Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris - 1 nomination

 

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Jenny Beavan

Ada is "just" a simple housekeeper who treats her clients with the greatest of respect, even when they don't return the favor. She falls in love with a Dior dress that one of her employers owns, and decides to save up and work toward the dream of flying to Paris and purchasing a Dior dress of her own. When she finally gets there, she faces many challenges and twists and turns, but through the kindness of others she makes her way into the judgy world of haute couture. But not just that, she endears herself to (almost) the entire staff of Dior who do everything they can to deliver the most exquisite dress she has ever seen.

I won't say more about the details of the film but can tell you that this was one of the most delightful films of the year. It may even make my top 10 list because the fashion is phenomenal and the story is even better. It warms your heart and promotes the notion that kindness will be repaid, that people should be good to each other, and that nothing beats having the perfect dress when times are hard.  See it, you'll be enamored with this lovely film.

Elle - 1 nomination

Actress in a Leading Role - Isabelle Huppert

Hang on to your hats, this is one wild ride.  Michele (Isabel Huppert) is violently attacked and raped, to which she reacts as much as one might to a minor inconvenience.  She is  tough woman who runs her video game company by day and engages with her friends and disappointing family by night. Her son has a pregnant girlfriend and needs his mother to help finance his disaster of a life.  In addition, Michele discovers that she has new neighbors who seem nice, but with whom she becomes eerily fascinated.  The film is dark, and Michele is hard to decipher.  There are so many twists and turns in the film that it's hard to describe without giving away key elements.  There are so many moments in the plot where you are sitting on the edge of your seat like one would in a psychological thriller like The Sixth Sense.

Michele is unsettlingly calm about her attack, about a strange cyberbullying scene that depicts her as being raped and attacked in a video game, and about all of the odd things happening in her life. When she figures out that she knows her attacker, the movie becomes even more creepy (in a good way), as both the attacker and Michele find that they fill a need in each other that is unexpected, to say the least.

Elle is violent and graphic, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for everyone.  But if you can endure the violence, the psychological manipulations are enough to make it worth watching.  Isabelle Huppert is utterly brilliant as the woman who is craving something seemingly abnormal but who appears as a person to be totally mainstream.