OVP: Best Picture (2023)
The Nominees Were...
Ben Le Clair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson, & Jermaine Johnson, American Fiction
Marie-Ange Luciani & David Thion, Anatomy of Fall
David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, & Robbie Brenner, Barbie
Mark Johnson, The Holdovers
Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese, & Daniel Lupi, Killers of the Flower Moon
Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, Maestro
Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, & Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, & Pamela Koffler, Past Lives
Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, & Emma Stone, Poor Things
James Wilson, The Zone of Interest
My Thoughts: Whenever I finish another one of these seasons, I always seem to start humming "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice, a song that I associate specifically with the film Closer, which I saw in college and was one of the first (then) contemporary films that I saw specifically as "mine." It was a movie that very few of my friends or people I knew had seen (or liked), and that I loved when it came out (and still do, as is evidenced by the 2004 My Ballot where it made the Best Picture lineup). The movie is about the passage of time & missed opportunities, but it's also a distinctly college movie for me, one of those formative flicks that you didn't realize going into the year would become part of your personality. I think about that particularly with Best Picture lineups, because my hope is that some of these movies mean that for young cinephiles who are carving their path in the world, and loving movies in that way that it becomes harder to do the older you get.
One of the movies, though, that shocked me in that specific way in 2023 was The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer takes way too long to make his movies, but he does at least make your patience worthy of the wait. The Zone of Interest is a fascinating treatise on evil, how it seeps into our day-to-day life so much we can no longer see a world without it feeling commonplace. The sound design is rich here, adding personality to the picture, and the writing & performances (particularly Sandra Huller) only accentuate this distinct look at the Holocaust and World War II (and, let's face it, modern fascist movements in the United States & Europe).
Another film that reminds me of Closer (I promise, I won't reference Mike Nichols' picture for all of these, but if you haven't seen it, do yourself a treat & seek it out) is Past Lives, though the 2023 movie has a far warmer heart. I talk about my love of ticking clock romances on this blog a lot, but this one turns that a bit on its head, giving the main love triangle too much time to process their romance, leaving regret in place of urgency. The way that the film examines how we become ghosts of our former selves (something you only begin to understand as you enter middle age), not in a melancholy way but in an inevitable one is really prescient stuff. More than any other film in this lineup, I'm happiest this made it because it's the film that could've most easily gotten lost from public consciousness of the Oscar contenders.
The Holdovers is one of those movies that becomes better because of the parts, even if the sum doesn't always add up. The warm performances from the three leads give it a lot of its flavor, as does some of the poignancy that invades Alexander Payne's script. The movie is too neat, with every turn feeling telegraphed from the opening moments, and in the process Payne manages to screw up the ending, as he hasn't invested in our main character to make some of his choices in the final scenes feel unsaid. Simple movies can be total masterpieces, but you have to get every part right if you're going to approach from that vantage-Payne only gets some things right.
Screwing up the ending, though, is not a sin exclusive to The Holdovers. Maestro has the overconfidence to end with "any questions?" as if Bradley Cooper's film has answered fully the life of a complicated man. But he doesn't-the movie invites far more questions than it answers, and what it does it gives a lot of really staid conversations about the life of Leonard Bernstein. I think some of the conversations here are overplayed (I'm tired of talking about straight actors playing gay-in an era where openly gay Jonathan Bailey can get cast as the straight romantic lead in Wicked and get to front a major franchise like Jurassic Park, I think we can concede that we've made some progress), but the film's handling of Bernstein's sexuality seems hampered by real-life considerations (like his family's access to the life rights), and in the process Bernstein remains unknowable throughout the picture, a clear drop given the ending of the film.
But Maestro doesn't fumble at the beginning of the movie. This is the last time I'll complain about it this season, but Anatomy of a Fall screws up much of its film's momentum at the top of the picture when it shares that it will end without resolution. The movie never really recovers from that. Though there are scenes of value (I think the title sequence is impressive, and Sandra Huller is better than the script), the movie's need to stay ambiguous becomes a problem as it feels too open-ended, and especially given how long it is, it lacks perspective on the crime itself.
A movie that better balances the need to be two things at once is American Fiction, though it isn't totally successful either. American Fiction is really smart as social satire, giving us a cutting diatribe about the commodification of diversity and the ways that racism can take on different forms, even in seemingly progressive politics. But in a weird twist, the film itself doesn't have enough strength in its family drama (the types of books that the main character wants to write) to sell that story-within-a-story angle. The film's call sheet is smart (save for a woefully miscast Sterling K. Brown), with Jeffrey Wright a strong lead and I loved the meta-casting of Erika Alexander in a movie about a writer who struggles to convey to his publishers that the Black experience can take on any lens (Alexander is best-known for playing Cousin Pam on The Cosby Show, one of the first mainstream Hollywood productions to truly emphasize this message). It's just short, though, of being something truly special.
Poor Things in a lot of ways has that "just short" of something truly great scenario going for it as well. Like American Fiction, it has a strong lead performance, and it has a lot to say, in this case about feminism. But also like American Fiction, it can't quite find a balance, though here it's trying to keep up with Lanthimos' need for shocking the audience through sex, body humor, and tantalizing moral conversations. All of these can make up great art (see Lanthimos' The Favourite, in fact), but in Poor Things it gets in Lanthimos' way. I'll also own that some of the aesthetic choices in the picture feel arbitrary (and a bit ugly for me), which made the film suffer whenever I wasn't getting to revel in Emma Stone's brilliant work.
Killers of the Flower Moon continues Martin Scorsese's recent trend of making his best pictures at the close of his career. Running well over three hours, the movie gives us a totally epic tale, one that feels more complete for being pieced together (news flash: not every big story works better as a miniseries...this is proof of that). The acting is somewhat strong. We have Robert de Niro giving his best performance in decades, and Lily Gladstone's understated approach giving us a woman who is always hiding in Mollie Kyle, a strategy that makes her final scenes just sing on the screen. I think DiCaprio is miscast (and Brendan Fraser is laughably bad), but those are minor quibbles when you're getting to see a master like Scorsese at work.
We of course have to end with the two movies that will forever be intwined, both in moviegoers' minds and at the Oscars: Barbie and Oppenheimer. We'll start our Barbenheimer conversation with Oppenheimer, a movie that underlines how Christopher Nolan is one of our most visually arresting film directors. The movie's aesthetic choices are divine (the art direction & cinematography are both laudable, I also think the editing approach works when it easily could've been too much), and most of the ensemble cast delivers, including some of the bit players like Benny Safdie or Casey Affleck. I do think Nolan continues to struggle at writing women (and Emily Blunt's not giving us enough to make up for that), but Oppenheimer is going to age beautifully as a Best Picture winner, a striking meld of populist intellectualism.
Barbie is a movie, unlike Oppenheimer, that wasn't guaranteed Best Picture consideration. It's due to Greta Gerwig's shiny pink optimism that this became the biggest hit of 2023. Barbie is going to be hard to grade for future generations primarily because it was a phenomenon (the marketing on this film was both costly and insanely effective, with a press junket that should be studied), but the film itself is also strong. It looks sensational (love the costumes, art direction, & makeup), and the lead actors are both fizzing with chemistry, though the standout remains Ryan Gosling's Ken, inevitably the definitive role of one of our best working actors. I do think some of the commentary about feminism feels a bit prosaic, but I am hardly going to Kensplain girl power-Barbie is delicious & frothy fun.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have their categories separated into Musical/Comedy and Drama, with six nominations each so we do get some new names, though not in Drama, where Oppenheimer beats Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, & The Zone of Interest. Instead it's in Musical/Comedy where Oscar nominee Poor Things took it over some films from the AMPAS lineup (Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers) and some not (May December, Air). The PGA copied Oscar verbatim for both nominations and wins, and BAFTA (the only game in town still doing five nominations) went with Oppenheimer atop Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, & Poor Things. I wrote an entire article about who might've been in 11th place, and while future pundits (who rely too much on stats for my taste) will assume The Color Purple or Nyad were in 11th place, I honestly think it was All of Us Strangers, Origin, or Air that was in 11th, and would've been the first film since 1943 to get in for Best Picture without a nomination anywhere else. This is a fascinating conversation (more so than any recent "who was the runner-up" dialogue), so here's the article if you want more or want to know why I picked those specific titles.
Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!
Oscar’s Choice: Oppenheimer won by so much, it's a genuine question between The Holdovers, Barbie, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest what was in second place (whomever it was, they were distant, but I'd probably bet on The Holdovers if forced to choose because of how the ranked ballots work).
My Choice: Not a hard one for me-The Zone of Interest is the best in a really solid list of movies (Oscar did better here than he has in a lot of recent years even if there won't be much overlap with my personal ballot). Behind it (in order) are Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Oppenheimer, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, and Maestro. So that means in our six Barbenheimer matchups, Barbie went 5-1...but still missed for Best Picture.
And there you have it-another OVP in the books. Are you all still enchanted by Oppenheimer, or do you favor a darker picture like The Zone of Interest? Who do you think was in the second and eleventh places in a year where that was quite murky? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2023? Share your comments below!
Also in 2023: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023
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