This Labor Day weekend, I attended my first Telluride Film Festival, and, by the festival’s end, I felt like Megan, Clarence, and I witnessed a lot of potential contenders for Best Actor. Paul Mescal shed a lot of tears in Hamnet (more on that later…). Jeremy Allen White welcomed us into a private, emotional world in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. George Clooney showed us that, yes, he still is a huge movie star. The list continues: Jesse Plemons in Bugonia, Colin Farrell in Ballad of a Small Player, Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon, Mescal (again) with The History of Sound. Men men men, and a lot of men with a lot of feelings!
On my drive home from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, though, I was thinking of the actresses-when am I not, right? I started my festival run with Rose Byrne and ended with Tessa Thompson, and it felt like I saw films that were equally female-driven. When I looked at the last few years of Best Actress, I noticed that most of our final five came from the fall festivals–something that I probably knew subsconsciously, but never gave it too much thought. Now that Venice, Telluride, and TIFF have concluded, is our eventual winner among the films that have already debuted?
Obviously, trying to figure out who might be nominated this early is not entirely determined by what film plays at what festival, but it’s worth noting which films have already had eyeballs on it before we head into the New York Film Festival (which will play from September 26 to October 13). Can a film like, say, After the Hunt overcome its negative reviews to secure Julia Roberts her fifth nomination? We still have a long way to go, and we don’t know what films and performances can hold on or which ones will fall off.
Renate & Jessie Way Out Front?
Two of the most lauded performances so far this festival season have been Renate Reisnve for Sentimental Value and Jessie Buckley for Hamnet. Joachim Trier’s film debuted at Cannes while The Contending’s staff was in the room for the soppy, emotionally responsive crowd in Telluride. There is always talk about whether the reactions to a film are only positive or big because that audience is the first to see it, and it helps when an Academy Award-winning director introduces it beforehand.
At TIFF, Sentimental was one of the most sought after screenings for the press on the first day with subsequent press and industry viewings and public screenings following. Hamnet played later in the festival and it feels like the film it sustaining its momentum with crowds heaping more praise onto Chloé Zhao’s drama. Buckley has been nominated in Supporting Actress before, but, as of right now, it feels like she could take the entire thing. It’s one of those laid-bare, raw performances that actors will love to vote for. Reisnve has become a real Film Twitter fave, and her performance in Trier’s family drama is drawing some of the best reviews of her career. Many assumed that The Worst Person in the World could’ve scored her her first nomination, but she just missed out. Many people in the industry might respond well to a character who feels like she has the choice to say no to an acting gig while others might consider voting for her since she missed out the last time.
It feels like both films are currently locked in for Best Picture nominations as well, so that will certainly help their chances. Who else is in the hunt?
Waiting in the Wings
Let’s talk about Julia since we already brought her up. Her work in Luca Guagnino’s campus drama has garnered her great reviews, but the film itself didn’t land. The Contending’s Frank J. Avella loved her but was softer on the film out of Venice. It opens NYFF this year, so maybe we can re-evaluate when it hits this shore. Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly had a muted response out of Venice but gained rapturous praise at Telluride. Could that happen here to launch Roberts back in?
Speaking Venice, Amanda Seyfried is getting some of the best reviews of her career for her turn in The Testament of Ann Lee. At TIFF, there was only one press screening on the first weekend, so it became the hot ticket that everyone kept talking about. Interestingly, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist became the film to see at TIFF after it got raves at Venice, and director Mona Fastvold earned an Oscar nomination last year for her collaboration with Corbet. We will surely be talking about Seyfried all season with this role offering her a wide range of things for people to latch onto. Some might scoff at how the film is a musical (I counted 8 walkouts at TIFF), but you cannot deny the power that Seyfriend holds.
I will be very curious to see how Emma Stone’s performance in Bugonia navigates this season. On one hand, it’s Emma Stone. People will tune in to see what she does, especially because it is her fifth collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos. The film is topical as it deals with online consumption of the news and how people determine what they believe in, but that could also turn people off. I wonder if the film will be more divisive than people imagine? Never count out Emma Stone, though. She takes risks in her film choices, and some people will want to reward her for that.
One of the biggest question marks comes to mind with Sydney Sweeney for David Michôd’s boxing biopic, Christy. The trailer dropped this week, and Sweeney looks like she does a good job of inhabiting her character. Both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety suggested that Christy could offer something other than biopic fatigue, but will online controversies keep audiences from checking it out? At TIFF, where the film had its world premiere this last week, Sweeney was keener on talking about her work on the film. She is a two-time Emmy nominee, and this could big a big moment for her.
One of my biggest surprises at TIFF was Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life, which had its North American premiere in Toronto after Cannes. Foster plays a therapist who suspects that one of her patients has been murdered after their death is rule a suicide. The entire time that I was watching the film, I felt a comfort in seeing Foster on screen again, and I realized that I hadn’t see her in something on the big screen since…Elysium? I didn’t catch The Mauritanian in theaters, and most of us watched Nyad at home on Netflix. It’s not like she has felt far away, especially since she won an Emmy last year for True Detective: North Country. Just this week, France announced that they have whittled down their selections for Best International Feature to five films with A Private Life among them. If they select Zlotowski’s film for contention, imagine a big push from Sony Pictures Classics. It would be so welcome.
The other contender that Sony has for Best Actress is June Squibb for Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great. I admit that I changed my schedule at the last minute to check out another film, so I missed this one at TIFF. In the first line of his review, Owen Gleiberman declared that Squibb has become the female Alan Arkin, and, hey, that’s a great comparison, if you ask me. Eleanor focuses on an elderly woman who begins a friendship with a college student who is writing a paper about her. Squibb is one of those performers who you cheer for in everything, and that lack of a Thelma campaign last year is enough for me to make sure that I check out the film the first chance I get.
Nothing would make me happier than to see Jennifer Lawrence back into the Oscar fold, and maybe it could happen with Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love. I was hoping that the film might be a surprise at Telluride, but it has been quiet since its debut. It’s easily one of my most anticipated films for the rest of the year.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You debuted at Sundance back in January, and people are still talking about it. When I ran into Awards Watch’s Erik Anderson after he saw it at Telluride, he was wired by Rose Byrne’s performance. Byrne can land in Best Actress for a number of reasons. She’s worked with so many people over the last 20 years and she has a lot of goodwill her way. She rarely gets to shine in a lead role like this, and she’s also just batshit crazy good in the film. I was a huge fan of it at TIFF. It feels like that scrappy kind of movie that people are excited to talk about and really listen to word-of-mouth. After Sundance, Berlin, Telluride, and TIFF, it will play NYFF.
The performance that I need to see go the distance belongs to Tessa Thompson in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda. It’s the performance of her career so far, and she commands the screen in a way that we haven’t had the pleasure of seeing. An adaptation of the classic Henrik Ibsen play, DaCosta’s film moves the film forward in time and invites us to a rollicking, unpredictable party. Thompson relishes this material and chews on every word before spitting it back into the faces of any character she speaks with. It’s an exciting, sexy film, and I really hope Amazon gives it a big campaign.
No Good Deed Goes Noticed
Cynthia Erivo landed a nomination in a film that didn’t have to play the festival circuit, and that could very well happen again with John M. Chu’s Wicked: For Good. A lot of audiences of the stage musical aren’t as high on act two as they are on act one (myself included), but the back half of the show does give Elphaba some weighty things to play with.
Is it possible that four women from this list will be joined by the Wicked Witch herself again? Of the last four years, only two peformances (Erivo and Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos) got in without attending festivals in the fall. Hey, some films don’t need to do that, so keep an eye out in the sky.
Is Best Actress more subdued than last year? Demi Moore’s turn in Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance really gave us something to root for on multiple levels even if she didn’t win in the end. Is there a performance here (or one we didn’t mention) that sounds like it can go the distance all season? Are there other contenders we need to watch out for?
Thanks for this excellent and informative.
A Private Life and Hedda weren't on my radar at all. That said, I'm rooting for Ms Byrne to finally be hopefully rewarded.