2023 Oscar Nominees: Best Picture, Part 3

Avatar: The Way of Water

Nominated Producer(s):  James Cameron, Jon Landau

Director:  James Cameron

Writers:  James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Bailey Bass, Filip Geijo, Duane Evans Jr., Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver, and others.

Plot: Things have changed on Pandora. An old enemy in a new form has returned for revenge, and to protect his family, Jake Sully takes his wife and children to live with another, distant tribe of ocean-dwelling Na’vi who coexist in a delicately balanced ecosystem with a species of Pandoran whale called Tulkun. While learning the way of water, Jake’s children make many missteps, especially his troubled younger son, Lo’ak.

Why It Should Win

I’ll confess something here that will make you recoil in horror at my shocking taste. I liked Avatar better than The Hurt Locker. (It’s nothing against Kathryn Bigelow. I loved Zero Dark Thirty. It’s just my mom used to watch Avatar over and over and finally wore me down.) It’s far from my favorite James Cameron film, though. (That’s probably Aliens.) Looking back at an old blog, I see I wrote in 2010, “All day I’ve been trying to decide if Avatar or The Hurt Locker should win Best Picture, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I liked Inglorious Basterds and Precious better than both of them.”

So I’m kind of an Avatar fan, but not necessarily a huge fan. I do like the Pandora area of Animal Kingdom. Flight of Passage is one of the only rides my seven-year-old enjoys at Disney World. (That was such a nice surprise. Usually he wants to sit on a bench and eat a Mickey pretzel or “chill in the room.” He’s a bit eccentric.)

Watching this film is like going to a theme park. By the time it’s over, you feel like you’ve been on a literal adventure. It’s less a traditional film than an immersive experience.

Almost always, I prefer 2D to 3D, but if something is shot with 3D cameras, I’ll watch it. And I’ll always watch James Cameron’s 3D movies because Ghosts of the Abyss surprised and impressed me back in 2003. Cameron may use 3D better than any other filmmaker. He never does anything gimmicky with it. Instead, here, he uses it to draw you into an immersive world. He doesn’t make stuff jump out at you. He pulls you in, deeper and deeper. He lets the viewer feel like a participant in the scene, so by the end, you feel like this story has happened to you.

The story beats are all strangely familiar. (I don’t know why they feel so familiar because they’re not exactly plot points from other films.) At any rate, the familiarity is not unwelcome. The story has a universal quality as if we’ve all gone on this journey before, in our dreams maybe. The film’s visuals are fantastic. In fact, the visual effects are so good that they almost didn’t work for me because everything looks too beautiful to be real, like we’re watching a well rendered video game. With almost the entire cast giving motion capture performances, appreciating the difficulty of some stunts and the quality of the camera work is hard. My brain kept telling me, “This has been rendered. This is animated. This is a video game.” If the principal cast appeared in their human bodies, I think I would naturally appreciate the stellar visual effects (and daunting stunts) a bit more. The limitations of my own mind work against me. Kate Winslet being underwater longer than Tom Cruise doing some intense stunt is a big deal (because Cruise makes a point of doing his own dangerous stunts and committing to them thoroughly). I wish what I had seen in the movie made that look as impressive as it is on paper. I love Kate Winslet as an actress, but I felt like I was watching a PS5 game, so I couldn’t adequately appreciate the reality of what I was seeing on the screen. But whether I like what I see is irrelevant. The visual effects set The Way of Water apart from every other movie out there right now. That’s undeniable.

The film is long, but it doesn’t need to be shorter. It works because it wears us down, draws us in. Eventually, we forget we’re watching a movie. As I reflect on the experience now, it’s hard not to imagine that the protagonists’ experiences are my own. I feel like I was there, that I was watching from within the scene myself. This is not an experience I recall with other films. By the end, I left the theater feeling like I’d journeyed to Pandora. When I try to recall the film’s highlights now, I still don’t find the plot elements exactly thrilling, but I remember being on Pandora in that beautiful ocean, and I feel kind of pleasantly sleepy.

Why It Shouldn’t Win

This is my least favorite of the films nominated for Best Picture this year, but that might change with repeat viewings (or once I see the rest of the story). Sigourney Weaver’s character seems poised to become the face of the entire franchise, and I do like Sigourney Weaver.

To be clear, I don’t mean Avatar doesn’t deserve the honor of the nomination. I’ve seen far worse films nominated for Best Picture. For its staggering technical achievements alone, The Way of Water is a worthy Best Picture nominee. (I also recall an anecdote that was floating around the internet several years ago about James Cameron entirely scrapping a sequel concept after speaking to indigenous peoples about it and not getting the reaction he’d expected from them. If that’s true, I respect his decision to revise his original plans.)

For me, the problem is, when I saw the film, I was busily working a book, and I wasn’t completely into the idea of watching an Avatar movie for three hours. But it’s Avatar. If you don’t see it in the theater on the best screen available, you haven’t seen it at all. I was worried it might leave theaters. So I went.

I have a real bias here. This is the type of movie my mother used to watch. She liked to rewatch favorite films and shows again and again, so I’m used to absorbing such material passively because it’s happening in the background of my life. Now my mother is dead. This is absolutely stupid, but some part of me feels like watching Avatar movies is her job, like I struck some weird, unspoken bargain with her. Fulfilling her end of the deal myself feels strange to me. (In a similar way, I no longer see several British TV shows I like because she’s not here watching them in the background.) Maybe I should consult Sigmund Freud about this. It seems like a personal problem, viewer bias. But not disclosing it feels dishonest. (I mean, if I were James Cameron reading this review, I’d be saying to myself, “But why didn’t she like my movie?”) (I didn’t hate it!)

The point is, I’m not whole-heartedly into these Avatar movies. Yet I will go to the movie theater and see all three of the planned sequels still remaining. It took James Cameron thirteen years to make the rest of these movies. The least I can do is buy a ticket and watch them. Sigourney Weaver’s character seems poised for amazing things, and I’m intrigued. I also like Lo’ak (Britain Dalton). He’s a surprisingly engaging character, perhaps more interesting than Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully, whose part is downplayed for most of the film until the big action sequence at the end (which admittedly is exciting, engaging, and fun to watch).

Avatar: The Way of Water surely won’t win Best Picture. But I am glad it’s nominated because audiences showed up to see it, so it must be doing something right. Also James Cameron is clearly in the middle of doing something. Until I’ve seen all five movies, I can’t possibly judge what he’s done. Other nominated films this year have more self-contained stories, though, making them far more likely winners than The Way of Water. If this film wins Best Picture, I’ll be stunned.

The Banshees of Inisherin

Nominated Producer(s): Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh

Director:  Martin McDonagh

Writer:  Martin McDonagh

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Sheila Flitton, David Pearse, Aaron Monaghan, Gary Lydon, Pat Shortt, Bríd Ní Neachtain, and others.

Plot: In 1923, during the Irish Civil War, in a small island village, Pádraic walks to his friend Colm’s house to ask him down to the pub like he does every day. But today, Colm won’t go. Colm doesn’t like him anymore. When pressed, Colm admits that Pádraic has done nothing wrong. He just wants time alone to work on his music. And if Pádraic bothers him again, he will cut off his own finger. Pádraic bothers him again.

Why It Should Win
I love this film. I wish I could write like Martin McDonagh…or act as well as any of these actors…or that I lived in a gorgeous Irish village that turned spooky at night, haunted by an unpredictable old woman who might be the harbinger of death. I’d like to have Carter Burwell score my life, too. People would assume I was so mysterious and full of character as I walked by with my theme music playing, wearing Siobhán’s colorful costumes, looking like I might become a librarian at a moment’s notice.

All the elements that make movies good are present and working in perfect balance in The Banshees of Inisherin. Martin McDonagh is nominated for writing and directing. All four principal performances are nominated. Carter Burwell’s score is nominated, and the film has an editing nomination, too.

Watching, I want to spend more time with every character. They’re all fascinating and played so compellingly. I could relate to them so easily and used their inner conflicts to work through my own. Plus, I love that part about the bread truck. For a story so dark and grim, Banshees is hysterically funny. Almost every scene made me laugh. And the characters feel simultaneously real and larger-than-life. I kept seeing myself in all of them, yet they were like memorable, eccentric figures out of a storybook.

I’ve watched this film several times now, more than any of the other Best Picture nominees, I think. (I didn’t intend to do it. I would ask, “Why do I find that performance so captivating?” and then I’d watch a scene, and accidentally keep watching. You might call this procrastination, but I can’t knock it too much because it’s lifted my spirits and helped me work through a lot of inner conflicts.)

I wish at least one of the nominated performers would win the Oscar. Maybe McDonagh will win for Original Screenplay.

Why It Shouldn’t Win
This film grows on me the more I watch it. Originally I thought it wasn’t as good as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (My husband and I loved that movie, loved it.) There’s nothing as powerfully surprising in this as what happens with Sam Rockwell’s character in that, so the initial watch isn’t as explosive an experience. But this film sneaks up on you and burrows deep into your affections over time. I like it far more now than I did the first time I saw it. The Banshees of Inisherin has an enduring quality, possibly because it feels like a fable, like something slightly shifted out of sequence with our world, something at a remove from our reality (even though the characters are so well drawn and realistic).

I would love to see it win Best Picture, but Everything Everywhere All at Once is so wildly popular with everybody that I don’t see that happening.

There are elements of Banshees that may be off-putting to some audiences. For a Martin McDonagh film, there’s not that much violence, but the violence we get is graphic, gory, unsettling, and ultimately quite sad. This story won’t leave audiences uplifted feeling they’ve been spiritually fed. Though the film is consistently funny, sometimes outright hilarious, it’s also relentlessly dark with notes of tragedy, and a kind of baffling, inexplicable, frustrating quality that real life also has, and that most people agree is one of the very worst things about real life.

If some weird, unexpected thing happens—and the Oscars are over a month away—then The Banshees of Inisherin is one of the films that could potentially sneak in there and win Best Picture. But I think it’s going to be Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Nominated Producer(s): Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang

Directors:  Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Writers: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum, Jr., Andy Le, and others.

Plot: Evelyn is not thrilled with the laundromat she owns, but she doesn’t want any trouble with the IRS. Her husband sometimes exasperates her. She knows she’s a disappointment to her father. Her daughter is independent and perhaps becoming estranged. Life is not working out. Then suddenly, a version of her husband from another universe drops into her day and pulls her into a wild, multi-dimensional adventure, insisting she is the only one who can stop the rising villain Jobu Tupaki.

Why It Should Win
This film let me know that I’m not alone in the universe. I’m trying to think of a way to describe what it taps into without using the word “zeitgeist” because this is a movie full of googly eyes, dildo fights, hot dog fingers, telepathic rocks, and silly raccoon-related malapropisms that become a serious, useful plot element. So if the film wouldn’t say anything as pretentious as “zeitgeist,” then I probably shouldn’t either.

Since my mother died and my daughter became a teenager, I suddenly feel a jarring difference in the world. I don’t know if it’s a midlife crisis, a readjustment after the pandemic, a period of role confusion now that my last baby is seven, or a genuine paradigm shift in our society. But something has changed, and I sometimes feel detached from the present reality, like I’ve slipped into a world I don’t fully understand. I’m guessing I’m not the only one who feels this way because Michelle Yeoh’s character in Everything Everywhere All at Once speaks to me, and her character is resonating with a lot of people.

Because Evelyn is the worst version of herself (an idea I love), she’s able to channel the skills and experiences of other Evelyns from other universes, each one a skill she could have chosen to cultivate herself in her own life. Like a lot of us, she’s pulled in so many directions. The film makes internal and interpersonal struggles mothers of a certain age face every day painfully (perilously) literal. All of us with these average American lives grew up watching sci-fi blockbuster adventures, and now Evelyn is living one.

She finds herself fighting on all fronts, equally at odds with her disapproving father and her despairing daughter. Meanwhile, her love story with her husband is falling apart in multiple universes (and for some reason, her IRS agent is close to her family in all of them).

The message of love and hope in the face of alienation and despair holds the heart of this story together. Both my daughter and I sobbed ubiquitously through entire scenes. The family drama is compelling and realistic, yet it’s presented in such a fun, exciting, colorful way, a mashup of the scientific, the mystical, and the best blockbusters of my lifetime. The movie uses familiar, exciting sci-fi/fantasy cinematic tropes to make a plea for empathy, understanding, and love.

Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis are all rightly nominated for Oscars for turns that display their versatility and giftedness with comedy, drama, and adventure. (Though not nominated, James Hong is pretty fantastic, too!)

This movie is a lot more fun than Best Picture nominees often are, and yet it delivers a message desperately needed, hope for a way forward that everybody is longing for right now.  

Why It Shouldn’t Win
It probably will win, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t. My only complaint about Everything Everywhere All at Once is that I find it less re-watchable than some of the other nominees this year. Both Tár and Triangle of Sadness improved on a second watch, as plot elements I barely noticed the first time came into sharper focus. Elvis was better a second time, too, so much better that I wouldn’t mind seeing it a third time now. (I wasn’t excited to watch it the second time until I did.) I’ve already watched The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin multiple times. Granted, my daughter keeps showing everyone The Fabelmans, but Banshees I’ve been rewatching in sections to take another look at the performances. When I do that, I always end up re-watching more of the movie than I mean to, simply because I find it so delightful.

I don’t feel any excitement to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once again. I feel like I’ve seen it enough. Now, I have watched it three times already, but unlike some of the others, I liked it best on the first watch, when the plot still surprised me as it unfolded.

Of course, quite often, I only watch a movie once. I usually crave the novel. (I don’t know why I’m watching so many films repeatedly this Oscar season. In the past, I’ve watched them once in the theater, then once at home to force my mother to watch them. (This was a little game we played. I’d show her movies outside her comfort zone, and she would read me passages of scripture or show me TV shows that seemed relevant to our life.)

I’m not saying I’ll never watch this movie again. But I’m just not dying to see it anymore.

I do expect it to win Best Picture, though. And I can’t complain. It’s deserving. Frankly I think it’s going to win, and that Oscar pundits who are picking other films are like me, growing bored this late in the season and wanting to shake things up a little. An upset in this category would surprise me. Since long before I saw this movie, a large, vocal community has anointed it the next Best Picture winner, and I think they’re onto something.