NEW YORK, NY.- Fall foliage may still be weeks away, but the tea leaves of Oscar season are ready to be read.
Now that festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto have concluded and all but a handful of this years contenders have had their first public peek-out, the story is beginning to come into focus. And unlike the races of the past two years, dominated by the season-long sweepers Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All at Once, this race seems wide open.
Still, two movies already look like significant contenders across the board. One is Conclave, a handsomely mounted thriller about sneaky cardinals plotting to pick a new pope. It premiered at Telluride and stars Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci. Some of my fellow journalists sniffed that Conclave was just a potboiler with prestige trappings, but I think thats exactly what will appeal to Oscar voters, who love to reward a rip-roaring yarn as long as its well-made with a soupon of social-issue relevance. Directed by Edward Berger, whose All Quiet on the Western Front won four Academy Awards, Conclave could be a big hit with audiences, too.
If Brady Corbets The Brutalist felt like the biggest movie at Venice, thats in part because of its mammoth 215-minute run time, which comes complete with a 15-minute intermission. Theres no denying the outsize ambition of this film, which was shot in the old-fashioned VistaVision format and chronicles the epic tribulations of a Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) as he emigrates to America after World War II. Expect plenty of awards recognition for Corbet and supporting performers Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, as well as a surefire Oscar nomination for Brody, who somehow still holds the record for the youngest best actor winner after taking that Oscar at 29 for The Pianist.
Two buzzy performances by big stars also debuted in Venice. Daniel Craig looks likely to earn his first Oscar nomination for Luca Guadagninos Queer, in which he plays an American expat besotted with a young man in midcentury Mexico City. And Nicole Kidman won the best actress award at Venice for the erotic Babygirl, which also finds her falling for a younger man. (Perhaps age-gap romances are the new Oscar bait.)
The Venice trophy will help Kidman build a case for her sixth Oscar nomination (she won for The Hours), though shell face a surplus of strong lead-actress contenders who also emerged from the fall fests: Angelina Jolie as opera diva Maria Callas in Maria; Brazilian star Fernanda Torres in Im Still Here; Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a mouthy malcontent in Mike Leighs Hard Truths; and the double act of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in Pedro Almodvars empathetic The Room Next Door, which won the top prize in Venice, the Golden Lion.
Director Jason Reitman has crafted a crowd-pleaser in Saturday Night, a comedy about the chaotic backstage negotiations that preceded the debut episode of Saturday Night Live, though its wide Oct. 11 release will have to go well if the movie hopes to sustain the momentum it earned from Telluride and Toronto. Joker: Folie Deux has the opposite problem. Though this sequel to the billion-dollar hit is certain to make money when its released next month, it was coolly received by Venice critics and will face a much more uncertain awards future than its predecessor.
Ill be curious to see what happens with Nightbitch, which stars six-time nominee Amy Adams as a beleaguered mother who believes she may be transforming into a beast. Toronto audiences were mixed on the film, directed by Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?). Ive heard from critics who were high on the Colson Whitehead adaptation Nickel Boys, a Telluride premiere I have yet to see, and everyone I spoke to agreed that the highlight of The Piano Lesson, an adaptation of the play by August Wilson, was actress Danielle Deadwyler, who could become a formidable supporting actress contender.
At the Toronto International Film Festival, the Peoples Choice Award is considered a significant Oscar bellwether: All but one of the last 15 films to win that trophy went on to earn a best picture nomination, including American Fiction last season. This year, the audience-voted award went to The Life of Chuck, a Stephen King adaptation by director Mike Flanagan that teases a heartwarming tale out of what seems to be the end of the world. Imagine This Is Us with a dash of supernatural mystery and a fun Tom Hiddleston dance sequence, and youre already halfway there.
Though The Life of Chuck played like gangbusters at Toronto, it still hadnt sold to a studio by the festivals end and its awards future remains unclear. The thriller September 5, which had a decent debut in Venice before really popping in Telluride, also remained up for grabs until Paramount decided to make a best picture push for the movie, which stars Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro as members of an ABC Sports crew covering the terrorist attack on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Still, the two films that emerged from the fall festivals looking the strongest were a pair of Cannes contenders that premiered all the way back in May. Sean Bakers Palme dOr-winning sex-worker comedy, Anora, and the Spanish-language musical melodrama Emilia Prez continued to win fans at Telluride and then, in Toronto, placed just underneath The Life of Chuck for the Peoples Choice Award. These unconventional films are breaking through in a big way, and in a year when no contender has a clear claim to being the best picture front-runner, Emilia Prez and Anora may at least come the closest.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
