By: Abby Paras '24 and Lena Smith '24
Photo Courtesy of Aframe.oscars.org
Awards season has died down. Are the films that had all the glory this past Oscar's season really worth all their hype? To be included in the prestigious Best Picture category is impressive, but not necessarily indicative of their quality. Now that the dust and glitter of the red carpet has settled, staff writers Abby Paras '24 and Lena Smith '24 are taking another look at the films who were deemed 'the best of the best' this year.
American Fiction:
Nominated for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay (Winner), Best Original Score
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
Cord Jefferson's debut film, despite winning the coveted Adapted Screenplay Oscar, had the unfortunate curse of having to stand alongside other films of gigantic stature this year. American Fiction had less than 10 million dollars to work with, providing a stark contrast with the breathtaking, expensive achievements of films like Oppenheimer and Poor Things. The smaller budge makes the film all the more impressive, and it is this 'smallness' of the movie that makes it a superb, deserving winner of the prize.
What I mean by 'small' refers not to the monetary restraints (which are, of course, related), but the scale of the story world itself. The issues that Jefferson targets throughout the script - racism, moral posturing, familial responsibility, and more - are far from small themselves, but the plot allows itself to be restrained. Much of the action takes place in small rooms, allowing conversation to bring the movie to life. Only an excellent script with biting dialogue can make a 'small' movie work, and Cord Jefferson delivers. It also helps to have a top-notch ensemble of actors who handle their script with precision; Jeffrey Wright, Leslie Uggams, and Sterling K. Brown add their own charm to characters whose lines are compelling on their own merit. American Fiction is a unique, staggering film that should be celebrated alongside the flashy competitors from this season.
The Zone of Interest:
Nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best International Feature Film (Winner), Best Sound (Winner)
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
This is a film you probably see one time, but it is worth seeing that once. The material of the film - where the family of an Auschwitz commandant attempt to live an idyllic life wall-to-wall with the concentration camp- - is immediately striking, but Johnathan Glazer constructs the story in a way that stands out fro the wide breadth of historical fiction that address the Holocaust. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), a real Nazi officer, is interrogated with an uncompromising precision that will be remembered long after the red carpets are rolled up, and we wait for the next big film to tackle the sins of history. The thematic angle is largely responsible for its success; the evil of Höss and others are quiet. In their clean home on the other side of the wall, the crushing weight of history is compartmentalized into the everyday. Much of the film shows Höss and his family participating in average activities, like throwing a pool party and tending to the garden. The audience is forced to reframe their perspective on the enormous atrocities committed by Nazi Germany; most documents of the Holocaust center on the events happening in the camps, but the film draws from its periphery.
The Holdovers:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress (Winner), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
A Christmas movie that is palatable for all seasons, The Holdovers is a familiar tale written, acted, and filmed with a caliber that lifts it up above the others. The story follows many previous 'feel-good' movies; a stubborn and mature character, normally avoidant of interpersonal relationships and human warmth, has their life forever changed by a younger, more idyllic person. Paul Giamatti plays the former - an overqualifed, taciturn instructor at a New England prep school - paired with Dominic Sessa as a troubled student forced to spend Christmas with him at school. Besides the excellent chemistry between the two actors, the script is outstanding; it balances the academic, witty perspective of the elder with the blunt colloquialisms of its young star. But the crowning jewel of the film is the brilliant character and performance of Da'Vine Joy Randolph. She is the cook for the school, reeling from the death of her son in the Vietnam War. The heavy grief weights the film in its quiet moments, balancing the bright humor with grounded drama. While Oppenheimer had the flashiest cast of actors among the Best Picture nominees, I'd argue that this is the film with the strongest main cast.
Besides the fantastic characters, the film also stands out for its embrace of 'classic cinema.' The story takes place in the seventies, and the film itself looks like it came out of that era as well. From the lengthy opening credits to the grainy cinematography emulating the by-gone film stock, The Holdovers is an unique homage to film history. It gives the film a cozy atmosphere, adding another layer to the growing warmth between the characters.
Past Lives:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
Past Lives is a masterclass in confronting the different avenues a life can take just by choosing who to love. Two childhood friends are torn apart when Nora (Greta Lee) and her family emigrate to the U.S., leaving Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) behind in Seoul, South Korea. While the young friends no longer share the same ground, their love for each other persists - making it all the more painful when they decide to meet in person 24 years later. Each friend has their own separate life and lover now, but Celine Song raises a magnifying glass on the yearning that persists below the surface.
Though the two friends finally overcome their international distance, they are still worlds apart. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo capture the immense pain and wonder that often goes unsaid; were they meant for each other? What would life have been if they had followed each other all those years ago? While Celine Song's script addresses this directly, she also allows the actors to feel out that pain in subtle glances, in casual conversations that hide something deeper. Where many romance films emphasizes the pursuit of love, of growing closer and forming new relationships, Song expertly investigates the space in-between them; where love is shared, but forced to yield to other relationships.
Anatomy of a Fall:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay (Winner)
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
After the tragic death of a father and husband, this film sprawls out into a biting crime drama that generates more mysteries as more details emerge in the case. The film centers around one major question: did Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller) murder her husband? Much like the jury, the audience is condemned to a fundamental uncertainty, but the film teases you with glimpses into what the public cannot see. Part of the beauty of the film lies in our lack of knowledge, even though writers Justin Triet and Arthur Harari allow us to peek into Sandra's home, past, and private moments.
In contrast to many films predicated on the solving of crimes, Anatomy of a Fall is more concerned with the failings of finding a single 'truth,' especially in intimate relationships. There are times where Sandra seems like a villain, in some not. Even her son (Milo Machado-Graner) has to reckon with the possibility that as more evidence creeps to the surface in the case, we find that neither is true. She can be both. Sandra shows resentment and anger towards her husband, and the court weaponizes it; but at the same time, we see her behavior as an understandable reaction to her pain. At its heart, Triet's film is a compelling family drama, and the setting is simply the courtroom.
Oppenheimer:
Nominated for Best Picture (Winner), Best Actor (Winner), Best Supporting Actor (Winner), Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Winner), Best Original Score (Winner), Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography (Winner), Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing (Winner)
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
I am incredibly biased, given that I saw Oppenheimer five times in the theater and bought it as soon as it was available, but I believe it deserves all of its nominations. Yes, it's an incredibly long movie, but think that Christopher Nolan's directing style made him the perfect person to bring this story to life. Nolan's penchant for playing with time means that the full three-hour story is chopped up into three different sections: Oppenheimer overseeing the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing, and Lewis Strauss's senate confirmation hearing. It is a dense movie, one that I believe requires multiple viewings, as there is so much to get out of it each time. In an attempt to be fair, I will say that sometimes the film can come off as unbalanced as it tries to juggle three different stories and some of them feel less necessary that others, especially Strauss's hearing. That one has the least to do with the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, but it ties the other two stories together beautifully, and so I personally have to disagree with that complaint, but I do think it's valid. Despite its three-hour runtime, the movie is quite fast-paced.
The real strength of this movie comes from its ensemble cast, led by Cillian Murphy, who in many ways, carries the entire movie. Having watched every single one of his movies, I can confidently say that Oppenheimer is a career-best performance so far. He captures the real J. Robert Oppenheimer's body language and manner of speaking so well and so natural that he becomes lost in the role. Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey Jr. shine in their roles as well, creating an all-around solid cast that's packed with big Hollywood names.
Barbie:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song (Winner), Best Production Design, Best Costume Design
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
Everyone saw this one, so there's not a lot I can say that hasn't already been said. Love it or hate it, Barbie was a cultural phenomenon and it would be insane if it wasn't nominated. Snub controversy aside, I really enjoyed this movie. It was a lot of fun and had a good message, even though to the average woman it was very elementary, but it was overall a nice celebration of femininity and the color pink. The thing about Barbie is that it's definitely not typical Oscars material. Comedies, especially ones geared toward women, are generally underrepresented in the Academy Awards, and comedic acting performances are rarely rewarded. Case in point: when Marisa Tomei won Best Supporting Actress for My Cousin Vinny, rumors immediately spread that it was rigged.
The movie was so big that the Academy would have been overturned had they not given them the nominations, but it was always unlikely to take home the bigger prizes. The good thing about Barbie is that it never needed to be an awards darling. We can be happy that the movie is what it is: a fun, touching story with great performances and amazing music.
Maestro:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
Maestro had so much potential, and that's why it disappointed me so much. I have nothing against music biopics, I've seen many (some excellent, some very mediocre), and I consider myself generally familiar with the genre. I'm not sure what this movie was trying to accomplish. It's marketed as a love story between composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre, but there wasn't a lot to focus on that. There was never any point in the film where I felt that there was love between Bernstein and Felicia. But it also doesn't discuss the career of Bernsetin in any meaningful way. The music, for the most part, is just thrown in at different points, save for a few scenes that could have gone into a much better movie. What we end up getting is a nearly two-and-a-half-hour vague meander through the life of Leonard Bernstein, and then I came away from the movie still knowing very little about him besides his work in West Side Story (which I promptly watched right after finishing this).
See Maestro is a musical biopic about a man who wrote musicals and scores for movies, which means there was so much potential for a more meta-style of storytelling. I absolutely loved the first scene where Bernstein runs into the theater and the scene where Bernstein and Felicia are caught in a dance set to "On the Town" where they are symbolically dragged apart by his success. They quickly abandon this approach in favor of sprinkling in Bernstein's compositions in the background or having him conduct them without attempting to show their significance. It was disappointing and I didn't see any particular standouts in terms of performances. Bradley Cooper, who seems to be reaching 2015-Leonardo DiCaprio levels of Oscar desperation, sounds stuffed up for most of the movie, in part likely due to the nose prosthetic he chose to war, which is another discussion entirely. Ultimately, this one is skippable and not very memorable. Go watch West Side Story instead.
Killers of the Flower Moon:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Score, Best Original Song, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
I'm a big Martin Scorcese fan and a big Leonardo Dicaprio fan, and this movie was a slog to geth through. I'm not sure why it was three and a half hours, but it definitely didn't need to be that long. I'm starting to think that nobody will tell Martin Scorcese to cut stuff from his movies. While a lot of Scorcese's bigger ensemble movies move at a faster pace, this one meandered along. I think that I would have liked it more if the story had been told more efficiently, but at a certain point, it gets to be so much that you start thinking it's not very good.
Lily Gladstone is easily the best part of the movie and while I think Emma Stone's win was deserved, I was rooting for Lily. Her subtlety and way of conveying her emotions is brilliant and I wish she'd gotten more to work with. Robert DeNiro is also great, as usual, but so much of their performances get lost in the sheer runtime of the movie. It's not a question of attention spans, but more of the density of the movie and how unnecessary so much of it feels. I really wanted to like this movie, but it took me several sittings to get through and that point, it didn't feel like it was worth watching, which is a shame because it's a great story, just poorly told. Sadly this one came away with 0 out of 10 possible wins, but I hope that Lily Gladstone continues to act in big movies, because I'd love to see more of her.
Poor Things:
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress (Winner), Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design (Winner), Best Make-up and Hairstyling (Winner), Best Costume Design (Winner), Best Editing
Photo Courtesy of IMDB
Poor Things was a great movie, just not one that I particularly enjoyed. I think a lot of people were misguided in talking about this movie. It's not meant to be an endorsement of predatory relationships, and I can't get behind the idea of it as a feminist film. It's really just a lot of sex, some of which felt gratuitous. There were parts that were funny, but for me, a lot of the humor just didn't land. The performances were fantastic, and Emma Stone's Oscar is well-deserved. The movie largely rests on her and she does a brilliant job of bring Bella Baxter to life. This is another career-best performance she gives and I can't review this movie without mentioning it. The supporting cast was great, and I'm kind of shocked that Willem DeFoe didn't get a nod for Best Supporting Actor, but I'm glad Mark Ruffalo did.
I think for the most part, the film deserved the praise it got. The costumes, set design, hair, and makeup were all amazing, and of course, I've already mentioned Emma Stone. My biggest issue was that I was never quite sure what the movie was trying to say. Reading it as a sort of sex comedy makes sense, but I don't really think I was the target audience. This movie feels like a film that if you get it, you get it, and if you don't, you don't. I didn't get it, but I won't begrudge anyone who did. I will say, I think the film was a bit too long. There was no reason it needed to be over two hours. At least half an hour could have been cut from the middle or the end. Overall, not my cup of tea, but a great film nonetheless.
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