any further than, “he’s an enjoyable customer.” Even when they’re having sex, it didn’t seem to me that Ani was getting much pleasure from the act. It certainly seemed she was getting more pleasure from the money he was paying her and all the luxury with which he was showering her.
Then Ivan proposes. Madison shows Ani doing some calculations in her head. She demands a ring. They zip off to Vegas and tie the knot. When word of the marriage makes its way to Russia, everything turns bad for the couple. Ivan’s father sends some underlings to invade the new couple’s home, and things get violent. Curiously, many audience members laughed at the violence, and that made me uncomfortable. As much as Ani fights back, I was still watching a young woman being physically attacked and restrained. All the while, Ani repeats that this is a real marriage and they’re in love, which made me roll my eyes. One of the mobsters promises her $10,000 to accept an annulment. After Ivan cowardly runs out of the house, Ani helps the mobsters go and find him.
It seems to me that in order to enjoy this movie, you had to connect with the title character in some way. If that is true, then everyone who voted to award this movie the Palme d’Or was able to connect with her, while I was not. Did the voters in Cannes buy that her and Ivan were in love? If they did, I don’t get it. Did they like Igor, the mobster that slowly gets won over by Ani’s charms? Yura Borisov scored a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for playing Igor, so obviously many others are being seduced by Anora in a way that’s eluding me.
I’m under the impression that in order for a story to be affective, the main character has to go on a journey. Something about the character has to be different at the end of the story than at the beginning. With Anora, I think Ani is the same person she was at the beginning, she’s just sadder. To me, that’s not enough. I’m just calling it like I see it.
8. Dune: Part Two
When Dune: Part One was nominated for Best Picture three years ago, I complimented it on the sheer enormity it exuded. That’s still true with the sequel. Part One built the world and established the environment in which everything functions. That’s still true with the sequel. Part One was a star-studded affair, with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Charlotte Rampling at the top of their game, with great appearances from Oscar Isaac and Jason Momoa added for extra pleasure. Chalamet, Zendaya, Ferguson, Bautista, Brolin, Bardem and Rampling all return for the sequel, and this time the bonus stars are Christopher Walken, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh. The question, then, is – What does Part Two do that Part One didn’t already do?
My answer to that is: It ramps up the Chosen One narrative. Paul Atreides (played by Chalamet), now hiding from the House of Harkonnen with the Fremen on a desert planet, fulfils more and more prophecies suggesting that he is the saviour who will lead their people to prosperity. It all leads to a thrilling climactic battle in the Imperial Palace room.
It’s a good movie. Denis Villeneuve has long been one of my favourite directors, and he’s now three films deep into the blockbuster era of his career (following Blade Runner 2049 and Dune: Part One). At this point there is no one better at making a movie feel absolutely massive. The desert is never-ending. The sandworms are colossal. The war ships seem as big as cities.
The problem is that Villeneuve established this world in Part One. He split Frank Herbert’s book into two different movies, and now Part Two has to stand on its own as its own movie. Part One did such a good job guiding us into the movie’s environment and setting the stage. It got the story going, and then we had this long break before we got the next part of the story. Now that Part Two is here, we’re plopped back into Paul Atreides’ adventure, having to reacclimatize ourselves to his world, work that was all done in Part One. So, what are we left with in Part Two? The answer: a good Chosen One story.
There’s nothing wrong with a good Chosen One story, but a lot has happened since Herbert published Dune in 1965. A dozen years after that novel hit the bookshelves, a sizeable thing called Star Wars hit the cinemas. It redefined the Chosen One narrative. And Star Wars will… just…not… go… away. On top of that we have so many more Chosen One franchises like The Matrix, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Kung Fu Panda and on and on. I may enjoy Villeneuve’s Dune movies more than a lot of those, but I’m not sure they distinguish themselves that much from them.
Actually, I’ll concede one thing: Zendaya’s Chani character. There has been chemistry between Chani and Paul from Part One, and it builds in this movie. But as Paul rises in status, a gulf grows between the two of them, and she raises doubts about whether he’s the Chosen One at all. I think Chani is a big reason why this movie is as good as it is.
Making the second half of a sixty-year-old novel its own movie is a tough task, and Villeneuve deserves a lot of credit for the job he did. I wouldn’t include this movie among the Best Picture nominees if it were up to me, but I still think it’s a very good sci-fi epic.
7. A Complete Unknown
It’s probably beyond argument that Bob Dylan is one of the towering public figures of our time. His impact on popular music is incalculable. His song lyrics will likely survive as some of the most enduring poetry of the twentieth (and maybe twenty-first) century. And his enigmatic public persona has only heightened his mystique for his devotees. It makes perfect sense for him to be the subject of a big studio biopic, and Timothée Chalamet is perfectly cast. Writer/director James Mangold has made a number of movies I’ve enjoyed, like Cop Land and Logan, but most relevant to this project was his helming of the 2006 Best Picture nominee Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic that nabbed Reese Witherspoon her Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter Cash. Hiring Mangold was like a no-brainer. The result is a very good depiction of the first few years of Dylan’s musical career.
Right off the top, I like how A Complete Unknown establishes the folk music scene that already existed upon Dylan’s arrival in New York City in 1961. The first time we see Edward Norton’s depiction of folk legend Pete Seeger, he defending himself in court against charges from the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Seeger’s close friendship with the ailing Woody Guthrie (played by Scoot McNairy) is shown by his visits to his hospital bedside, and that’s where Chalamet’s Dylan first encounters the two of them. Dylan plays them “Song for Woody” and shortly after Seeger takes the young musician under his wing.
A Complete Unknown is at its best when it’s focussed on the battle between Dylan’s uncontrollable need to create, innovate and push against boundaries, and the industry that struggles to contain him to a neat little box with which they’re comfortable. In 2025, Dylan is well-established as an artist who will follow his muse to wherever it leads him, and whether or not the result is pleasing to an audience has never been a concern of his. He has confounded his fanbase for decades, but he has remained a living legend all the while. A Complete Unknown shows he was like that more than sixty years ago, on stage performing with Joan Baez, an Oscar-nominated portrayal by Monica Barbaro. After some fans cry out for a rendition of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a request Baez is more than happy to grant, Dylan refuses. Baez starts playing the iconic song’s opening chords, but Dylan still refuses, walking off the stage, leaving her to perform the tune solo.
He was uncontainable and untameable (and he still is), which made him all the more fascinating to the public and all the more frustrating to the industry that benefited from his enormous talent. This conflict reaches a fever pitch when he adds electric rock ‘n’ roll elements to his sound in time for the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. This is all catnip to a music nerd like me.
What I found tedious is the focus on Dylan’s love life. Is there anyone out there who thinks that the most interesting thing about Bob Dylan is the women he slept with? I think I care as much as Chalamet’s portrayal of Dylan seems to, which isn’t very much. In A Complete Unknown, Dylan is completely preoccupied with writing, recording and performing music. If a woman offers herself to him, he doesn’t turn it down, but he’ll get back to his music at the first opportunity. It doesn’t matter if the woman is Baez, Sylvie Russo (played by Elle Fanning) or Becca (played by Laura Kariuki). There was a limit to how much of himself he was willing to give to a lover, because music was his entire world. But so much oxygen is given to his love life in A Complete Unknown. There are two scenes of Sylvie looking heartbroken while watching Dylan sing with Baez. One would have gotten the point across, but we get two. When Sylvie walks away from Dylan and out of the movie for the last time, Chalamet’s expression is one of disappointment. It’s as though Dylan would have preferred that she stayed, but she’s not, and that sucks. Nothing close to heartbreak. How deeply am I supposed to care about his romance with Sylvie when Dylan seems to care so little himself?
Had Mangold trimmed away a lot of that romance away, I think it would have made for a stronger film, but as it stands A Complete Unknown is an entertaining look into a living legend’s early career. It’s definitely worth seeing.
6. The Substance
Horror movies don’t get into the Best Picture race very often. Get Out is the most recent example, losing the 2018 Best Picture Oscar to The Shape of Water. So, it’s very cool that a very explicit body horror flick like The Substance found enough acceptance from the Academy to get in this year’s race. It’s an enormous achievement for writer/director Coralie Fargeat, especially since this is only her second feature film.
From the outset, Fargeat gave The Substance a very distinct feel. The movie is full of garishly bright colours, ever-stretching corridors, slurpy sound effects and long gazes at the human body. The Substance has a strong point of view, as the best works of art do. Fargeat’s message is clear. She is decrying how people are made to feel “less than” as they age, especially women.
It was an inspired choice to cast an actress as beautiful as Demi Moore to play the role of Elizabeth Sparkle, an aging celebrity who decides to ingest a foreign substance to generate a younger and better version of herself. It sends the message that crippling insecurity can infect even the most outwardly confident of us. And Moore gives a great performance, but I really think the star of The Substance is Fargeat.
Between the screenplay and the movie itself, Fargeat proves that she understands that film works best as a visual medium. There is precious little dialogue in The Substance – absolutely no more than needed. The instructions for the drug are communicated through printed sentences with very few words, and I loved their simplicity. It made me think of Gremlins, the mid-eighties horror/comedy with its three simple rules that, if followed, will promise the most adorable pet. But if you break the rules….
As simple as the rules in The Substance sound, Fargeat seems to ask whether its within human nature’s capacity to follow them. Can we value our elder selves as much as our younger selves? Can we remember that our younger self and elder self are the same person? Can we exert as much energy tending to our inner selves as we do for our outer selves?
The Substance would have been ranked higher on this list if not for its ending. As the rules continue to be broken, ignored and disrespected, the film seems to be reaching its natural conclusion, but instead we get a final chapter with a horrifically mutated version of Elizabeth. At this point I felt that Fargeat succumbed to some of the worst tendencies of many horror directors – ratcheting up the mayhem to the nth degree and not knowing when to stop. It’s a shame, really. The Substance was proving itself to be a tightly constructed exploration of a woman’s most self-destructive instincts, and while I don’t think the ending completely ruins the movie, it does tarnish it. At any rate, it put Fargeat on the map, and she’s a filmmaker I’m going to keep an eye on for years to come.
5. Wicked
I have to admit, I walked into the cinema to see Wicked quite reluctantly, for two main reasons. The first, I had seen clips of Idina Menzel playing Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, belting out the big musical number “Defying Gravity.” Menzel, who I have also seen bellowing out “Let It Go” at the Academy Awards and bulldozing through the screen as Maureen in the film adaptation of Rent, is someone who’s singing style I have little time for. It’s a very showy and exhibitionist style that doesn’t leave room for changes in dynamics or nuance. That made me leery of the music to which I would be subjected for the movie’s duration.
The other reason for my trepidation was that The Wizard of Oz, the 1939 classic starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, is as perfect as movies get. Eighty-six years after its release, it has lost none of its ability to entertain viewers young and old. Even though that movie took some liberties as an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I think it’s safe to say it lives on as the definitive version of his story of a young girl’s sudden appearance in a fantasy land, and her struggle to return home. For someone like novelist Gregory Maguire to come along and write a prequel to Baum’s then 95-year-old story, exploring the “wickedness” of the witch character played so masterfully and frighteningly by Margaret Hamilton – it came off as a very derivative idea for a story. And as someone who’s always hungry for brand new stories, creating “new” work spawned from an extremely famous story sitting in the public domain – Maguire’s success with his 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West seemed like cheating.
Now that I’ve seen Wicked on the big screen, I feel silly. Menzel only has a cameo, and the 1939 movie continues to exist, and my ability to enjoy it is as strong as it’s always been.
I think there are three people who I can credit with my surprising enjoyment of Wicked – the two lead actresses and director Jon M. Chu. I have not seen any of Chu’s previous movies, which include In the Heights, Crazy Rich Asians, Jem and the Holograms and Justin Bieber’s Believe. From the opening, Chu takes full advantage of cinema, making this story feel as sweeping and grand as it can possibly be. I’ll admit it, when the camera soared over a computer-generated Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, I was won over. As the film continues, Chu’s innate sense of camera angles and edits have sucked us into the world of Oz.
I can’t imagine the roles of Elphaba and Glinda going to anyone better than Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande respectively. Grande, in particular, is delightful as someone who places more importance on being praised for being good than performing actual good deeds. I was already aware of how gifted both are as singers. I am very surprised that a performer with Erivo’s majesty is able to successfully portray a character as downtrodden and unconfident as Elphaba.
But the real hook is the evolution of Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship. The creators of the 2003 stage musical, Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, elected to start the production with the revelation that Dorothy had melted the Wicked Witch of the West. As the Munchkins rejoice, Glinda appears conflicted, especially after one of them asks if it’s true they were once friends. We flash back to the first time they met – how at first they hated each other, why Glinda started to warm towards Elphaba, and finally that moment when they admit they’re each other’s “best friend”. It’s great, and I’m looking forward to seeing Part Two.
Yes, like Dune, Wicked is a story that’s being stretched over two movies, and that brings us to the movie’s weaknesses. The story told in this Best Picture nominee has a beginning, but only half of a middle, and no end. As geared up as I am to see Part Two when it comes out next fall, shouldn’t we demand that our movies tell complete stories? I guess in a post-Lord of the Rings world, I may be a bit of a dinosaur.
My other nitpicks are directed at Maguire, who completed his contributions to this project thirty years ago, so judge these for what they’re worth.
Firstly, what kind of a name is Elphaba? It’s obvious that you simply took L. Frank Baum’s initials and twisted them until they (sort of) resembled a girl’s name, and the result is ridiculous. It’s distracting. When Baum made up the name Glinda, that wasn’t distracting, because it sounds like it could be an actual name, but not Elphaba. And why did you change Glinda’s name? That’s a perfectly good name for that character. What did we gain by having her original name be (ugh) Galinda? At that point it seems like you’re making changes for changes’ sake.
Secondly, Gregory, or Greg if you’ll allow, I think it’s cool that after the horrific murder of James Bulger by other children his age in 1993, you reacted by wanting to explore the nature of evil. I think you had a great idea to have a teenage girl character, who’s been ostracized her entire life, grow up to realize not only her true power, but also the systemic injustices around her. When she uses her power against those injustices, the existing hierarchy labels her as “wicked”. Great idea for a story.
However, I don’t think Elphaba resembles the character Margaret Hamilton played so iconically 86 years ago. And Greg, I can’t help but wonder if you thought you could steal yourself some attention by inserting your story idea into Baum’s world of Oz. After all, Baum’s novel has been in the public domain since 1956. I had the same criticism a few years ago with Joker, because I didn’t think Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck character bore much of a resemblance to the Batman villain I new from comics, TV animation and film. I still felt that Joker was a good story of a man whose mental illness was being ignored, much like I enjoy your story. But you know how I started typing about Wicked with my worries that this whole enterprise feels like a bit of a cheat? It may be.
But nobody cares about what I think. This is a blockbuster, just like Part Two will be. Chu, Erivo and Grande have knocked this out of the park. The climax, where Erivo and Grande weave together three of Schwartz’ musical motifs is thrilling as Chu ratchets up the tension to maximum effect. They make a great team, and they’re why Wicked belongs in this race.
4. The Brutalist
Apparently, I had heard of Brady Corbet before 2024. Back when it was on the air, I was a huge fan of the TV show 24. I loved the intensity of it, and how each minute on screen was equivalent to an actual minute of real time. I didn’t realize that Corbet played the moody teenager Derek Huxley in 24’s fifth season. Corbet sustained himself on acting jobs in Hollywood for years, before turning his attention to behind the camera. He made some short films and a music video, and three mostly ignored features, but he gained massive attention this past year with The Brutalist. Nobody could have possibly seen this coming. I never would have thought the snotty teen from 24 would one day be a favourite to win the Best Director Oscar.
I think the reason he’s seen as the frontrunner is because of the sheer ambition on the screen throughout the three hour and 34-minute runtime. (He’s up against Audiard, Mangold, Fargeat and Anora’s Sean Baker.) The Brutalist is the fifth longest movie to be nominated for Best Picture. (Only Cleopatra, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and The Ten Commandments are longer). It is the first movie in 61 years to shoot entirely with VistaVision, and it gives the landscapes a richness and majesty hearkening back to the works of David Lean or Alfred Hitchcock. Corbet seems to have mounted cameras to the front of trains and cars as they wind their ways down tracks and roads, to thrilling effect. Few films allow you to be immersed in an environment like The Brutalist.
Adrian Brody plays László Toth, a Hungarian architect who fled to America during World War II. He struggles to make ends meet, only landing menial work at his cousin’s furniture showroom in Philadelphia. They’re hired to renovate the study of a wealthy industrialist while he’s away on business. Following László’s lofty designs, the work doesn’t go as smoothly as planned, and when the owner returns, he’s enraged over the state of his home. László and all the other workers are ushered unceremoniously out without pay.
Time passes and the wealthy industrialist finds László working at a construction site. He buys László lunch and says how much he has come to adore his study. He has looked into who László is and has found out about some of the impressive buildings he designed back in Europe. A friendship is born, and it seems that László has found a patron to fund future projects – the first being a community centre honouring the industrialist’s late mother, consisting of a chapel, gymnasium, theatre and library. László sets about designing a grand structure in the Brutalist tradition he favours. As he explains, “There was a war on, and yet many of the sites of my buildings had survived. My buildings were devised to endure such erosion of the shoreline.”
Much like Corbet, László architecture spares no ambition. The budget for the project grows higher and higher. A train hauling the massive slabs of rock László ordered derails, injuring two brakemen, and threatening legal ramifications for the industrialist. That shuts the project down, leaving László without a job.
In all honesty, The Brutalist is centred around the construction of this massive community centre. Things happen around the construction. László’s wife is freed from a concentration camp and joins him in the United States. The wealthy industrialist gets her a job at a newspaper in New York. They are joined by his niece, who refuses to talk. But it’s the community centre that provides the narrative highs and lows and László goes to enormous lengths to finish it, sacrificing his mental health and dignity in the process.
Brody performance is one for the ages. He completely gives himself over to László. It’s without question his best role since he won an Oscar for The Pianist twenty-two years ago. His performance is strong enough to support this movie’s hefty weight.
While I think this movie could have stood to have been edited down to a more economical length, that’s clearly something Corbet had no interest in. I’m sure he would view my remark the same as one coming from one of the bean counters questioning every expense in László’s design. With The Brutalist, Corbet has won my respect. I admire his film. That’s not the same as loving it, or even liking it, but I admire it.
3. Nickel Boys
Film is an especially powerful medium when it sheds light on injustice. Nickel Boys may be the most earnest of this year’s nominees, with an artistic approach all its own. That uniqueness may make it a longshot to win Best Picture, but once you see it, it will leave its mark on you for a long time.
Nickel Boys is set in Florida in 1962, towards the end of Jim Crow-segregation, but just before the Civil Rights Era took its hold. That movement has caught the attention of an African American teenager named Elwood Curtis, played by Ethan Herisse, and his fascination is deepened further due to his loving grandmother’s involvement. She is played in an Oscar-nominated performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – a performance that radiates so much love and comfort, you’ll want her to adopt you.
Elwood and his grandmother are poor, so even though his intelligence is obvious to everyone, his skin colour and lack of finances are limiting his future. The day comes when he is admitted to a college’s tuition-free accelerated study program, and that should have been a ticket to a brighter day. He hitchhikes to get to the campus, but the car is pulled over because the driver was stealing it. Instead of college, Elwood is admitted to a reform school called the Nickel Academy.
From the beginning of the movie, one can’t help but notice director RaMell Ross’ cinematic device. Up to this point in Nickel Boys, we never see Elwood, we only see things from his point of view. That stays true until one lunch at Nickel Academy – when Elwood meets Turner, played by Brandon Wilson. The point of view switches to Turner’s, and that’s when we see Elwood for the first time. For much of the remainder of the movie the camera’s point of view switches between Elwood’s and Turner’s. Both of these boys are among the Black teenagers segregated from the reform school’s white population, and they are subject to an abuse and dehumanization that’s similarly unique.
Elwood and Turner are an engaging pair. Because of his grandmother’s influence Elwood is an idealist, and remains so through every indignity Nickel throws at him. Turner, on the other hand, is a cynic, and is therefore resigned to the circumstances in which he finds himself. “There’s four ways out of Nickel,” he tells Elwood. “Serve your time -or age out-. Court might intervene -if you believe in miracles-. You could die -they could kill you-. You could run. Only four ways out of Nickel.” Eventually, Elwood’s idealism and bookishness lead to some unwanted attention.
There are scenes that flash forward to when Elwood is older, and he has opened his own moving company. In these scenes the camera angle has changed again, forever watching from behind his head. (By the end of the movie the meaning behind that choice becomes painfully clear.) These scenes show Elwood searching for answers after mass graves were shown underneath the grounds of the Nickel Academy. Sadly, this movie is based on a real reform school called the Dozier School for Boys, and Canadian viewers will see a tragic parallel with our own residential schools that wreaked genocide on our indigenous population.
Ross didn’t receive a nomination for Best Director for the Nickel Boys, and that seems criminal. Surely Audiard didn’t earn his, and Ross could have been put in instead. He went into this project with a clear and unique vision, and a very noble intent. Similarly, Jomo Fray isn’t nominated for Cinematography, which is nonsense. Why have a Cinematography category when you overlook the year’s most unique and affecting camera work of the year?
Nickel Boys is a reminder of what the film medium can achieve when in the hands of intelligent artists with a vital message. I’m thankful that the Oscars have brought attention to this movie, but it seems to me that it still needs more.
2. I’m Still Here
Movies can take you places you’ve never been, or at least give you long hard glimpses at those places. This latest family drama from celebrated Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (who previously brought us Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries) takes us to a beachfront property in Rio de Janeiro in 1971. It’s a property I feel I got to know, and I grew attached to, as I did with the family that inhabited it.
That family was headed by Eunice and Rubens Paiva, along with their children Veroca, Marcelo, Eliana, Babiu and Nalu. They are clearly a very loving family, with Eunice and Rubens still in love, and strong relationships with each of their children. And they are surrounded with good friends who share in their distaste for Brazil’s newly installed military dictatorship. The biggest critic among them is Rubens himself, and he lands on the regime’s radar.
One day government agents show up on the doorstep of that beachfront property and demand that Rubens get in their car. The father tells his wife that he’ll be right back. Eunice anxiously waits for his return, but more government agents show up and order that she and Eliana come with them. They put hoods on their heads and don’t remove them until they’re inside a prison. Eunice ceaselessly asks about her husband, but gets no answers. All they want to know about is whether he’s a communist, whether she’s a communist, whether their friends are communist. She claims to know nothing. When she’s alone in her cell she can hear her daughter shouting, demanding to know where her parents are.
After several days Eunice and Eliana are sent home. Eunice has to project strength and stability to her family, even though she doesn’t even know if her husband is living or dead.
I’m Still Here hits as hard as it does because Salles has allowed us to care about this family’s well-being from the very beginning of the movie. The screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, adapted from the book by Marcel Rubens Paiva, takes its time to allow us to immerse ourselves in the lives of this family before the government agents strike.
Also, Fernanda Torres is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, and let me type this as clearly as possible, she deserves it. Yes, over Demi Moore. Yes, over Cynthia Erivo. She’s a mother who witnesses the destruction of her family at the hands of her country, and she has to find the strength to hold her family together. She plays all the facets of her character immaculately.
And I have to give Salles one more round of applause for casting Fernanda Montenegro as the elderly Eunice. It’s a very short scene, but it’s easy to think that a single actress played both stages of the same character. Obviously Salles reached back to his experience shooting Central Station and convinced Montenegro to play the elderly Eunice, and I’ll declare here it was worth the bother. The expression on Eunice’s face when she recognizes Rubens is heartrending.
It may seem simplistic to just shine a light and point a camera at a family just being themselves, but if it’s the correct family in a unique time and place, you may just have the makings of a great movie.
And, if it were up to Dimetre, the Oscar would go to…
Conclave
A few years ago, I put All Quiet on the Western Front in this position, a movie that brought director Edward Berger to my attention. I eagerly waited for his next outing, and Conclave arrived on last year’s festival circuit like the Second Coming. Nobody would imagine these movies come from the same filmmaker. While All Quiet on the Western Front is full of sweeping battleground landscapes, Conclave is reserved to the sumptuous interiors of the Vatican. I guess Berger can do anything.
My mother’s side of the family is predominantly Roman Catholic, so I’m aware of the lofty position the papacy holds in that denomination of Christianity. I kind of expected this movie to lean into that, but Berger, along with screenwriters Peter Straughan and Robert Harris, keep that reverence in check. Instead, Conclave is chock full of political intrigue, and I love it.
The movie opens with the death of the ruling pope, and Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes in an Oscar-nominated performance) is charged with gathering the world’s cardinals together to choose the next leader of the Catholic Church. At the very start of the process, certain cardinals are seen as clear favourites, but have diametrically opposed directions in which they want to lead the church. There is Tedesco (played by Sergio Castellitto) who wants to put an end to the Catholic Church’s peaceful co-existence with other religions. There’s the homophobic Adeyemi (played by Lucian Msamati), and there is also Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and Tremblay (John Lithgow) whose ambition challenges their ethics. Lawrence himself recently came close to leaving the church due to a crisis of faith, and is unsure of his place in the conclave. Add in a mysterious newcomer, Cardinal Benitez (played by Carlos Diehz), and the political machinations fly.
Each character has a clear point of view, leading to logical conclusions. Conclave would be amazing to see played out on stage due to all of the pointed dialogue and rich characterization, but because Berger is a master of cinema, all of this political maneuvering plays out in the dazzling confines of the Vatican. Berger exposes the man-made dials and levers controlling what the devout sees as holy and divine, but in the end there’s something faith-affirming about Conclave.
I have a feeling that Conclave will be a favourite for many years. Politically charged character dramas chock full of backstabbing and peccadilloes always have long shelf lives and eternal appeal. And aren’t those the movies that are the most deserving of the Best Picture Oscar?