Why I’m Not Taking the Oscars Seriously This Year
I’ll give the Oscars this: For all of the storied awards ceremony’s traditionalism, it’s not afraid to change things up. When there was outrage over The Dark Knight missing out on a Best Picture nomination in 2008, the Academy increased the number of films nominated from five to as many as ten. In the wake of 2015’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy expanded its voting body to make it more diverse and global. Last year, the Academy finally responded to streaming’s attack on the cinema business by instituting new theatrical requirements for all Best Picture nominees, which go into effect this year. And in 2026, there will be a new award for Best Casting (because of course there should be!).
These changes have undoubtedly had an impact. Over the past decade, there have been more international Best Picture contenders and non-white acting nominees (more than zero, but still). Plus, films that once would’ve seemed too odd to win Best Picture (such as Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once) have triumphed.
And yet this year is a good reminder that the Oscars will forever be the Oscars—staid, showy, and frequently questionable. Since the Academy announced the nominations late last month, there has been plenty of impassioned debate about the merits (or lack thereof) of the films that were recognised: There are questions about Anora’s depiction of women, The Brutalist’s second half, Wicked’s production design, The Substance’s lack of substance, and literally everything about Emilia Pérez. Several of the top contenders have endured vicious smear campaigns that have added fuel to the fire. But as we approach the ceremony, I remain far more bothered by what was not nominated than what was. No matter how Sunday night’s Oscars shake out, the Academy will have overlooked many of 2024’s most exciting cinematic accomplishments.
Score
The most glaring omission comes in the Original Score category. This is an award that has been dominated over the past decade by vast, frequently ominous orchestral arrangements. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Academy did not recognise Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s relentlessly nagging, techno-forward Challengers score. But it’s a shame. Reznor and Ross, who together with Jon Batiste won this award in 2020 for their work on Pixar’s Soul, have crafted a score that is certainly the most original Original Score of the year. It is like an Airhead—sweet, sticky, stretchy, colorful, artificially flavoured—that reflects the rapid back-and-forth of a great tennis volley. But more than reflect its subject, the Challengers score acts as a vehicle that the movie rides—up, down, and all around. With all respect to Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist, Reznor and Ross’s score is the true star (and most irreplaceable facet) of the film. It supplies Challengers not only with adrenaline, tension, and bounce but also its teasing, poppy tone.
Cinematography
One of the pleasant surprises within this year’s nominations is that RaMell Ross’s visionary adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel Nickel Boys received nods in the Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay categories. With its subjective camera and fragmented storytelling, Nickel Boys is more experimental than what the Academy typically recognises. However, that it was recognised in Adapted Screenplay but not for directing or cinematography is puzzling. This is a film whose power comes more from its visual language than from its verbal language. The film’s first-person perspective tasks cinematographer Jomo Fray with not just capturing beautiful, dynamic images but inhabiting the film’s protagonists. A camera is rarely allowed to be this expressive—and under Ross’s direction, Fray unlocks profound emotion.
Acting
Similar to the Academy’s preference for epic scores, bigness has long reigned supreme on the performance side. The Academy has always been partial to ostentatious acting, monumental characters, and incredible transformations. This year, you would’ve benefitted from playing a witch, a cardinal, a famous actress, a powerful drug lord, a renowned architect, a famous folk singer, or Donald Trump. Many of these roles were conspicuously challenging. Demi Moore had to bare her entire body to play Elisabeth Sparkle, Adrien Brody had to bare his entire soul to play László Tóth, and Timothée Chalamet had to do a Bob Dylan voice that didn’t come off as a joke. Many of the actors nominated for these roles gave strong performances. But few of these depictions have burrowed themselves in my mind, heart, and soul.
At least, not the way Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Léa Drucker, and Julianne Nicholson did as three ostensibly ordinary women in Hard Truths, Last Summer, and Janet Planet, respectively. Jean-Baptiste, who stars as the ever-sneering Pansy in Hard Truths, is the most surprising snub of the three—and the one that has received the most blowback. The veteran actor created Pansy with Mike Leigh, in the director’s typical collaborative method, and she is one of the angriest creations I’ve ever seen in a film. Pansy is constantly on offense, berating her layabout son for going on walks, her husband for a perceived error, and any stranger unfortunate enough to cross her path for the slightest blunder. All of which can be quite funny. (“Your balls are so backed up you’ve got sperm in your brain!” is one of many highlights.) But the magic trick of the performance—and of Leigh’s subtle, profoundly affecting script—is that by the end of the film you want to give Pansy a hug. This is a woman you feel for and wonder about, even as you recoil.
I can’t say I felt as much sympathy for Léa Drucker’s Anne in Last Summer. The film, directed by Catherine Breillat, revolves around an affair Anne, a defense attorney, has with her 17-year-old stepson, Théo (Samuel Kircher). Breillat offers little in the way of backstory, exposition, or introspection. Instead, you’re meant to understand how and why this sordid event happened by watching it gradually unfold, beat by beat. There’s never a false moment, which is a credit to Breillat’s immense emotional intelligence and masterful blocking but also to these two actors. Drucker, in particular, is mesmerising. She tells you everything you need to know with the subtlest gestures and expressions. As the movie progresses, her initial sin—giving in to illicit desire—metastasises, creating a mess that she defends herself against with bold, harmful lies. She acts increasingly like a monster. And yet Drucker’s portrayal is full of such complexity and depth that, even after multiple viewings, I feel more fascination toward Anne than scorn. I can’t get her out of my head.
In Annie Baker’s Janet Planet, Julianne Nicholson shows another level of restraint. Nicholson, who is 53, has had prominent roles in big studio movies like Black Mass and I, Tonya, as well as prestige TV shows like The Outsider and Mare of Easttown. But as she played the titular Janet in Baker’s debut feature, I felt like I truly saw her for the first time. Janet is a single mother of a precocious child, Lacy (a similarly nomination-worthy Zoe Ziegler), living in 1990s rural western Massachusetts. She slowly drifts through life in a way I imagine will be familiar to many parents. There’s little in the way of plot in the film, but Nicholson’s quiet presence continuously kept my interest.
There’s a long scene late in the film in which Janet and Lacy lie in bed and Janet divulges more than she should to her young daughter. She admits that she always wondered if Lacy would be a lesbian and later says, “I’ve always had this knowledge deep inside of me that I could make any man fall in love with me if I really tried. And I think maybe it’s ruined my life.” Throughout the whispered monologue, Nicholson takes long, brilliant pauses and never looks at Lacy. The sense that she has thought about this a lot but is only now unburdening herself is palpable. By movie standards, it’s an unextraordinary admission, but it’s as heavy as anything I’ve seen. And like with Drucker and Jean-Baptiste’s performances, it momentarily made me wonder: Is this the best actor in the world?
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