2024 Venice Film Festival Preview (La Biennale di Venezia 81): It’s Eclectic!

The 81^st Venice International Film Festival (La Biennale di Venezia) is upon us and Mamma Mia, is it eclectic! My people will forgive me for that bit of stereotypical blasphemy! It’s fun to speculate on just how many future Oscar nominees/winners might be having their world premiere on the Lido.

Last year, Venice boasted eventual Best Picture nominees Poor Things (Golden Lion winner) and Maestro along with Io capitano and Society of the Snow, both nominated for International Feature. 2022 saw Best Picture nominees Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin, along with Oscar-nominated Blonde, The Whale (the horror, the horror), and the nominated doc All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Golden Lion winner) as well as International Feature nominee Argentina 1985.

This year’s Fest opens with Tim Burton’s long-gestating sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (I never understood the success of the original even after a recent rewatch) and closes with Pupi Avati’s L’Orto Americano (The American Garden).

Here are 5 films that I cannot wait to see.

Joker: Folie à Deux

It’s hard not to argue that the most-buzzy title, now for more reasons than before, is Todd Phillips’ highly anticipated sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. All the controversy about glorifying violence and the hero-worship of a murderer did not stop Joker from receiving 11 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) and 2 wins, including Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix.

Joker: Folie à Deux takes place two years after Joker ends with Arthur now on death row, imprisoned in a psych ward. There he meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who is obsessed with Arthur’s alter ego, Joker. Director Phillips has been apprehensive about labeling the project a musical since it’s allegedly highly non-traditional. The trailer shows songs such as the Judy Garland classic “Get Happy” and “For Once in My Life,” being sung by Gaga and Phoenix.

Whether it turns out to be another Oscar-worthy pic where Gaga would certainly be in contention for Best Actress or a musical on meth, we will discover soon (or it might just be both).

And, of course, I am itching to see if Phoenix shows up for press, considering his recent withdrawal from the Todd Haynes project with no explanation from him. Yet.

The Room Next Door

Pedro Almodóvar’s last film was the Pedro Pascal/Ethan Hawke gay western Strange Way of Life, which I thought was a shoo-in for a Live Action nomination. I was wrong. With his new feature The Room Next Door, he’s making his English-language film debut after 24 Spanish-language features. Based on the Sigrid Nunez novel What Are You Going Through, Room centers on an auto fiction novelist (Julianne Moore) and a war reporter (Tilda Swinton) who used to be close friends in their youth and reconnect many years later.

The film also stars John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola, long overdue for awards attention.

Almodóvar’s previous Venice selection was 2021’s Parallel Mothers, which brought Penelope Cruz a much-deserved (yet surprising to some) Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Queer

Until this past year with his intoxicating film Challengers, I was not much of a fan of Luca Guadagnino’s work. Call Me By Your Name is overrated (James Ivory’s original screenplay was horribly maligned and Armie Hammer’s performance terribly wooden). The Suspiria remake was just long and annoying and the less written about the calamitous HBO show We Are Who We Are the better. I did like his first feature I Am Love.

I will venture into Queer, his new work based on the seminal William S. Burroughs novel, with cautious optimism. The cast alone is thrilling: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, and Colin Bates.

I’m already a bit flummoxed to read that the original cut submitted to Venice (and accepted) was 185 minutes long and the current screening cut is down to 151 minutes. But then I’m a fan of lengthy cinema.

Guadagnino has described Queer as his tribute to Powell and Pressburger and, in particular, The Red Shoes. “I think they would appreciate the sex scenes in Queer, which are numerous and quite scandalous.” Sign me up (and send my regrets to Joaquin Phoenix).

Babygirl

Most people who have seen Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban together in interviews will know he loves to refer to her as “babygirl,” so it’s curious that her new film is an erotic thriller titled Babygirl. Written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), the plot of Babygirl has Kidman as a high-powered CEO who has a torrid affair with a hot young intern, played by Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness). The supporting cast includes Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde, and Jean Reno.

Already picked up by Oscar-magnet A24, you had me at Nicole Kidman.

The Brutalist

As I alluded to earlier, I love a good epic running time, and at 215 minutes, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist will certainly be a sitting challenge for some. I, myself, cannot wait.

The film follows three decades in the life of László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor. Post WW2, he emigrates to the US with his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and has a difficult time until he meets a mysterious client, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who changes Tóth’s life. The supporting cast includes Joe Alwyn (The Favourite), the ubiquitous Alessandro Nivola and Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac).

Corbet’s two previous films were The Childhood of a Leader (2015) and Vox Lux (2018), both highly ambitious works, but I’m guessing this one will prove even more aspiring as he used VistaVision cameras for a 70mm experience.

Also, of interest and competing for the coveted Golden Lion is Justin Kurzel’s The Order, starring Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult; Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest with Caleb Landry Jones; and Gianni Amelio’s WW1 drama, Campo di battaglia (Battleground).

Italian films in the Horizons sections that show great promise include Paola Randi’s comedy The Story of Frank and Nina, Francesco Costabile’s story of familial abuse Familia, and Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman’s Vittoria.

And leave it to the Biennale to bring together (but not really) both Angelina Jolie, embodying Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s Maria (in competition), and Brad Pitt, starring with George Clooney in Jon Watts’ Wolfs (out of competition). Will there be a red-carpet collision? Stay tuned.

Venice happens to be my second favorite city in the world. I try to return as often as possible to explore even more of its beauty. And I’ve spent a lot of time on Lido (an island southwest of Piazza San Marco ) where the Festival takes place. Some of that has to do with my obsession with the haunted and deserted island of Poveglia (google it and, Ryan Murphy, get in touch with me as it would make a great American Horror Story season!) but also to make pilgrimages to The Palazzo del Cinema, home of the Venice International Film Festival but previously always off-Fest season. This year I’ll be there, among the stars and cicadas, screening my geeky cinephile brain off.

I cannot wait!