Belfast
Nominated Producer(s): Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Jude Hill, Catríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Lara McDonnell, Lewis McAskie, Colin Morgan, and others.
Plot: Young Buddy from Belfast loves his family and his home, but the atmosphere of the familiar streets suddenly changes in 1969 when some Protestants begin to terrorize their Catholic neighbors, attacking them with escalating violence in an effort to drive them away. In the face of this dangerous unrest, of which they do not approve though they are Protestant themselves, Buddy’s family may have to leave Belfast. His father has a new job opportunity far away, and they need the money, but his mother doesn’t want to leave the home they have always known. And what about Buddy’s grandparents? He’s so close to them. He hates to leave them behind, especially now when Pop is sick.
Why It Should Win
The beauty of Belfast lies in its moments (and perhaps also in its easy-on-the-eyes, black-and-white cinematography). When I first saw the film in the theater last fall, I liked it but wondered, “Is it a bit overrated, though?” (I thought that only because Belfast had been getting so much Best Picture buzz. Usually a movie introduced by that level of hype evokes a more intensely excited response from me.) I remember watching it (sobbing!) and thinking, “Sure, I like this. It reminds me of my grandparents and makes me cry, but is that enough?”
Yes. The answer is yes, that is enough. In fact, it’s more than enough.
While working on my write-ups of the acting categories, I repeatedly rewatched the scenes featuring Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, and I’m telling you, even without the rest of the movie, those scenes are enough to make this film a strong contender for Best Picture. They’re not just beautiful. They’re so real. I don’t know how actors achieve that level of heart-breaking authenticity in a scene. I can’t even be myself on stage for twenty minutes without prompting people watching to suggest that I’m somehow faking the whole thing, and I’m not even me!
Concentrating on Best Supporting Actress, I watched Judi Dench fondly recall staining her legs with tobacco water to create the illusion of stockings and thought, “Ah, I miss my grandma!” (It doesn’t help that my now deceased mom sighed, “Judi Dench looks so much like my mother!” every time she saw her.) Yet my grandma was not Irish (and neither is Judi Dench!). Plus Judi Dench is such a huge star that I was at every moment aware I was watching her. Yet somehow, watching her, I felt I was witnessing a real interaction between someone’s real grandparents (maybe mine)!
How can I put into words why I connect so much to Dench and Hinds in their scenes together and with child actor Jude Hill? My grandparents never sat in their window in Belfast fondly reminiscing about their early dates. But I watch that interaction and remember watching my grandma tear up every time she and Mom and I would get to the moving final scene of Going My Way. (I feel like my grandma is hiding in Dench’s performance, somehow.)
There’s a universality to the relationship Granny and Pop have with Buddy. I do think that’s a major achievement of Branagh’s film. Belfast seems to say to the audience, “You may be wondering who the people living in Belfast during the Troubles were and what they were like. As a matter of fact, we were you.”
In the theater, Hinds was the standout of the film for me. (Granted, I was extremely close to my maternal grandparents, so I’m perhaps more receptive to movies about grandparent bonds than average.) Jude Hill is delightful to watch, too. (In fact, after I saw him in an interview talking about how emotional he got on the last day of filming, I was overcome with the desire to take every one of the Oscars up for grabs this year and give them all to Jude Hill.) (This is why it’s a good thing I don’t get to vote.)
The love story between the parents is captivating, too. Both Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe would have been deserving nominees (especially Balfe). She gets that wonderful moment of explaining why she wants to stay in Belfast. She has good reasons, and as she becomes more passionate, she also becomes increasingly logical. Then later in the film when she forces Buddy and Moira to return the washing powder and gets caught up in something horrifying and beyond control, we can see in her eyes how quickly all her measured and deeply felt reasons for staying in Belfast come undone. Balfe also shines in the film’s perfectly-timed karaoke scene when the audience gets to experience the celebration of the parents’ love for each other. The audience needs to see their love affirmed, and so does Buddy. The rest of the cast of Belfast is good, too, especially Colin Morgan (better known to our family as the star of Merlin) and Lara McDonnell as Moira. I also liked Van Morrison’s music.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
I do wish that Branagh would give us a bit more of a history lesson. Before watching Belfast, I didn’t know much about the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969, and after watching the movie, I’m still not able to speak cogently or answer questions on the topic. (I think of other films on historical topics. Thanks to other history-based Oscar films, I do know a bit about Fred Hampton, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Patton. That’s just to name a few. Yes, it would be phenomenally stupid to consider yourself an expert on a topic after watching a movie. But movies do often give me the illusion that I’ve learned something about the topics they cover. If I wanted to learn actual, reliable information, I could use names, events, and ideas mentioned in the movies as search terms. This movie does not create that illusion of intellectual growth.)
On the contrary, Belfast seems to proceed from the unspoken premise, “You’ve heard all about what it was like in Belfast in 1969. Now I’m going to show you the city from a viewpoint you might never have considered.” But what about those of us who aren’t adequately educated in the 20th century history of Northern Ireland? Maybe we don’t think we know what Belfast was like in 1969. Branagh’s film busies itself dispelling illusions some of us don’t actually have but doesn’t provide much by way of historical fact. (Then again, why should I blame a film for my own ignorance?)
This isn’t much of a complaint because, honestly, it’s such a bad idea to educate yourself on history using only Hollywood movies. If you rely on movies to teach you history, you will come away with some very crazy ideas about what happened in the past. (Granted, playing devil’s advocate, relying on any source to teach you history could yield similarly frustrating results since every source is biased, and consensus interpretation of the past changes constantly.)
Belfast is one of a handful of unusually wholesome films nominated for Best Picture this year. It could win. Kenneth Branagh has never won an Oscar for some reason. I do think Belfast has a good chance of winning something (though I would guess Screenplay or Director before Picture). Still a month away from the Oscars, I consider this movie a serious (if not the most likely) contender for Best Picture.
Dune
Nominated Producer(s): Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve, Cale Boyter
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writers: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Stephen Henderson, Javier Bardem, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Chang Chen, Charlotte Rampling, David Dastmalchian, Zendaya, and others.
Plot: Paul Atreides is the future. He’s the son and heir of Duke Leto of House Atreides, which means that he will be duke himself one day. But that isn’t all. Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, is a Bene Gesserit witch, and Paul, as it turns out, may be the messiah eagerly awaited by the Fremen, a secretive (but large) sect of desert dwellers on the Planet Arrakis, a world considered valuable because of the coveted spice produced there. When the emperor takes the governance of Arrakis away from the powerful House Harkonnen and sends Duke Leto there to oversee the spice mining instead, events are set in motion that are so immense in scale they will not be resolved in this movie.
Why It Should Win
Villeneuve’s Dune somehow captures both the unique (almost eerie!) vibe of David Lynch’s 1984 film and the viewer-friendly coherence of the early 2000s TV mini-series. I wish my mother could have lived to see this film because she was a huge Dune fan, and I suspect she would have loved this adaptation.
Though I’m not the ardent fan of the story my mother was, I like Dune, too, because of its emphasis on the tension between constructed reality and personal revelation. (And also, I just like cults of witches. They’re so spooky with their pain boxes and their prophecies and their ability to use the Voice. I’m fascinated, too, with the problem of becoming—or realizing that you are—God. That frequently appears in my fiction.) (The way I’m describing it here makes it sound comically awkward. “Please excuse me. I’ve just realized that I’m God!” In all seriousness, though, recognizing one’s self as any kind of messiah—whether divine or simply kingly—must be jarring.)
The politicians featured in Dune think the story is about their short-term maneuvering for political power. Meanwhile, the Bene Gesserit (the witches) are sure it’s really all about their much longer-term maneuvering for true power. At the same time, the Fremen mystics don’t believe they’re even being manipulated because they’ve discovered the “real truth,” i.e. an alternative path to inspired revelation. In the center of all this is Paul Atreides, the one who brings these disparate groups together. And how does he bring them together? He crashes a helicopter in the desert and goes on to do a number of other gripping things that certainly won’t happen in this movie.
In this adaptation, Villeneuve takes the sprawling, disorienting source material and focuses tightly on this idea of how power and (beyond that) reality are constructed (and deconstructed). He builds an immensely compelling narrative and dresses it with a setting so striking it could flourish independently of narrative.
Dune’s cinematography and production design (both nominated) are stunning. This film gives us arresting tableau after arresting tableau. You won’t want to look away. (I would expect Greig Fraser to win Best Cinematography easily if there weren’t some other films this year that are absolutely stunning to behold, as well. There’s real competition in that category, as far as I’m concerned.) I love Dune’s use of concentric circles, particularly early in the film. We get a lot of shots that seem to foreshadow the significance of worms, giving birth, things coming full cycle, the fate of worlds. Hans Zimmer’s nominated score is probably my favorite of the year (though again, there are some other really strong contenders in that category). A word of caution, though. This is not the kind of score you want to play casually in your car or dance around to in moments of wild abandon. It’s pretty intense, more sinister than pleasant. If you’re looking for hype music before embarking on a conquest of worlds, then maybe Zimmer’s score is the life soundtrack you seek. It’s great for this movie. In terms of immersive atmosphere, Dune could not be better.
The cast is excellent, too. Some casting choices seem obvious. I was thrilled when I learned Timothée Chalamet would be playing Paul Atreides. I thought it was an inspired choice, and he plays the part in exactly the way I thought he would. Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic as Jessica, a character who gets a lot of time and development in Villeneuve’s Dune. This film features popular sci-fi/fantasy actors (Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Oscar Isaac) and utilizes them in ways that serve their skillset and the story.
One other note. My six-year-old son (who pointedly refuses to watch every movie and insists he only likes Sonic the Hedgehog and Fantasia) spontaneously looked up and became engaged in Dune when we showed it to his older brother and sister. (He’s now hoping that Villeneuve goes on to make God Emperor of Dune because when my husband mentioned it, he found the idea of Paul’s son merging with the worm intensely captivating.) So I must note that Dune is very engaging to a surprisingly broad (and maybe even initially hostile) audience. And even though part of its draw is its captivating visuals, it still looks good at home on TV. (But see it in a theater first if you can. I am so glad we did.)
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Villeneuve adapts as much of the novel as he needs to make a complete movie, and then he stops. It doesn’t matter how much of the book is left. The movie is over. The end.
I won’t pretend I don’t admire this choice. I’m a fan of narrative economy, and (despite its 2 hour, 35 minute runtime) this film does not contain extraneous material. Every shot is carefully considered. If we see something, there’s a reason for us to see it. Every scene either advances the plot or builds the world (usually both). Clearly Villeneuve has already cut everything he can. The entire novel does not fit into one movie, so Villeneuve doesn’t force it.
This is a gutsy move because if the movie is well received (as it has been), then everybody wants a sequel (which has now been greenlit but hadn’t until after this film’s release). If you are as talented a filmmaker as Villeneuve and as sure of achieving your vision, then this method of leaving out half the book is a highly effective way of ensuring you get to make that sequel you want.
But it’s usually easier to win an Oscar for a single film that tells a complete story. (Remember, The Return of the King did win Best Picture, but notably the two previous LOTR installments (which did not contain the ending of the story) did not.) Of course, maybe this will change given the rise in popularity of multi-installment franchises and the decline in interest in prestige films and in the Oscars in general. But has it changed yet?
It doesn’t look that way to me. Just kind of stopping in the middle of the novel is not the only thing that makes Dune less likely to win Best Picture. Denis Villeneuve wasn’t nominated for Best Director. (Is it because he stopped in the middle? I have no idea. I’m not a member of the Directors’ branch of the Academy, a wise choice on their part because I have never directed anything.) But Villeneuve snubbed for Best Director doesn’t give me a lot of faith in Dune’s chances to win. (I know Argo won when Ben Affleck was snubbed, but I think a more analogous situation would be The Power of the Dog winning if Jane Campion had been snubbed.)
Granted, Picture and Director get split up a lot more often lately than they did when I was a kid, and Dune is nominated in another category often linked to Best Picture, Editing (an extremely crucial category as any random idiot who has ever watched the Oscars (or watched a movie) surely knows). Still, in my mind, I always break up the Best Picture nominees into those with matching Best Director nominations (making them much more likely to win) and those without them. Dune also lacks a single acting nomination.
Even though it’s probably one of the best films of 2021 and definitely one of the best adaptations of half of Frank Herbert’s novel, I don’t expect it to win Best Picture.
Don’t Look Up
Nominated Producer(s): Adam McKay and Kevin Messick
Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Adam McKay and David Sirota
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Melanie Lynskey, Himesh Patel, Paul Guilfoyle, Kid Cudi, Ariana Grande, and others.
Plot: A grad student discovers a comet headed toward Earth that will cause a catastrophic, extinction-level event when it hits. The government quickly steps in to obfuscate. Humanity is doomed.
Why It Should Win
I like Don’t Look Up more and more every time I watch it.
We’ve seen it a lot because my husband loves it so much that he wants to show it to everyone. He fell in love with it in the movie theater. (Actually he was pretty much sold from the very first trailer). I have warmed to it over time. Don’t get me wrong. I liked it in the theater, but I think he likes it more than Adam McKay and Leonardo DiCaprio do. In fact, I have considered more than once that perhaps we’re able to afford Starbucks so often because my husband is secretly being paid to promote this movie.
He loves satire in general and often recalls his introduction to the genre, reading Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” in a high school English class. What made it so memorable for him is that some students didn’t recognize the satire and were copiously weeping and denouncing the teacher for forcing them to read something so awful. (As a teacher, wouldn’t you be tempted to feign shock and insist you hadn’t read it yet, to throw the book out the window, to jump out the window yourself? It’s probably good that I wasn’t teaching the class.)
I was slower to warm to the movie because it’s a little dark for me. (Someone said to me, “I know maybe it’s dark for you, but it could happen.” And I was thinking, “It could happen? Clearly you’re misinformed about the darkness of my worldview.” On the one hand, this is a pretty merciless, unflinching portrait of our society as is right now. When I first watched it, I was a bit depressed by the movie’s accuracy. On the other hand, after watching the movie, I found myself thinking, “What is taking that comet so long? I am exhausted waiting for it!”)
Don’t Look Up seems to have attracted more viewers than most Oscar nominated films this year, and, as a result, there’s more discussion of it online and everywhere else. (At least if you live with me there is because my husband is always talking about it!) (If some government agency is bugging our house, they must be so frustrated at this point, tearing their hair out, complaining, “Look, I don’t know where you got that tip, but all these people talk about is Don’t Look Up and Jeopardy!”)
I’ve heard others criticize the film for not being funny. (And still others clap back at them, “It’s not supposed to be funny. It’s true.”)
I’m really not sure how to wade into arguments like that because I think Don’t Look Up is funny. At many moments, the movie is very funny. The running joke about the general and the snacks just absolutely kills me. I also love it when Leonardo DiCaprio says so earnestly to Jennifer Lawrence, “I think that’s photoshopped, Kate.” (That made me laugh so hard. Just remembering it makes me laugh. It’s his earnest delivery.) The way Kate’s boyfriend so quickly betrays her for a headline is also amusing in an awful way. Timothée Chalamet’s entire character is hilarious—especially because he turns out to be so devout. (His character was rather soothing to me, too, because he’s such a sincere person.) Jonah Hill makes the most of his moments. Cate Blanchett’s character is not only amusing but increasingly fascinating. I would watch a whole movie about her! Of course, the idea that Kate is insane because she tells the truth is in its own way delightful. And I wish Ariana Grande’s song had been nominated. No joke, I think it should have won Best Song this year and would certainly have livened up an Oscar ceremony (although I guess randomly cutting out half the awards livens things up, too, in its own way). I also like the moment late in the film when DiCaprio’s character sees the images selected by AI in response to his mood.
My favorite performance is from Meryl Streep who is basically playing Donald Trump and must be deriving such satisfaction from that. It is a dark movie but that performance sort of cheers you up because you think, “Well, she’s happy, anyway. At least Meryl Streep’s having fun.” The more times I re-watch the film, the more I begin to think that Streep deserves an Oscar nomination, which was not my initial impression. (I also love that her name is President Orlean since she played the increasingly off-the-rails fictive Susan Orlean in Adaptation.) Mark Rylance also makes a compellingly odd Peter Isherwell.
The movie’s touching around-the-dinner-table conclusion seems almost out of place given the film’s general cynicism. Still, it’s one of most poignant and memorable parts of Don’t Look Up. I’ve heard the best line in that scene was ad-libbed by DiCaprio, who would have been a worthy Best Actor nominee (though I wouldn’t change the five chosen).
Why It Shouldn’t Win
This is a very mean-spirited movie. I don’t know that its intention is to laugh at others (although, let’s be real, that is its intention, so maybe I do know). I was terrified to watch it with my father. Nervously I told him that we were planning to watch it that evening because my daughter wanted to see it.
“Oh yeah,” he replied cheerfully. “That was pretty good. I’ll watch that again.” He had watched it the instant it became available on Netflix. You can’t imagine my relief.
“This movie makes fun of everyone,” he noted. It truly does. At one point, he said, “Ah, this is making fun of Donald Trump.” Relieved beyond measure, I agreed, “Yep.” I really wasn’t sure what my dad (usually a Republican) would make of the film, but he seemed to find it entertaining.
I think audiences have connected to the movie because watching and talking about it with others feels like a collective throwing up of hands, a way of acknowledging, “We are so screwed! Our society is an irredeemable disaster!”
My stance on Don’t Look Up, though, seems to be the direct opposite of what I most frequently hear people say about it (though I’m sure there are others who view it as I do. I tend to amplify the voices I disagree with in my own memory).
I have heard so many people say, “This movie may not be fun to watch, but its message is important, and it will make people wake up and change things.”
I believe the opposite. This movie is fun to watch. Its message is important, but it’s preaching to the choir. The people watching it are already aware that we need to change things. Don’t Look Up relentlessly skewers everyone and everything in our society, but it hits some people much harder than others. I’m just not sure this is the most effective way to reach people. And I’m not sure that once you’ve reached people there’s anything they can do. If in the end, all we can do is hold each other’s hands and pray and die, I’m not sure we need a movie to teach us that.
On the other hand, Don’t Look Up has clearly resonated with a lot of people. I personally wouldn’t choose it for Best Picture, but my husband sure would be happy if it won.
King Richard
Nominated Producer(s): Tim White, Trevor White, Will Smith
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writer: Zach Baylin
Cast: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn,Mikayla Lashae Bartholomew, Daniele Lawson, Layla Crawford, Erika Ringor, and others.
Plot: Richard Williams is a man with a plan. Since before they were born, he’s been determined to craft his two youngest daughters into world famous, elite tennis stars. Persistent, dedicated, larger-than-life, sometimes outright obnoxious, Richard believes in his vision, loves his girls, and isn’t afraid to be ridiculed for his efforts because he knows that if everyone sticks to the plan, they will prevail. One day, Venus and Serena will reap the rewards of all his work.
Why It Should Win
I half hope King Richard does win Best Original Screenplay because it’s so elegantly constructed that as a writer, I can’t help but admire it. For one thing, Richard’s wife has a secret from the audience. Brandy (an Oscar-worthy Aunjanue Ellis) knows something the entire movie that she does not reveal to any of us until a very late scene. She knows that despite the fact that Richard is a devoted family man who would do anything for their girls, he had a family before, and he abandoned his other children. And this bit of knowledge informs everything that happens between them throughout the entire film. On a second watch, the audience is now seeing a different movie (or, at least, understands the dynamic between Richard and his wife much better).
Brandy is consistently concerned with where Richard is going. She becomes uneasy if he wanders off by himself. She dramatically refuses to let him drive away and leave the girls at a convenience store. She questions if they’re a team when he makes the decision to pull Venus out of juniors without mentioning it to her.
Richard, for his part, seems to be offering proof that he will not leave. He takes a beating in order to protect his stepdaughter. He organizes and insists on a number of family activities. He arranges for the whole family to stay together and travel to Florida. And, of course, he comes up with and adheres to an elaborate, labor intensive, multi-step plan for making his two youngest daughters (not yet conceived when he thinks of the plan) tennis stars. This plan will take over a decade to implement fully (proof that Richard intends to commit).
But Richard wants to leave so often. It’s not that he wants to abandon his family. It’s that he hates feeling powerless or out of control, so he emphasizes sticking to his plan, doing it his way. Often he’s quite unreasonable (almost as a test, the way some celebrities are rumored to include a ridiculous demand in their riders). If he doesn’t feel respected, he withdraws. Brandy, though, will not let him stay in their marriage and be absolutely, autocratically in charge either. They’re partners or nothing.
It’s like the whole time we’re watching a metaphorical tennis match between Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis.
Smith gives what some consider a career best performance. (He’s had a long career, so I don’t want to make hasty pronouncements, but he is pretty good.) Ellis, I think, is equally good. The film has some strong visual elements, too. When you watch a tennis match, so often you’re looking through a fence. I love how often we see the Williams family peering through fences at the court, emphasizing their outsider status.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
King Richard is a fairly feel-good story of triumph. Its ending especially emphasizes that sometimes the struggle is the victory, a welcome message at a time when so many of us are struggling. It could win Best Picture.
I’ve heard some people ask why the story of two of the world’s most famous female athletes focuses on a man. I have no good answer for that, but if I were Will Smith, I would have jumped at the chance to play such a larger-than-life character with a well written part. I remember when the film first came out, one of Richard’s abandoned children spoke out about the film in a negative way, but while the movie does make a secret of Richard’s past, it eventually reveals that secret to the audience. So I’m not sure that particular controversy is as problematic as it could be.
Though at this time I’m expecting the winner to be The Power of the Dog (or maybe Belfast or CODA), King Richard is one of the films I feel has a realistic shot at Best Picture. Time will tell.