Hamnet - 8 Nominations

 

Best Casting: Nina Gold

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score): Max Richter

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Gonda, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes

Best Achievement in Directing: Chloé Zhao

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Jessie Buckley

Best Adapted Screenplay: Maggie O’Farrell, Chloé Zhao

Best Achievement in Production Design: Fiona Crombie (production designer), Alice Felton (set decorator)

Best Achievement in Costume Design: Malgosia Turzanska

Hamnet is the beautiful and deeply moving story of William Shakespeare and his family; how he met his wife, his rise in popularity, and the family that he left behind when he went to London to put on what would become enduring work that would live well beyond his lifetime. With this film, Chloe Zhao has done something powerful. While we have seen films before that play out a “real life” story that eventually become a Shakespeare play (a la, Shakespeare in Love), this feels grounded in a world that feels as real as it is theatrical, and as theatrical as it is real. Of course the technical categories lend themselves to the experience, but what makes this movie are the performances from Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, and the three child actors who play their children. (At this point, I can’t see anyone taking the gold from Jessie Buckley.)
We know that Chloe Zhao is an outstanding director, but the thing that connects her Oscar winning Nomadland to Hamnet is her ability to have enduring compassion for her women leads while still showing them to be fully human, whether pooping in a bucket in a van or giving birth alone in the woods.
And here is my big reveal - if you are going to see only 2 or 3 of the nominated Best Pictures this year, make sure that Hamnet is one of them.

Women Talking - 2 nominations

 

Best Adapted Screenplay Sarah Polley

Best Motion Picture of the Year Jeremy Kleiner (producer) Dede Gardner (producer) Frances McDormand (producer)

We have finally arrived at the Best Picture nominee I've most wanted to blog about, Women Talking. How I wish that the Academy (like SAG) had an award for the entire cast, but since it doesn't, I'd like to nominate every single actress in this film for the Lead Actress award (yes yes, I know that some of the women were in supporting roles, but each contributed to the whole so completely that I award the entire cast the Oscar, so mazel tov to Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey and so many others who deserve this prestigious made up award).

The importance of this movie can't be overstated. A community of women elected by their peers has come together to decide what to do about the continuing attacks on women and girls in their patriarchal and extremely conservative Christian community.  The women and girls have been given tranquilizers and raped (and in one case, a girl as young as 4 years old), but even when that is not happening, many of them are also severely abused by their husbands.  They are in a sheltered Mennonite community where they've received little to no education, and all they are perceived to be good for is household management. Even the act of not forgiving the men for their violence is considered sinful and would deny them their place in the hereafter, or so they've been told.

They debate three choices - forgive and do nothing, stay in the community and fight (maybe even expel the men), or leave and escape this life.  The power of their voices lamenting the bone-crushing sadness of no good choices, and the utter horror of having no personal autonomy make the film nearly debilitating for the audience.  The story is a loud and visceral scream from deep down in the soul.  I am only sorry that the brilliant direction from Sarah Polley was overlooked for an Oscars nomination, and frankly, I would have happily seen this film receive so many more as recognition of what it accomplishes.  It's a must see.

The Lost Daughter - 3 nominations

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Jessie Buckley

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Olivia Colman

Best Adapted Screenplay Maggie Gyllenhaal (written by)

The Lost Daughter follows Leda, a middle aged college professor on vacation in Greece.  Her quiet, secluded resort is overtaken by a large extended family with grandparents, aunts and uncles, young children, and parents boisterously enjoying their vacations while Leda watches them.  When one of the children goes missing, Leda leaps into action and finds the young girl, making a small connection with the group.  Leda reminisces about her experience as a young mother, which frankly, was not great.  The scenes jump back and forth between young Leda trying to build an important career (and ok, having an affair with a colleague) and struggling to want to be a good mom, and middle aged Leda watching another young mother struggling, and even having her own affair.

So far, the people I've talked to either love or hate The Lost Daughter and in most cases, the lovers have been women and the haters have been men (not exclusively, of course).  This is a different kind of film about a woman - it's not the "can women have it all" tired trope, it's "what happens when women don't want it all, and it turns out what they really want is an impressive career?"

I absolutely loved this film.  Though the plot doesn't reflect my own circumstances, I was weirdly proud of the movie.  It's finally an honest and new take on a woman's choices, which felt thrilling to me.  Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley are both their usual brilliant selves (look for a future Oscar for Jessie Buckley, but not likely for this film), and it's the only time in history that I could find where two women are nominated for playing the same role in the same movie as younger and older selves.  Maggie Gyllenhaal was robbed of a directing nomination, frankly, for her debut with this film, but this will not be her last shot at the gold if this film is any indication of her talent.  Bravo to Gyllenhaal on an extraordinary film.

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