Darkest Hour
Nominated Producer(s): Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten, Douglas Urbanski
Writer: Anthony McCarten
Cast:
Plot:
In May of 1940, Winston Churchill wins the dubious honor of being made British Prime Minister as Hitler’s forces continue their relentless advance across Europe. To save his homeland from destruction, should Churchill relent and enter into peace talks facilitated by the Italians? Or should he instead go with his gut, remain defiant, and along with all his countrymen stare down total annihilation by a larger military force with superior resources? Tormented by the weight of a nation’s survival on his shoulders, Churchill is at war both abroad and at home as he struggles to resist not only the relentless Nazi war machine but also his political enemies’ equally tireless efforts to remove him from office.
Why It Should Win:
Darkest Hour is my favorite film from director Joe Wright. The subject matter finally pairs perfectly with his directorial style, resulting in a rousing period drama that anyone opposed to Nazi invasion can enjoy. Relying on efficient visual storytelling as much as its strong performances, the film reveals the dangers of isolationist policies and reminds audiences that in 1940, Churchill fought enemies on two fronts. In France, he hoped the British armed forces could drive back the foe. In parliament, he relied on his own wit and words. At the time, his eventual triumph in either arena was far from a given. He also smoked cigars, a lot of cigars.
Bruno Delbonnel’s nominated cinematography is sometimes mind-bending but always effective. Of course that disorienting scene that ends in an eyeball is remarkable, but the way the members of parliament walk around the halls whispering to one another is just as compelling. Every scene draws and pleases the eye. I like the lovely framing of Chamberlain and Halifax plotting in the rose garden, and I love the symbolism of Churchill sitting in despair after his frustrating phone call, so utterly alone.
Of course, Gary Oldman’s transformative turn as Winston Churchill is amazing and worthy of the Best Actor Oscar he will definitely win. (Those familiar with Oldman’s body of work know that all his turns are transformative, but for this one he had to chomp on so many cigars that he got nicotine poisoning! That’s a different level of commitment to a costume than just wearing a fake nose or something!)
The other performances are very solid, too. Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Stephen Dillane–it’s a great cast, and I particularly liked the film’s positive portrayal of King George and nuanced (for a Hollywood biopic about someone else) treatment of Neville Chamberlain.
Anybody who likes British history or period drama should definitely enjoy this film. Actual historians may have some legitimate frustrations, but let’s be honest. What Hollywood film isn’t frustrating when it comes to historical accuracy?
Why It Shouldn’t Win:
People complain that Darkest Hour lionizes Churchill while minimizing his flaws. That may be true, but doesn’t everybody kind of know his flaws already? I’m certainly not an expert in the period. Just speaking as a member of the general public, though, it was always my distinct impression that for most people Churchill’s flaws (though hardly a secret) are just as moot as Hitler’s virtues.
Now, granted, maybe they shouldn’t be. People tend to latch onto the image of Churchill as an incorrigible, dissolute, chain-smoking alcoholic and kind of just forget the stuff about racism and imperialism and advocacy of brutal and unsavory tactics.
Maybe Darkest Hour does paint Churchill with a rather sympathetic brushstroke, but that’s the usual m.o. for a Hollywood biopic. People’s lives are messy and complicated, better explored on TV or in print than in a two hour movie.
From a story standpoint, failure to explore all sides of the character makes sense. In Darkest Hour, the wolf is at the door. Who cares about the moral shortcomings of the person guarding the door? The main thing is, he’s got to get rid of that wolf!
When a British movie celebrates Churchill during the nation’s darkest hour, what Britain is actually celebrating is not getting taken over by Nazis. And I think everybody can get behind that (except Nazis).
Maybe my years spent studying Tudor England have given me a more cynical than average view, but don’t leaders always commit moral atrocities? Isn’t that how they stay in power? And isn’t that why most people don’t want to be in power, because if you’re in charge, you must make hard choices and do awful things? Isn’t society built on a noble lie? And wasn’t Western society in general in Churchill’s time pretty racist (and usually anti-Semitic)? (I’m not in favor of any of this, by the way. I’m just saying that it’s Churchill’s victories that make him unique among politicians of the era, not his innumerable failures. So the movie focuses on the positive things he did.)
This too rosy rendering of Churchill is the main criticism I keep hearing about Darkest Hour, and I find it a touch disingenuous (not from the academics who truly care about history but from the Hollywood types whose main interest is movies). Every time a biopic is nominated for Best Picture, it is similarly accused of cleaning up the subject’s unsavory reputation. Then that biopic either goes on to win Best Picture or not, depending entirely on if it was favored to win, its fate in no way determined by the scandal.
Darkest Hour is a strong film with a tour-de-force lead performance, a wonderful score, and nominated cinematography. It also pairs nicely with Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, with each giving needed context for the other. Darkest Hour won’t win Best Picture this year because it’s not the best picture this year. A whole bunch of other pictures are better and more popular. This one is very good, though, its inattention to Churchill’s unsavory side notwithstanding.
Phantom Thread
Nominated Producer(s): JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, Daniel Lupi
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast:
Plot:
In 1950s London, gifted designer Reynolds Woodcock creates fashion adored by women of station and enjoys a life of quiet eccentricities with his business partner, sister, and inseparable companion, Cyril. One day over breakfast at a seaside inn, Reynolds finds inspiration and love in a new muse, his young and feisty server, Alma, who affectionately dubs him “the hungry boy” after taking his astonishingly immense and varied order. The two begin a romantic and professional collaboration, but Reynolds’s special needs make him exacting to the point of sadism, and Alma refuses to accept Cyril’s (kindly meant) attempts to stage manage her life to suit the designer’s whims. Ugly rows about how to prepare asparagus inevitably follow. But when the voracious Reynolds consumes something that truly disagrees with him, the story takes a dark turn which leads to an unexpected, even jarring, conclusion.
Why It Should Win:
I never expected to like this movie. I rarely connect with Paul Thomas Anderson’s work. I’m not a huge fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. And the trailer for Phantom Thread looked mind-numbingly dull.
Then to my shock, not only did I like it, but I loved it! A Best Picture win for Phantom Thread would stun me (and everybody else who cares, I’m sure), but, honestly, I wouldn’t protest its victory. This film is truly exceptional, unconventional. In fact, I’ve never seen anything else remotely like it.
Surely Phantom Thread benefits hugely from its horrible trailer because the audience goes in completely unsure of what the story is about and, thus, devoid of expectations.
In fact, part of the reason the movie works is that it generates this intense, palpable suspense ex nihilo. Granted, part of the suspense is atmospheric, but most of it stems from the fact that we genuinely have no idea what will happen. At all. In the beginning, we don’t even have a firm handle on the genre of the movie.
I expected something boring and creepy. I got Rebecca. To my surprise, the first half of the film appears to be an extremely loving and meticulous tribute to Hitchcock’s film version of the Daphne du Maurier novel. Some of the carefully (beautifully) composed shots suggest this. (The shot composition really is lovely and always thoughtful. Too bad Phantom Thread did not get a nomination for its always exciting cinematography.) Daniel Day-Lewis even gives a performance that seems to echo Sir Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, and Lesley Manville’s Cyril is surely just as formidable as the imposing Mrs. Danvers.
This is just like Rebecca, I thought, only in this film, I’m sure nothing will happen.
But then guess what? Something happened!
And it’s not anything I would have predicted or expected. What happens takes the entire film off into a completely different direction. Suddenly Phantom Thread pulls a reverse Rebecca. You’re no longer sure whom to trust. The only person who doesn’t seem creepy or dangerous, believe it or not, is Cyril (that old so-and-so! She definitely has the best nickname!).
For a while, the film seems to switch to Suspicion, but then it ends up leaving Hitchcock behind to remind me of a much more recent film, one from the 2000s that also involves a wedding dress and a reluctant groom.
So in terms of plot, wow, what a strange movie! I’ve got to hand it to P.T. Anderson. He builds suspense from nothing. I’ve never seen a movie with such intense suspense built from nothing, raised to such a height that the audience becomes almost disoriented. Just as Reynolds can’t take the chewing, every little thing starts to unsettle and unnerve us. And then in the end, we realize that we’ve actually been watching a very off-kilter romantic comedy all along. Bravo. This film should be a lesson in the importance of presentation in storytelling. How the story is presented to the audience matters just as much–more, really!–than the plot itself.
Johnny Greenwood’s nominated score is my second favorite of the year, and Mark Bridges just won a much deserved BAFTA for his costumes. (There ought to be some kind of special award for designing the costumes in a film about haute couture. I mean, Anderson is immersing us in this rich world of fashion, but he’d literally be unable to create it without the costume designer who is doing at least half of the work.)
I love Vicky Krieps as Alma, and I really love Lesley Manville as Cyril. The authenticity of the dynamic between the brother and sister is the most charming aspect of the movie to me. Too bad Lesley Manville won’t get an Oscar for her compelling supporting performance. After winning even the BAFTA, Allison Janney (who deserves the win, too) seems like a pretty sure thing.
In what surely will not actually be his final performance despite what he says at this moment, Daniel Day-Lewis predictably shines as the beyond difficult but somehow weirdly almost sympathetic Reynolds Woodcock.
Phantom Thread also has fantastic sound. I love the repeated emphasis on Alma’s loud crunching.
Why It Shouldn’t Win:
I’ve heard some complaints that this story does not reflect a healthy romance. To that, I want to say, “Yeah, no kidding!”
Comments like that always annoy me since they suggest that somebody has misunderstood the fundamental nature of art.
But to be fair, I will have to allow that in this particular case, misunderstanding the movie is understandable since Phantom Thread pointedly refuses to tell you what it is using any of the usual clues. As I’ve mentioned, the trailer is so boring and vague that it might even be called deliberately misleading.
Before I started this blog, I would read user reviews on Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and get so irritated when people (not trolling) blamed the movie for their own failure to have appropriate expectations. (Two real examples: 1) Knocked Up was too replete with vulgar language and themes to make a good date movie 2) Paris, je t’aime was in French. In both cases, I kept ranting to myself, Did you even bother to read the title of the movie?)
But in this case, Phantom Thread legitimately does not give us a lot to go on. The only real clue about what kind of movie this will be is the name Paul Thomas Anderson. That really ought to tell you something. It should signal that the film will not be a conventional romantic date movie at the very least.
So yes, the movie-going public may well be left scratching their heads about The Phantom Thread, but surely most Academy members know by now what they’re getting into when they see the name P.T. Anderson.
Most Oscar voters have likely watched this film to see Daniel Day-Lewis’s final performance. The actors clearly weren’t the only ones to watch and appreciate it. Besides the two acting nods for Day-Lewis and Manville, the film also got nominations for score, costume design, Best Director (rather shockingly), and, of course, Best Picture. Clearly at least some Academy members watched and strongly support this film. Still, it is pretty weird. Getting nominated is one thing. Winning is quite another.
If the bizarre and hard-to-pin-down Phantom Thread somehow sneaks past more obvious choices like The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, Get Out, Lady Bird, and Dunkirk, then it will be the greatest shock of the night for sure. Since it is set in London, it may get some support from British voters, but there are other British contenders this year, (including the American set Three Billboards).
I think both Day-Lewis and Manville have a far greater chance at a surprise upset (and even that chance is basically no chance), but, you know, I’ve been wrong before.
The Post
Nominated Producer(s): Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Liz Hannah and Josh Singer
Cast:
Plot:
Why It Should Win:
Seeing Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks on screen together is reason enough to watch The Post. That seems to be the way they’re promoting the movie, and why not? It’s true.
Streep brings something to the role of Kay Graham that other actresses just don’t have. (I keep thinking, how do I explain it? It’s an ineffable quality of just being better than everybody else. I playfully imagine a director saying, “Okay, let’s try it again, and this time be Meryl Streep.”)
I’m aware that saying stuff like this makes me sound like a starry-eyed fanatic worshiping at the altar of Streep the Divine. Maybe you think I’m just trying to boost her ego, to win her favor, but I promise I have nothing to gain by praising Meryl Streep. I’m the farthest thing from in the industry. I’m in my living room. In my pajamas. Relatively few people read my reviews. Surely Meryl Streep is not among them. (Murphy’s law alone suggests that if any star does stumble across my reviews, it will be one I’ve inadvertently insulted.)
I always praise Streep’s performances simply because they’re always amazing. To be honest, before I saw The Post I was hoping Michelle Williams (or anyone other than Streep, really) would get the nomination, just for variety. But when I finally saw Streep’s performance, I had to give up that nonsense because she’s phenomenal. There are a lot of great actresses working today, but Streep does something that no one else can. I mean, there’s a moment in the film when her eyes turn black and she looks like she’s being attacked by Dementors. Seemingly effortlessly, she sucks in all the energy in the room and draws complete attention to herself. She somehow makes a socialite reaching a decision during a phone call just as exciting as the T-rex attack in Jurassic Park. (And, certainly, Steven Spielberg helps by setting up these quiet moments of hers to be the T-rex scenes of The Post.)
Tom Hanks definitely knows how to hold the audience’s attention, too. He’s amazingly engaging, energetic, and funny here, serious, too, when he needs to be. It’s really a shame he did not get a Best Actor nomination, though it was an even bigger shame that he was not nominated for Captain Phillips. (If it had to be Tom Hanks for The Post or Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq., though, I have to admit that Washington’s performance has the edge with me.)
Hanks is great, though, and so is Streep. In fact, The Post‘s biggest problem is that its two stars bring so much that when they’re not on the screen, the film is unable to compensate for their absence. The supporting cast is impressive on paper, but most of them feel a bit wasted, though Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, and Bruce Greenwood shine in some terrific moments (Odenkirk without the aid of Streep or Hanks).
Now I’ve heard some complaints that The Post is heavy-handed, and it is. It definitely is. (That scene in which Streep walks past every woman alive on the steps of the courthouse as if going through a receiving line is really a bit much.)
But I have to give Steven Spielberg credit for this. Anyone (of any age) can watch his film, and surely nobody who earnestly engages with it will possibly miss the point. I’m not being sarcastic here. Too often this awards season, I’ve thought, This movie is marvelous, but why can’t there be a version of it that my children can watch? Must every serious film be rated (the very hardest) R?
Clearly Spielberg is passionate about defending a free press (which you would think everyone would want). I think Liz Hannah and Josh Singer’s screenplay also does a fantastic job of showing how women made important contributions to our history. We don’t have to invent strong women. We simply have to examine the past in a way that will reveal what is already there but easily missed. Sarah Paulson’s pointed lecture to Tom Hanks drives home the importance of considering every point of view possible when writing history books. It’s too bad the screenplay didn’t get a nomination as well.
Why It Shouldn’t Win:
The Post is by far the weakest film in this category which says something about the exceptional strength of the year.
This is not to suggest that The Post is not a fine film and a worthy Best Picture contender (a claim I have not been able to make about some of the nominees in past years). This year all the nominees are pretty solid and deserving of the honor. Though I personally would have liked to see some other films make the cut (I, Tonya and The Florida Project are the first two that spring to mind), I can’t say that The Post doesn’t belong here. It’s a solid, well-acted film with an important subject and timely themes, but it does have a lot of weak areas.
Because it did not release until so late in the season, The Post really needed audiences to shout to the rooftops, “Wow! That knocked my socks off!” But unfortunately the only people who reacted that strongly were politically motivated trolls widely proclaiming their hatred for a film they likely did not actually see. Meanwhile, too many people who did like The Post reacted more like me, saying, “Wow! Meryl Streep! And also, it’s warm in here, right? Should I take off my socks? Maybe I should just bump down the AC.”
I think Spielberg should be proud of all the enemies he made with this project. In some ways, encouraging its haters to spew their vitriol so publicly is the greatest legacy of The Post.
I do appreciate the film’s goals. Unfortunately, as I watched, I couldn’t help comparing The Post to stronger awards contenders I had already seen. I didn’t do it on purpose. That’s just a lens you can’t really take off.
Almost every other awards season contender, for example, benefited from more exciting cinematography showcasing tauter scenes which had a greater sense of belonging uniquely to the film. Not only is the pacing of The Post slow, but most things we see in that long, long, interminable build are sort of vaguely gray and fuzzy and just kind of there. This wouldn’t matter so much except that most other contenders are so thrilling visually. Think of the vibrant color, the stunning clarity, the visceral rush of Dunkirk or the haunting, ethereal beauty of The Shape of Water. Even films that don’t tantalize us with mind-bending visuals (visuals like that crazy, disorienting fighter planes/eyeball shot in Darkest Hour) usually show us what we need to look at quickly, then direct our gaze to the next thing we need to see.
It did occur to me that perhaps everything is so hazy and gray and lacking in sharpness to provide more flattering footage of the aging Meryl Streep. But I don’t really think that could possibly be true because I’ve seen Streep in some very unforgiving lighting conditions (not to mention high definition), and she always looks fantastic like some glowing Norse goddess delighted to be effervescing around in the mortal realm.
I’m sure the color scheme is supposed to suggest the past, the newspaper industry, the city. But that’s no excuse for making the composition of the shots so boring. There are a few cool images–and we see most of them in TV previews–showcasing (really almost fetishizing) the Pentagon Papers, the printing press, the ink, the newspaper. But most scenes are exceedingly dull to behold.
Writing so critically about The Post gives me a feeling of uneasy ickiness because besides being a great filmmaker, Steven Spielberg also made most of what were (obviously) the best movies of my childhood. I love his work, and I have the highest regard for him (from the point of view of a critic and a creative writer and a child who loved ET). So don’t get the idea that I’m calling him a hack or anything. (I hate criticizing his work because I’m so unsuccessful myself that the idea of me critiquing him seems ridiculous.)
It’s just well…Some people have said that the beginning of The Post is too slow. (In fact, I’ve said it.) But the problem is not actually the slowness. It does take time to build a story and set up its crisis. Jurassic Park does this masterfully. The problem here is that during the slow build, nothing all that interesting or unique happens. I wouldn’t cut one minute of Jurassic Park because every moment digs a layer closer to the heart of the story. The moments of exposition stand out as belonging to Jurassic Park. That isn’t the case here. Many of the film’s early moments feel wasted. I don’t mean that we don’t need the information they give us. I mean that they present the exposition to us in a dull, forgettable way. The history is interesting. The scenes themselves are not.
Maybe the real issue is that Streep and Hanks make their big scenes so special that the rest of the film feels devoid of specialness by comparison. Maybe to wring the cinematic power out of that phone call, vitality must be sapped from everything else leading up to it.
And, honestly, I was crushed not to like John Williams’s score. I love John Williams, and I can never recall disliking one of his scores before. This one just seems so intense and relentless that it overpowers the action on the screen and becomes intrusive and overbearing. I did like the theme much better as it played over the end credits. Surely this is a question of personal taste. Still, I was relieved to see Williams nominated for Star Wars instead of The Post, a film that’s worthy of recognition but not special enough overall to be named the best picture of the year.
Nominated Producer(s): Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writers: Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Nick Searcy, David Hewlett, Morgan Kelly, Nigel Bennett and others.
Plot:
Elisa lives her life on the clock, from one measured interval to the next, frozen in routine. But one day at the top secret government facility where she works as a janitor, she encounters something new and surrenders to it. A humanoid creature ripped from his aquatic home to be probed as a test subject lashes out violently at his captors but likes Elisa’s gifts of boiled eggs. Though he cannot speak human language, and she is mute, the two begin to understand each other on another level, and over time their attachment deepens. When circumstances change, Elisa refuses to let go of her love, prompting her only friends (a fellow janitor and an unemployed artist) to take extraordinary risks to protect her from the relentless predator determined to destroy the creature and all who stand in his way. As Elisa gets swept into an unconventional romance with what may be a god or a monster, the audience discovers all the beauty and the horror that the United States in the 1960s has to offer.
Why It Should Win:
As I watched Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, I thought, “I hope one day I can write a piece of literature this great!”
As I watched The Shape of Water, I knew, “I will never be able to achieve what Guillermo del Toro is doing here.”
McDonagh’s brilliant screenplay sustains his film, but del Toro is doing something else (not something better, necessarily, just something different). In The Shape of Water, del Toro draws on rich visuals and evocative sounds to create an immersive world. His elaborately detailed sets, character enhancing costumes, and palpably haunting soundscape draw us into and through the story. We hardly even need the words (beautifully significant since his heroine is mute and his hero is not human).
I say that his hero is not human, but that’s a bit misleading since in many ways, the film is a meditation on what it means to be fully human (see Elisa’s impassioned sign language plea to Giles), and the sympathetic supporting characters are quite heroic when the need arises.
In interviews, Octavia Spencer has repeatedly described one strength of this film very clearly (which is nice because del Toro is the type who makes his clearest statements through his work). Since Elisa does not speak, we instead get to hear the voices of her two closest friends, a gay man and an African American woman. In other words, voices often suppressed (especially in the 1960s) give us the most relatable and reliable access to the story in The Shape of Water. (Michael Stuhlbarg’s character is also not your typical 1960s American hero for reasons that become obvious when you see the film.) So del Toro not only shows us a woman falling in love with an unlikely suitor, but he also allows the audience to fall in love with some beautiful souls we might never have noticed on our own.
And he does this with such unobtrusive grace. As we watch, the story feels like an elegant fairy tale, not some heavy-handed rant about social justice. Speaking of rants, the story arc of Michael Shannon’s Richard Strickland is quite fascinating, too. I heard del Toro explain in an interview that the 1960s was that magical time when the elusive American dream of a Utopian future felt almost attainable. Michael Shannon has said that he did not approach Strickland as if he were a villain, but rather, played him as an increasingly desperate man under immense pressure trying to achieve unattainable goals. It’s tragically fascinating to watch Strickland’s American dream in all of its grandiose teal-tinted splendor hideously devolve into a chaotic nightmare of jello-green muck.
The love story between Elisa and the creature is fascinating, too, in its own way. I’ll confess that I’m more captivated by the film’s supporting characters, but I do find the romance here more moving than the one in Call Me By Your Name. These two lovers have distinct identities and seem to bring out the best in each other, and Call Me By Your Name failed to convince me that Oliver truly loves Elio with the same purity and intensity that Elio loves him. Elisa and the creature, on the other hand, have a bond as inexorable and pure as Elliott and E.T.
Sally Hawkins gives an Oscar worthy performance as Elisa, and surely Doug Jones deserves some type of recognition, too. He completely disappears into his role and gets the Andy Serkis treatment for his troubles.
If I were the Academy, I’d give the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Octavia Spencer, but she does already have one, and Allison Janney is pretty great, too.
Alexandre Desplat will most likely win the Oscar for his amazing score, an award no one deserves more this year. The music fits the movie perfectly and enhances it without question.
In short, the whole film is excellent. It’s a beautiful movie, and in many ways, it’s a tribute to movies. Elisa lives above a theater and is living out her own movie inside her mind the entire time. The Academy should love that.
Why It Shouldn’t Win:
I don’t buy the argument floating around that The Shape of Water is “too weird” to win Best Picture. Too weird? Phantom Thread is weird. The Shape of Water is practically Beauty and the Beast (another Oscar nominee this year). Everyone in the Western World has known some variation on this story since we were children. The leading man is sea monster, sure, but honestly the film isn’t weird at all. It’s like Amélie meets The Creature from the Black Lagoon meets E.T. meets Michael Shannon. It’s a movie that feels like a movie, a film that if anything is uncannily familiar, not too weird.
Now I’m a bit more persuaded by the argument that voters may find the lack of a traditional leading man off putting. It’s not like there’s a lack of a male presence in the film. Richard Jenkins narrates, and Michael Shannon relentlessly drives the action, talking incessantly and often dominating the screen. But, of course, one of them plays a gay man of a certain age, and the other plays the villain. So maybe young, straight, non-villainous men will look at this story and say, “There’s no one in this movie I can identify with.” Maybe. But I doubt it. Surely most people in the film industry have imaginations. Besides, where is the sympathetic male presence? In the director’s chair. His name is Guillermo del Toro, and we’re seeing everything through his gaze. It’s his movie, and all his work is so stylized and distinctive that surely no one watching will forget who wrote and directed this artistic monster movie love story.
Del Toro is nominated for Best Director, an award he’s been graciously winning everywhere else. I’m sure he’ll win at the Oscars, too. He deserves it. Guillermo del Toro is the male star of this project, and it’s getting so much attention in the first place because people know and love his work.
The Shape of Water probably will win Best Picture. If it doesn’t, the reason will lie with the film that does win. The story won’t be, “Oh, I just couldn’t vote for that movie because the premise was weird, and the fish dude wasn’t manly enough for me.” It will be, “Oh I just loved Three Billboards so much,” or, “Get Out was so relevant and so entertaining,” or, “This is a year for celebrating women’s stories authentically told, so I voted for Lady Bird.”
As of now, I expect either The Shape of Water or Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri to win the big prize, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens on Oscar night.