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And then the reviews came out, and the film's chances went from “slim to none” to “none.” ELIC didn't break 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the consensus summary declares that Jonathan Safran Foer's novel “deserves better than the treacly and pretentious treatment director Stephen Daldry gives it.” In the course of a month ELIC had gone from having a question mark next to its Oscar chances to having several exclamation marks following a “no” instead.

Almost every year there is a film that comes into the race a frontrunner based on the prestige of its director, cast, and usually source material, and gets hit by a hammer once it is finally seen, combining lack of critical acclaim with lack of guild and precursor recognition. By the time the Oscars are announced, these films are considered dead in the water, amusing anecdotes of “remember when that film was considered an Oscar contender” by people in top hats and monocles who usually add a “how droll” for emphasis. The remarkable thing is that a lot of those films do better than ELIC did in terms of critical support and precursor success.

Consider four films from the last decade: The Shipping News, The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson's War, and The Lovely Bones. Each of them was directed by an Oscar nominee (Lasse Halstrom, Marc Forster, Mike Nichol, and Peter Jackson) and except for The Kite Runner, each of them had at least on Oscar winner in the cast. Each of them came into the Oscar race as a serious contender, with most people predicting them to be nominated for Best Picture. But when reviews came in, and the precursors were announced, each of them plummeted from the ranks of the contenders into the pool of also-rans and could-have-beens. Let's compare these four films' roads to disaster with ELIC's path to Best Picture.

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	The Shipping News	The Kite Runner	Charlie Wilson's War	The Lovely Bones	Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Rotten Tomatoes Score	56%	65%	81%	33%	47%
Guild Nominations	SAG Best Supporting Actress- Judi Dench ADG Best Art Direction-Contemporary	ADG Best Art Direction-Contemporary VES Best Supporting Visual Effects	Nada	SAG Best Supportng Actor- Stanley Tucci ADG Best Art Direction-Contemporary	ADG Best Art Direction-Contemporary
NBR Nominations	Best Supporting Actress- Cate Blanchett	Top Ten Films Best Score	Zip	Zilch	Nuthin'
BAFTA Nominations	Best Supporting Actress- Judi Dench	Best Foreign Language Film Best Adapted Screenplay Best Original Score	Best Supporting Actor- Philip Seymour Hoffman	Best Actress- Saiorse Ronan Best Supporting Actor- Stanley Tucci	Nope
BFCA Nominations	Best Picture Best Score	Best Picture Best Young Actor- Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada	Best Supporting Actor- Philip Seymour Hoffman Best Screenplay	Best Actress- Saiorse Ronan Best Young Actor/Actress- Saiorse Ronan Best Supporting Actor- Stanley Tucci Best Art Direction Best Cinematography Best Visual Effects	Best Picture Best Director Best Adapted Screenplay Best Young Actor/Actress- Thomas Horn
Golden Globe Nominations	Best Actor-Drama- Kevin Spacey Best Score	Best Foreign Language Film Best Original Score	Best Picture-Musical/Comedy Best Actor-Musical/Comedy- Tom Hanks Best Supporting Actor- Philip Seymour Hoffman Best Supporting Actress- Julia Roberts Best Screenplay	Best Supporting Actor- Stanley Tucci	Zero
Oscar Nominations	None	Best Original Score	Best Supporting Actor- Philip Seymour Hoffman	Best Supporting Actor- Stanley Tucci	Best Picture Best Supporting Actor- Max von Sydow

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Each of those four other films had more nominations - between the guilds and the other major precursors - than ELIC. On top of that, the only guild nomination that ELIC got was one that three of the others also received (Charlie Wilson's War was a period film, which is a much more competitive ADG category). The BFCA announces their nominations very early in the race, which means they are very likely to be swayed by a film's hype, leading to them nominating both The Kite Runner and The Shipping News for Best Picture. As a result, neither of those precursors could be trusted if anyone were to point to them as indicators of secret support for ELIC.

It is abundantly clear that ELIC benefited from the new voting system, which allows up to ten films to be nominated if they get enough number one votes. Which of these four other films would have sneaked into a Best Picture nomination in the same voting system? Charlie Wilson's War almost certainly would have, and The Kite Runner would have been in a decent position as well. The Shipping News is doubtful, partially because it received no other nominations, while each of the other films received at least one. As for The Lovely Bones? It came out in a year when there were ten nominations, and never really had a chance. It is also by far the worst reviewed film of the five.

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