Elvis
Nominated Producer(s): Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick, and Schuyler Weiss
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner
Cast: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Shonka Dukureh, Alton Mason, and others.
Plot: Self-proclaimed “snow man” Colonel Tom Parker defends himself against the vicious rumors that he destroyed Elvis Presley by telling us the story of his celebrated life and death.
Why It Should Win
On a second watch, I thought this movie was pretty brilliant. The first time, I got distracted by the spectacle of the musical performances and the fun nefariousness of the unreliable narrator. I didn’t notice how cohesively these antithetical elements work together to tell a coherent, powerful narrative.
Baz Luhrmann is good at bringing surprising intimacy to spectacle. (Think of Moulin Rouge! with its exotic locale, spectacular costumes, grandiose tragedy, highly choreographed musical numbers, and yet the lyrics are from pop songs you know. They’re all as intimately familiar as an old friend. You’ve sung them yourself as you’ve gone about your daily life.)
In Elvis, you’ve got the story of a con-artist and an artist. Colonel Tom Parker got his start in the carnival. He knows how to sell. He thinks Elvis is a “showman,” while he is a “snow man.” For Colonel Parker, entertainment is about tricking people. Elvis, on the other hand, learned his moves in tent meetings. He and his family believe he has a God-given gift. He’s drawn to the music of Beale Street, and not only listens to the songs, but has conversations with the musicians who perform them. Elvis doesn’t think he’s tricking people. He thinks he’s giving them something very real. He’s at his best when he’s on the stage performing.
Colonel Parker’s unreliable narration (which grows more and more blatantly unreliable as the story progresses) is just delightful. But its purpose is to counterbalance the story Elvis is telling through his music. Colonel Parker talks. Elvis sings. They’re giving us two sides of the same story, and perhaps two sides of the showbusiness industry.
I love the moment when Elvis sits in the broken, rundown Hollywood sign, lamenting about the decline of the town and of his career. At this point, Colonel Parker is trying to convince him to do a Christmas special, designed to sell merchandise. He cannot see himself as someone who sells audiences a bunch of broken down garbage they don’t need. He decides to present himself as he sees himself, as he wants to be. He sings from the heart. When Bobby Kennedy is shot, he even writes and performs a protest song. He’s not conning people. He’s sharing a moment of truth with them. He has nothing to do with that decaying Hollywood sign and Colonel Parker’s carnival tricks. He sings with his own sign behind him, enormous red, glowing letters (in excellent repair) spelling out his own name. The movie really begins to take off here. Best of all, at the end of this section of the film, after Elvis has defied and thwarted Colonel Parker and made the “Christmas” special his own way, the Colonel sees the way television audiences respond and declares triumphantly, “I knew that would work!” (It’s not a moral argument for him. He’s a pragmatist only.)
Baz Luhrmann is the perfect person to tell the story of Elvis Presley. He constructs and advances the narrative in ways that would never have occurred to me. (I’m not usually a visual thinker.)
Austin Butler gives a good performance and does all the singing and dancing. Even though his voice is blended with Elvis’s in the second half of the film, he still performs every musical number, whether we hear him or not. Despite his apparent (and rather frequently mentioned) inability to stop speaking in Elvis’s accent (unless he’s filming a Dune sequel), Butler is best when performing the musical numbers. (He’s fantastic when he sings “Trouble,” and I’m pretty sure we’re hearing only his voice there. Butler could win Best Actor, and, of course, the film’s musical numbers are fantastically entertaining. Whether you’re an Elvis fan or not, surely you’ll concede that he was an iconic entertainer.
As Colonel Tom Parker, Tom Hanks gives my favorite performance of the film (though I’m know I’m in the minority there). He’s almost cartoonish in his villainy, but he has to be somewhat larger than life to share a story with Elvis and not get overwhelmed.
The rest of the cast is good, too. I particularly love the way Shonka Dukureh sings “Hound Dog” (and was horrified to learn just now when looking up how to spell her name that she died last July). There’s a great performance by Alton Mason as Little Richard, too. (I never knew Elvis used to wander around on Beale Street, striking up conversations with gifted musicians!) I was personally excited to see Richard Roxburgh playing Elvis’s dad. (I always think of him as the Duke in Moulin Rouge! because a close friend of mine was obsessed with that movie.)
The film has eight Oscar nominations. It’s also nominated for Best Actor, Sound, Cinematography, Make-up and Hairstyling, Costume Design, Editing, and Production Design. Not surprisingly, it looks and sounds great. Last time I watched it, I said to my husband, “I could imagine this winning for Editing because its editing is conspicuous. That wouldn’t necessarily indicate a Best Picture win. Remember how Baby Driver won?”
I’d be surprised to see Elvis crowned the night’s big winner, but it would make a respectable choice for Best Picture, and either way, surely those connected with the film will have the opportunity to say a few words about Lisa Marie Presley.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
I know Tom Hanks’s supporting performance is Razzie nominated, but I still like it. Are the facial prosthetics a little much? Is the accent strange considering he’s trying to pass himself off as a Southerner? Yes, yes. But I just watched Ted Koppel interview the real Tom Parker (aka Andreas van Kuijk), and he does not sound like he’s from the Deep South. Hanks may be exaggerating the accent, but he does sound vaguely Dutch. And I like the way Hanks punctuates his statements with a crisp, distinctive “my boy.” It’s aurally pleasing, yet so sinister. When Elvis’s mother dies, the Colonel promises her grieving son he will take her place and watch over him, worry over him. And when he first hears him sing, he assumes he’s African American. And the he starts acting like he owns him, renting him out to others like he’s a commodity. I think the accent works. And I think the character works within the film that Baz Luhrmann is trying to construct. Elvis is Elvis. He’s a very flamboyant, intense, theatrical person. When he’s on stage, your eyes are not anywhere else. For this story about the “showman and the snowman,” the Colonel Parker character has to be every bit as big as Elvis. So, of course, he seems a bit like a vaudevillian villain. For Luhrmann’s movie to work (as I understand it) that’s the type of depiction of the Colonel we need.
But that Tom Hanks performance has drawn a lot of derision. If Hanks were nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars instead of the Razzies, I’d like the film’s chances a lot more.
I could imagine Elvis winning just about any one of its other seven nominations, but I can also easily imagine it winning nothing.
Top Gun: Maverick
Nominated Producer(s): Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison, and Jerry Bruckheimer
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Writers: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie, Peter Craig, and Justin Marks
Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Bashir Salahuddin, Charles Parnell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Glen Powell, Greg Tarzan Davis, and others.
Plot: Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is still one of the best pilots around, but he hasn’t risen through the ranks like his friend Ice. Now his country needs him again…to teach. But one of his students has an extremely personal grievance.
Why It Should Win
Top Gun: Maverick is a good movie, I’ll admit. I only watched it recently. I wish I had seen it on the big screen because Claudio Miranda’s cinematography is excellent (though not nominated).
Until recently, I had only seen the original Top Gun once (also on a TV screen). I didn’t want to watch it because at the time I couldn’t stand Tom Cruise, but my mom gave me a choice, either watch Top Gun or clean my room. (I’m mentioning this because I think I’m a somewhat hostile audience.)
But my son has been telling us for months that Top Gun: Maverick was one of the best movies of the year, and that we had to see it, and he was right. We watched the original and Maverick on consecutive nights and came away quite impressed with this new installment.
Probably my favorite aspect of Maverick is its screenplay, so I’m happy to see that nominated. It didn’t feel at all perfunctory or like a cash grab. In fact, it genuinely moved me to tears. That last exchange between Tom Cruise and Miles Teller hit me hard. I thought, “This feels exactly like movie lines you would want to hear. If someone died in the 80s, then was resurrected for one night to catch up with our culture, they would be so into this.” I felt a soaring feeling of triumph, as if I’d been the biggest Top Gun fan all my life (which is not the case. I’ve always agreed that the first movie is good, but I didn’t grow up loving it and watching it every day). But the film is good at eliciting emotion. If you’re thinking, “It’s summer! I want to go with my friends or my family and eat popcorn in a darkened movie theater,” this is the kind of film you’re hoping for. It’s what so many movies try and fail to be.
My favorite thing, honestly, is that in the first movie, Pete Mitchell has so many character flaws, and in the second movie—he still does. He hasn’t changed much. It’s a case of, “You wouldn’t think you’d go far in the military having an attitude like that—and you haven’t.” There’s something weirdly refreshing about this. (Admittedly, it’s not unique. Die Hard does the same kind of thing with John McClane.)
Maverick is also great at drawing in the viewer. I remember thinking, “But why would he be so angry at him? Surely he knows it isn’t his fault that—ohhhhhh! But why would he have done that? I guess I understand, but it seems like a weird—ohhhhh!” The characters have depth and complexity, and the plot makes sense. I was initially a little suspicious of swapping out Kelly McGillis for Jennifer Connelly (though if you’re giving a character who became famous in the 80s a new love interest, Connelly makes sense). Then we discovered that she plays Penny Benjamin. That makes total sense! In some ways, it works even better than including the Kelly McGillis character. (I like it when there’s continuity within a world.)
The story is well plotted and fast paced. One element of the new conflict seems realistically timely, a good reason for dropping us back into this world. I was glad to see Val Kilmer back (because, again, the use of the character made the story work). And I liked the new characters, particularly Phoenix (Monica Barbaro), Hangman (Glen Powell) and of course, Rooster (Miles Teller. Whiplash was my favorite film that year, so I’m always happy to see Teller.)
Top Gun:Maverick is a movie that’s fun to watch (which is not true of every film that gets an Oscar nomination). I didn’t even want to watch it (necessarily), and I enjoyed it. It seemed like a movie for people who love movies. At one moment, my daughter and I looked at each other in excitement and gasped, “This is just like Wings!”
As usual, Tom Cruise did as many of his own stunts as possible, and the rest of the cast did, too. The scenes in the planes are mostly practical effects, and though the actors weren’t permitted to fly the planes (because they belong to the military), they were riding in them, which required them to do extensive G-force training. And the cameras are in the planes! (All of the expensive, difficult aerial photography is kind of like Wings, too!)
The film was also nominated for Editing, Original Song, Visual Effects, Sound, and Adapted Screenplay. I wouldn’t be disappointed to see it win Best Picture. You can’t say that everyone involved didn’t thoroughly commit.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
My daughter was so outraged that Kelly McGillis was not in this movie, slightly amusing since she watched the original Top Gun for the first time the day before we watched Top Gun: Maverick. It’s not that she got so attached to her character. She was simply outraged on principle. But she also doesn’t think the Penny Benjamin character belongs in the story because the “love interest” is essentially Rooster (not in a romantic way), making the romance superfluous. I disagree. Surely the people who loved the original Top Gun in the 80s will want to have a love interest, and it needs to be someone who knows his story (unless you want to take ten years to devote to the subplot). Also, I think the audience needs to see that he has finally worked through all of the anguish of the Goose/Rooster situation. He trusts Rooster to fly on his own now and is able to move forward with his own life, and the Penny Benjamin storyline shows that fairly quickly (because we already know the backstory).
But I don’t see why Kelly McGillis (and present-day Meg Ryan) couldn’t be in the movie. (They could show that one story Maverick shares with Penny in flashback and give Ryan a part.) McGillis wouldn’t have to be his love interest. They worked in Val Kilmer (and used AI to recreate his voice, so he could be dubbed with his own voice). It would be realistic to show that Maverick’s relationship with Charlie didn’t work out. Does that mean she has to stop existing? She also played a crucial role in his career. She did a lot more in that movie than be in love with him. Of course, maybe Kelly McGillis didn’t want to be in the movie. (Didn’t she say she was never asked, though?)
You know what I think keeps a movie like this from winning Best Picture? Exactly the same thing that makes audience members like me like it. Its ending. If this story ended differently, perhaps the Academy would take it more seriously. (But maybe they do take it seriously. Maybe it will win.) (I don’t think it will.)
Triangle of Sadness
Nominated Producer(s): Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober
Director: Ruben Östlund
Writer: Ruben Östlund
Cast: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly De Leon, Vicki Berlin, Alicia Erikkson, Zlatko Buric, Iris Berben, Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, Henrik Dorsen, Sunnyi Melles, Carolina Gynning, Arvin Kananian, Jean-Christophe Folly, Woody Harrelson, and others.
Plot: A troubled couple takes a free cruise. It does not improve their relationship.
Why It Should Win
I need to relax my triangle of sadness. I have permanent wrinkles there now from all my anxious frowning. If not for those, I’m sure I’d be a successful runway model!
I understand why this film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It’s brilliant. On a first watch, it’s one of the most genuinely surprising films I’ve seen in years (in a narrative sense, I mean. The plot twists are jarring). With repeat viewings, though, the cohesion of the whole becomes clearer, and laughing gets easier. The film is a satire, but the humor is so dark. The first time I watched, I didn’t laugh much at all because I was busy gawking at the strange events and searching for sympathetic characters. (On a second watch, I laughed out loud several times, possibly because my husband was watching and laughing. He loves satire. Last year, his favorite film was Don’t Look Up.)
The story is divided into three parts, and the second remains my favorite because there’s a certain zaniness to what happens aboard that ship. The humor is still extremely dark—oh you know! I think I enjoyed that part most because the captain appreciates the awful humor in the situation, so there’s a character present to laugh with you. (Maybe I’m not comfortable laughing alone.) The humor is sometimes absurd, but the satire is sharp. Every scene is grounded in specificity and offers a thoughtful critique of something. By the end, all of society has been skewered. And we noticed more and more on each successive watch and finally started calling out details to each other. (“There’s another triangle!” “Is that a Benito Cereno joke?” “There’s something to annoy us in almost every scene—the wiper, the fly! Watch for it!” “That boat has been traveling back and forth to the mainland this whole time! How are they completely unaware of where they are?”)
The characters are deeply enjoyable for people so initially unsympathetic. As I said in my review, I love the captain (Woody Harrelson) and Paula (Vicki Berlin) and would watch an entire series about these two. She’s just trying to do her job, and he’s just trying not to do his job. Consistently engaging, too, is Zlatko Buric as the uncouth Russian capitalist. And Alicia Eriksson is fantastic in a scene where she’s unable to avoid going swimming. In fact, one of the nicest things about the movie is that there are no truly virtuous characters, so the morally bankrupt ones start to grow on us because nobody else is there.
The third section of the film is like its own movie starring Dolly De Leon. It’s too bad she didn’t get a Best Supporting Actress nomination because she is riveting as Abigail and worthy of Oscar attention because of her last scene alone.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Triangle of Sadness is dark. Also, you must commit to watching the whole thing before you start. The first section of the film is a bit off-putting. Trying to decide whose side I took in the argument between the two protagonists, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), I finally realized, “You know, I don’t like either of these people.” (And I’ve now read several articles about how accurately the film depicts the unpleasant realities of modeling, so…that’s dispiriting.)
To clarify, I find Carl and Yaya off-putting as characters. The actors are great, and it’s tragic that Dean died not long after completing the film. The characters did grow on me—eventually. (For one thing, they start hanging around with people who are even worse (or at least astronomically wealthier, making them harder to connect with for average viewers). But in that first part, Carl and Yaya are both pretty insufferable. (If pressed, I’d side with Yaya who is, at least, honest, openly telling him, “I don’t love you. This is a business arrangement.” His stance of, “I will make you love me by refusing to take care of you and repeatedly embarrassing you in public,” is hard to get behind.) After watching for a few minutes, our oldest cautiously asked his sister and me, “Just to be clear—do y’all consider this a good film?” (I think I find Carl so exasperating because I can more easily imagine myself as him. I feel his pain, but he doesn’t have to date a woman who admittedly doesn’t love him.)
The second part of the film is so fun to watch, but it might make some people vomit. Think of that restaurant scene in The Meaning of Life or the fitting scene in Bridesmaids. And then imagine the rising water in the second half of Titanic. If you don’t think your stomach could handle seeing all of these elements mashed together, then you won’t make it through the middle of Triangle of Sadness.
The movie kicks into gear in part three, but I know a lot of people who would already have turned it off. (It’s divisive. Plenty of people will watch and immediately snicker appreciatively. But those who don’t like it from the start will probably dislike it enough not to stick with it.)
Usually Palme d’Or winners do not also win Best Picture. Marty did. Parasite did. That’s it. The Academy tends to like more crowd pleasing stuff, what I conceive of as “warmer movies,” films where the audience feels more positively about the protagonists or their journeys. I frequently hear people complain that the Academy is out of touch and only picks unpopular movies that film snobs like, but that’s not true. People who make that complaint must not know snobby enough film snobs. I’m trying to think of a better term to use. Maybe what I’m saying is, though the Academy may be slightly out of touch with what mainstream American audiences love, the jury at Cannes is not trying to appeal to American audiences at all (even when there are American filmmakers on the jury). They’re conceiving of the whole exercise differently. Triangle of Sadness is one of my favorite films of the year, but there’s no way it’s winning Best Picture. You can just trust me on this because I told my husband that the Director’s branch was going to nominate Ruben Östlund, and they did. I may not be paying as close attention this year as I have some years, but I was positive about that. And I’m just as positive Triangle of Sadness won’t win Best Picture. I don’t expect it to win any Oscars. But it’s still one of my favorite films of the year.
Women Talking
Nominated Producer(s): Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand
Director: Sarah Polley
Writers: Sarah Polley, Miriam Toews
Cast: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Sheila McCarthy, Judith Ivey, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, Emily Mitchell, August Winter, Kira Guloien, Shayla Brown, Vivien Endicott Douglas, Frances McDormand
Plot: In an isolated Mennonite colony in 2010, a series of violent rapes has taken place. The male leaders of the colony have invalidated the women’s experiences, insisting that (despite the physical signs of abuse) these attacks are imagined or perhaps a supernatural punishment for sin. But now someone has seen her attacker’s face, and this man has turned in others who have been arrested for their own protection. The women have been told they must forgive these men in order to go to heaven. While the men of the colony are off raising bail for the accused rapists, the women have taken a vote to determine how to proceed. Will they stay and do nothing, stay and fight, or leave the colony? This is a difficult decision because the women are illiterate and have little education. As the movie opens, the women face a tied vote, and a select few have gathered in a hayloft to discuss the risks and benefits of staying versus leaving. As the colony’s schoolteacher records the minutes, the women begin talking.
Why It Should Win
First a trigger warning. This film is about violent rape and systemic abuse within a religious community. It features attacks on elderly women and a very young child. Yes, it’s just a bunch of women talking in a hayloft, but that’s what they’re talking about the entire time. It’s only rated PG-13, so you don’t see the graphic violence. But you see quick flashbacks featuring blood and other physical evidence of brutal violence.
I just read the Miriam Toews novel Women Talking this past weekend. It’s a quick read that I would recommend. Coming out of the film, I had questions about how many men were involved, what the men of the colony thought they were doing, and what exactly happened in August’s past. All these questions are answered in the novel which is narrated by August. The novel also cleared up a few misconceptions I had about the plot and made me realize that all the women in the hayloft come from just two families. Watching, I hadn’t realized every one of the younger women was the direct descendant of one of the two matriarchs.
In all important ways, the film is very faithful to the book (except that August’s story is de-emphasized in the film, and the villainy of one character is a bit more pronounced in the novel). Since Miriam Toews co-wrote the screenplay, the faithfulness of the adaptation isn’t too surprising.
Sarah Polley makes beautiful movies. My husband and I particularly loved Away From Her. Julie Christie was his Oscar crush that year. So we were both eager to see this film.
It delivers exactly what it promises. Women talking. But what they’re talking about is quite interesting (especially if you enjoy philosophical debates and novel ways of approaching the problems of abuse of power, and limitations of patriarchy). Reading the novel also made me appreciate the vibrance and vitality the actresses bring to their performances. I’m honestly surprised Claire Foy didn’t get a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Her fiery intensity works beautifully in this role. Of course Salome is angry. Not only has she been raped, but her four-year-old daughter has, too. Now, the little girl needs antibiotics. Small wonder Salome attacks the rapists at the beginning of the film and begins by wanting to stay and fight. Also outstanding are the two matriarchs, Agata (Judith Ivey) and Greta (Sheila McCarthy). I can’t resist Greta’s charming stories about her horses (and I’m outraged about her teeth), and I love the way Agata turns to her faith to find a practical solution, using the small bit of education that she does have.
For me, the book and the movie work well in tandem. I don’t think either in isolation gives us the entire story. That may be a quality that hurts the film, but it does encourage reading. Curiously, the book features more action than the movie. There’s quite a lot of stuff at the end that the film leaves out, and also some fascinating backstory with August at the beginning. (Did you know he had a problem with stealing pears and his mother’s name is Monica? That seems uncanny.) We get more focus on a specific villain in the book, too. And in the book, some of the younger women briefly weaponize their sexuality. (The film makes them younger and omits this plot element.) These changes interest me because usually movies want to include more scenes of action, more pointed villains. But Sarah Polley deliberately leaves these things out to focus more on the women talking.
I was wondering, “Why would she do that?” Then I remembered this miraculous thing called the internet, and watched a bunch of videos of Sarah Polley explaining why she did that. She is trying to emphasize the power of speech. (After all, if the women hadn’t started talking, maybe each woman would believe she was the only victim, possibly also believing the men’s story that these attacks were imagined or delivered by spiritual beings as a punishment for sin.) (And she had a therapist on set, I just learned, because everyone was talking about such difficult subject matter.)
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Some people who would strongly relate to the situation in this movie probably won’t want to watch it. Anyone who is a survivor of sexual assault or a parent to a molested child might have trouble sitting through this. A prominent feature of all the women’s brief flashbacks is blood staining their clothing and bed clothes. These were violent attacks. I found the violence outrageous, baffling, and infuriating. The women are drugged first with a cow tranquilizer. The brutality is so gratuitous. So you’ll probably have a potential audience who deeply connect with these themes but won’t be able to watch the movie.
And then, many people who are able to watch, might not. To be blunt, a lot of people probably aren’t interested in a bunch of Mennonite women sitting in a hayloft talking for two hours—especially not when what they’re talking about is how to respond to rape and abuse of power by the men in the colony. The movie is riveting for every second of its runtime, and I’m sure most people do not want women to be raped and abused, but—I’m just being honest—surely some people will decide, “That sounds boring.” And they won’t even watch.
Now, personally, I love movies that feature a bunch of people sitting around talking. That is my favorite kind of movie. But even viewers who would be on the women’s side (which I would guess is most people given the brutality of the attacks) might expect boring things from the title. And, honestly, the film itself might bore them. I remember eagerly taking someone to see Doubt (the movie), expecting them to be as into it as I was. Instead, the person said, “That was so boring! Nothing happened!” I thought stuff was happening every second. But sometimes in action sequences, my perception is that nothing is happening, and other people call that the exciting part.
So I would expect some people to react with a yawn. And then some people will probably have a more accurate sense of the type of film this is and feel annoyed that we’re seeing yet another film about women speaking up against injustice. These seem like big hurdles to me. It’s not as if once you watch for a while, something really exciting happens. This movie gives us women talking.
Also, while I both saw and liked the film, I didn’t immediately think, “This should win Best Picture!” I thought, “This would be fantastic to teach in a graduate level literature course.” It would. Everyone reads the book. Everyone watches the film. And then for an entire term, you talk about Women Talking. This seems like an academic’s dream, but it’s never going to get your average movie goer as excited as something like Top Gun: Maverick.
I have heard some complaints about the real story happening in Bolivia, and the novel…being a novel. No pretense is made that this is a strict accounting of true events. This is fiction inspired by true events. I did find myself wondering if these women who were deliberately prevented from having an education would have come to some of these conclusions on their own. They have a very philosophical way of thinking, and it’s not escaped their notice that everyone in the colony is suffering because of the abuse of power of the leadership and the way the boys are taught. I doubt any of these issues will keep the film from winning Best Picture, though.
The problem is a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once has the excitement and escapist fantasy and adventure of something like Maverick while also delivering insightful reflection on issues that matter to women today. On the whole, I think more women (a greater cross-section of women) would be excited to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once than Women Talking. Now it’s art. You shouldn’t have to choose between one film and another. Why not watch both? And if being honest, I think I’d rather spend more time with Women Talking than with Everything Everywhere All at Once (partially because I’ve already watched that movie several times). But if you’re talking about which one film is going to win the Oscar for Best Picture, it won’t be Women Talking. I’m glad it’s nominated, though, and I think it has a very good chance of winning Best Adapted Screenplay. (I just saw that Sarah Polley wrote a draft from each character’s point of view. I love doing things like that!)