They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Toronto International Film Festival's Slow Start
By J. Don Birnam
September 15, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The early word out of Toronto is that, unlike some of the excitement generated at Telluride for the world premiere of films like Steve Jobs, Spotlight, and Beasts of No Nation, the response to the Toronto premieres has been warm but far from overwhelming.
Some Acting Contenders, but No Obvious Best Picture Candidates
The festival started with all-around accolades for the opening night gala, the world premiere of Jean Marc Vallee’s Demolition. Vallee, a French Canadian, has made stops here before with the successful Dallas Buyers Club and Wild. For whatever reason, however, Fox Searchlight has decided that it will hold Demolition for release until early 2016, effectively ending its Oscar run. A pity, it seems, because Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance was widely lauded as another strong one in a string that began last year in Toronto with Nightcrawler and includes this summer’s Southpaw. At the very least, it seems as if Gyllenhaal’s transition to serious actor, a la Bradley Cooper or Leonardo DiCaprio in years past, is complete, and he may get some buzz for a Best Actor nod next year. But that marks the end of the road for the movie that tells the story of a man that deals with loss by destroying and rebuilding things.
Also premiering at TIFF was Sandra Bullock’s new vehicle, Our Brand is Crisis. Based on a true story, Bullock plays a political strategist hired by a flailing candidate in the Bolivian presidential election in 2002 to revive his campaign. The film has been scheduled for an awards run but the early word out of Toronto is that, while Bullock may have an outside shot at a Best Actress nod (more on that below), the film is not a serious Best Picture contender.
The same rang true for Eddie Redmayne’s try at becoming only the third man to win consecutive Best Actor awards with the much anticipated The Danish Girl. Although his emotional and heartfelt performance has mostly wowed critics and did very well in Venice, it perhaps should not be surprising that The Danish Girl has been dismissed as monotonous Oscar bait in Toronto - Tom Hooper (of The King’s Speech fame) has not particularly distinguished himself since winning it all back in 2010. Still, the transgender role being in sync with the trends of the times may be sufficient to land Eddie another nomination.
He will face, however, formidable competition from Johnny Depp’s Black Mass, whose performance as the notorious Whitey Bulger has him square in the middle of that race. The movie has been compared to other respectable gangster movies, think American Gangster, with a real shot at acting nominations but not a serious play at Best Picture. So it goes, it seems, with the early movies out of Toronto.
Perhaps the biggest story out of TIFF will be the other journalism-related movie, the Dan Rather drama Truth, starring a steady Robert Redford and a determined Cate Blanchett. But while this movie has garnered the most accolades from those premiering at TIFF, is the Academy really going to award a talkie movie about the perhaps indiscretions of the second Bush administration?
And how can one forget to mention the crowd-pleasing The Martian, which has been heralded as the anti-Interstellar, an accessible, satisfying adventure story with a geeky element and a warming message (not to mention a spectacular cast) that will undoubtedly do well but seems unlikely to make much of a dent in the awards circuit.
Of course, many a film has emerged with tepid reviews from a film festival only to do very well with the Academy. Birdman was heralded but dismissed as too difficult out of Telluride last year, and a few years back Hugo was almost a complete disaster out of the New York Film Festival. So there is space for growth. The difference is, of course, that TIFF has the broadest audience of all, and a weak showing with it is never a good sign.
The Crowded Best Actress Field
The one thing that seems a lock is that the Best Actress conversation is going to be interesting all the way down to the wire. From the first half of the year, Charlize Theron and Lily Tomlin (Mad Max and Grandma, respectively), have garnered praise. But they will need a great campaign to survive the onslaught that is approaching. Not only is Cate Blanchett the obvious threat for Carol, and Saoirse Ronan a formidable force for her moving Brooklyn performance, there appears to be a long list of women vying for those additional spots.
We have already discussed Brie Larson’s blockbuster performance in Room - arguably, Larson is currently the front-runner in this race. Speaking of movies with strong performances out of TIFF, Emily Blunt just delivered what has been called the best show of her career with the upcoming Sicario, where she plays an FBI agent investigating drug cartels near the Mexican border. Next, the great British actress Charlotte Rampling has also received uniformly positive reviews for the drama 45 Years, and it is not out of the question that Maggie Smith will return to Oscar contention with her portrayal of a homeless woman in Lady in the Van.
On top of these, it is not an unsafe bet to say that Academy-darling Jennifer Lawrence has a seat reserved at the table for her portrayal of the eponymous Joy in her latest David O. Russell collaboration, and Carey Mulligan seems a mortal lock for a nod for her vivacious performance as a Suffragette, in a movie of that same name.
Watch this space for further developments in this race.
What Explains the Cooling North of the Border?
So why has Toronto not delivered a game changer for arguably two years in a row (recall that last year’s winner of People’s Choice at TIFF, The Imitation Game, received a lot of nominations but essentially faded from contention early on)? The answer lies, as usual, in the reliable comparison of the Oscar race to politics.
First, consider that, like in politics, in the movie business everyone wants to be first and catch the public’s attention in this age of shortening attention spans and fickle allegiances. Just like some states have made noise at the stranglehold that states like Iowa and New Hampshire have over the political process, so too have festival organizers scoffed at the idea that TIFF should have some sort of prescient position in the election of a Best Picture winner. Unsurprisingly, then, Venice and Telluride, among others, have successfully positioned themselves ahead of the pack, much to the chagrin of the TIFF organizers.
Second, there is only so many times that you can catch lightning in a bottle - in movies or in politics. Once upon a time, TIFF was able to boast of a remarkable achievement - it selected for screening two movies that had no distributors and that almost did not see the darkness of a movie theater. Slumdog Millionaire (which almost went straight to video) and The Hurt Locker screened the same year, found distributors, and the rest is history. Both went on to win Best Picture Oscars, and TIFF’s position as a preeminent festival player was cemented.
But like politicians who return to the same lines over and over again long after the electorate tires of them, TIFF has fallen a victim to this success. Now, big-name movies like The Martian and Black Mass (or, say, The Judge last year) flock to Toronto to receive the populist audience boost that the festival provides. The critics who still mostly control the race, however, are not impressed and can mostly see right through it.
Which brings me to the third point: no one likes a preordained winner. The examples in politics abound - remember when Christine Quinn was a mortal lock for New York City mayor, or Hillary Clinton for President in 2008 (or, gulp, even this year)? People do not like to be told what to select as their preference - this is a fact of human psychology that is pure and simple and has been seen time and again in politics and the Oscars. Just last year, Boyhood was arguably derailed by the sense of inevitability that its supporters created around it.
The truth is, nobody likes the obvious Oscar-bait movie. We’ve discussed it dozens of times by now. For years, the Oscars rewarded big box movie epics. The studios made more of those as awards bait, and the Academy got sick of them, turning to small, mostly independent movies.
It is therefore quite possible that we are seeing a cyclical exhaustion with the festival-driven, indie Oscar bait movie that has dominated the scene since mostly 2004 or so. Unlike in the past 10 years, when the eventual winner had been seen in one of the festival, it is quite possible that this year’s winner may come later in the year. To be sure, the film festival season is far from over - Toronto and New York still have a lot of surprises to offer - and movies like Steve Jobs may well go all the way.
But it is also possible that movies that we will not see until much later - David O. Russell’s Joy, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Inarritu’s The Revenant or even - gasp, gulp, LOL, or whatever - Star Wars, are the movies that we will be talking about down the line.
You have to give the people what they want - but you can’t seem like you are doing exactly that.
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