Blue Moon - 2 Nominations

 

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Ethan Hawke

• Best Original Screenplay: Robert Kaplow (writer)

It is opening night of Oklahoma!, and Richard Rogers’ big night without his longtime collaborator, Lorenz Hart. Hart has arrived early to the bar where the show’s after party at Sardis is set to take place, and at first, he resists the temptation to drink, but not to rant. Rogers has taken a hiatus from working with Hart both to give Hart time to deal with his alcoholism, and also because when he was drinking, he was an unreliable partner. Hart has a lot of opinions about Oklahoma, but primarily that it was too silly and happy and upbeat (minus the rape, of course), and wants Rogers to get back to working with him on more serious pursuits.

The film is very close to a monologue, and Ethan Hawke is in every single scene. I imagine pages and pages of lines without a single interruption. It’s Olympic level acting, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him better. His longtime partnership with Director Richard Linklater takes a whole new path with this movie where little happens but you simply can’t look away. I’m pretty sure that I had my mouth agape for a good portion of the film, just dazzled by this performance that was nothing like I’ve seen before.

It doesn’t matter if you know who Rogers and Hart are, if you’ve ever seen Oklahoma!, or if you know anything about New York theater. I hope you’ll see the film just to see Hawke’s work in this role, a truly unexpected but brilliant execution. It’s not a showy movie, but it’s fantastic.

First Reformed - 1 nomination

Original Screenplay - Written by Paul Schrader

Minister Toller spends his days being of service to the members of his congregation.  He consoles, he visits, he tends to his flock.  When a pregnant parishioner comes to Toller to counsel her clinically depressed husband, he comes to her aid.  Her husband Michael is suffering from despair, triggered by his sense of injustice as an environmental advocate.  The minister is surprisingly affected by these issues, and even jeopardizes a major donor who is bank rolling the renovation of his historic church, due to the donor's companies which are major environmental polluters.   But Minister Toller's emotional struggles become worse and worse until he contemplates an audacious and deadly act to be carried out at the church's anniversary event, attracting other high profile clergy, donors, and respected members of the community.  His insanity reaches a fever pitch and all you can do as an audience member is hold your breath.

This film is nominated for Original Screenplay, although there was some buzz about Ethan Hawke as a dark horse candidate for a Lead Actor nomination.  It is a quiet film and a tight story, but the quiet performance given by Hawke is what makes the film worth watching.  This is not the Ethan Hawke we know from other roles and it might be the first time I've seen him take himself out of the part and take on an entirely different person from who he seems to be in life.  In most roles, there is always a piece of the character that is Hawke himself (see, Boyhood).  Not so in First Reformed.

The name of the film is a subtle nod to the central dilemma of the film.  Yes, it is certainly a Christian reference and likely there are many churches around the country named First Reformed.  But with added layer of activism, the film is asking, who will be the first to change our ways and save the planet?  It is a religious question and a political one.  This won't be the most exciting film you see all year, but it is a good one.

BOYHOOD - 6 nominations

Best Picture - Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
Supporting Actor - Ethan Hawke
Supporting Actress - Patricia Arquette
Director - Richard Linklater
Film Editing - Sandra Adair
Original Screenplay - Richard Linklater

Boyhood is the simple story of a single mom and her two kids, their not quite a boy not quite a man father, and the ways that adult choices affect the growth of their children.  As everyone who's heard of the film knows by now, it was filmed over a period of 12 years with the same actors for one week a year, so we see the characters grow as people and we see them age, as well.  This is most pronounced for the two children who we meet when they are very young, and we watch them grow year by year.

The story isn't really one we haven't seen before, and I think that if this were any other movie without this unique approach to aging, we would call it a nice, vanilla story that is sweet and universal.  Some women make very poor choices in picking partners.  Some dads are unreliable but extremely loving. Kids go through stuff as they age and find their voices and their passions.  They become adults who leave their parents behind.

The aging is the heart of this film's acclaim.  The reason that we feel so connected is the same reason we marvel when a friend's child is about to learn to drive, go to college, get married - we watched that child grow up.  The same is true for this film, we literally watch the characters grow up, and the truth is, without that element of the film, this movie would not be an Oscar contender and it would just be a nice film about Richard Linklater's childhood.  It's a different movie entirely because of the novel approach, which is why I do recommend seeing it.  It feels like a more authentic story because of the maturation process, and that also makes the parents' journeys more real to us.  

That's why Boyhood deserves a nomination for Best Picture, but not Original Screenplay.  Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are very good in the film, but not necessarily what I would call Oscar good (she had a juicier part, so maybe she more than he has a justified nomination, though they were both great in their parts).  Richard Linklater as the Director with the vision for this whole project is most deserving of recognition, and I believe that this may have an impact on future films in Hollywood.

I, too, am approaching a time when my oldest son will be off to college, so I'm not ashamed to admit that I sobbed like a little baby when Patricia Arquette struggled with this same life transition.  So that's where I land on Boyhood - authentic, representative of real life experiences, characters that you know.  But Oscar worthy?  The answer is 4 weeks in the making.