Final 12 months’s Cannes Movie Pageant was virtually a one-stop store for Oscar voters, premiering three main movies — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Curiosity” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” — that might go on to be nominated for greatest image.
Does this 12 months’s crop of Cannes motion pictures have the identical juice?
On the 77th version of the pageant, which concluded Saturday, Sean Baker’s “Anora” was named the winner of the celebrated Palme d’Or. Three of the final 4 Palme winners went on to obtain a best-picture nomination — “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Triangle of Unhappiness” and “Parasite” — and all of them, like “Anora,” had been distributed by the studio Neon. That’s an astonishing streak that positions “Anora” in the easiest way potential, lending a veneer of status to Baker’s raucous comedy a couple of Brooklyn stripper who marries into Russian wealth.
In 2018, Baker’s “The Florida Venture” got here awfully near a best-picture nomination. If voters are extra amenable to his indie sensibility this time round, anticipate strong campaigns for the lead Mikey Madison and for Baker’s script and course. Extra of a protracted shot however equally worthy is supporting actor Mark Eydelshteyn because the live-wire inheritor our title character weds: Although Oscar voters not often reward younger males, this child’s a complete discover, like a Russian Timothée Chalamet.
In a shock transfer, the Cannes jury cut up one of the best actress award 4 methods, honoring the principle feminine solid of the talked-about musical “Emilia Pérez.” Which means the ensemble member Selena Gomez now has a Cannes trophy that has eluded the likes of Marion Cotillard, although I believe extra fruitful Oscar campaigns can be waged on behalf of the main girl Zoe Saldaña, who’s by no means had a extra strong position, and particularly Karla Sofía Gascón, who might grow to be the primary trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar. (The fourth winner was Adriana Paz.)
Netflix has picked up “Emilia Pérez” and will definitely give it a big awards push, although the streamer’s stewardship might have drawbacks. It’s true that it is a hard-to-classify movie — equal components crime drama, trans empowerment narrative and full-blown film musical — which might have made it a tough theatrical promote. However a few of its extra outrageous moments are sure to be memed and mocked as quickly because it makes its streaming debut, which might hobble the movie’s repute.
The perfect actor award at Cannes went to Jesse Plemons in “Sorts of Kindness,” who provides invaluable humanity to the cracked Yorgos Lanthimos movie, although its anthology nature — Plemons performs completely different roles in every of the film’s three tales — makes “Sorts of Kindness” an unlikely Oscar prospect. And although the talked-about horror movie “The Substance” received a screenplay trophy at Cannes, it’s much more prone to rating awards consideration for Demi Moore’s lead efficiency as an actress pushed to excessive lengths as she ages.
Two movies that did not win a prize or a distributor at Cannes are however hoping to mount a comeback bid this awards season. The Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” options Jeremy Robust as Roy Cohn in a juicy supporting efficiency {that a} studio might push if it had been keen to take care of the previous president’s authorized threats in opposition to the movie. And although there shall be critics and Oscar voters who admire the large swing of Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed “Megalopolis,” I don’t anticipate a lot traction for it outdoors of classes like costumes and manufacturing design.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” which debuted out of competitors in Cannes and opened weakly in theaters on Friday, is one other probably tech participant: It ought to attain most of the identical below-the-line nominations that its predecessor, “Mad Max: Fury Highway,” received in 2016, although image and director nods aren’t going to occur this time.
Cannes usually premieres most of the eventual international-film nominees, however this 12 months’s largest contender comes with just a few caveats. There is no such thing as a method Iran would choose Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” as its official submission for the Oscar, since Rasoulof fled Iran to keep away from an eight-year jail sentence for making motion pictures that criticize that nation’s authoritarian authorities.
Neon is aware of find out how to navigate an Oscar bid for a movie that received’t be submitted for greatest worldwide characteristic — when France snubbed “Anatomy of a Fall” final 12 months, Neon was undeterred — although it will have helped if “Sacred Fig” had taken the Palme. However that is nonetheless a really accessible movie for voters who shall be moved by Rasoulof’s personal story.
