Looking for a little escapism? You won’t find that among most films that attract consideration, and it makes some members of the Academy feel sad.
In an Oscar season when members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are stuck at home with more time than ever to consume films, there are fewer films than ever that they really want to consume. “The biggest contender this year is Apathy,” a former Academy member sent me an email last week. “Many with whom I spoke say that they will pass the vote this year.”
It is not just that several of the most visible films that were scheduled to be in the running have been postponed on the calendar until cinemas can reopen widely – among them Steven Spielbergin West Side Story and Wes Andersonin The French Dispatch – or that there are so many excellent streaming options on TV. It’s just that the films that are in the mix are almost all “bleak”, “dark” and “make you want to cut your wrists”, to use descriptions shared with me by other Oscar voters.
They are not wrong. While Oscar candidates are generally dominated by serious and generally pessimistic films, there are usually some lighter and more upbeat options – from 2016 La La Land for 2019 Little Women – to brighten up the overall mood. But not this season. Competitors highlight a disastrous home birth happening in real time (Pieces of woman); a man falling into dementia (The father); an abuse survivor being lit on gas by her accuser (The invisible man); an alcoholic who barely works and can’t get out of his own way (both Mank and The way back); a teenager struggling to secure an abortion (Never seldom sometimes always); an old woman haunted by the Holocaust (Life ahead); a civil rights activist betrayed by his friend (Judas and the Black Messiah); a man unjustly imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay (The Mauritanian); a dying man struggling to save humanity while the Earth becomes uninhabitable (The Midnight Sky); a woman with a child running away from murderers (I am your wife); a man with a child running away from murderers (World News); a loyal servant raised by his master for a crime he did not commit (The white tiger); an American singer arrested by her own government (United States x Billie Holiday); old friends unloading their long-repressed complaints with each other (Let everyone talk); and a young woman whose soul is crushed by working for a Harvey Weinsteinas a cinema tycoon (The assistant)
If these loglines don’t whet your appetite, here are some for even stronger candidates: a young drummer starts to go deaf (Metal sound); a Vietnam veterinarian with PTSD confronts his demons (Da 5 Bloods); a young woman becomes a #MeToo avenger (Promising young woman); racial oppression bursts into violence (Black Bottom by Ma Rainey); an immigrant family struggles to survive in America (Minari); a woman who lost everything in the Great Recession finds others in the same situation (Nomadland)
Oh, I almost forgot the Pixar film about – wait – death, purgatory and life after death (Soul)
None of this is meant to be a comment on the quality of the films themselves. Many of them are excellent. It is just an illustration of why so many members of the Academy are not particularly excited to open a screener or click on the Academy Screening Room streaming app at this specific time.
Oscar races tend to reflect the zeitgeist – and frankly, the zeitgeist has been shit lately: a global pandemic has killed nearly half a million Americans and forced the rest of us into long-term isolation; repeated cases of police brutality led to protests and, in some cases, looting; an unbalanced president contested an election that he clearly lost and incited a violent uprising; and loved public figures like Kobe Bryant and Chadwick Boseman, died very young.
Oscar, of course, will continue, but we can ask ourselves if, just this season, voters may prefer a little escapism. There are only a small handful of contenders who are not overwhelmingly heavy – and even those can be triggering for some. The prom, a musical, is about young people in a small town dealing with homophobes. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a comedy, spends a lot of time with half of the country that believes in Donald Trump and does not believe in COVID-19. It is what it is Palm Springs – where the main characters are stuck in a time loop – if not a reminder that every day of our lives during the pandemic is essentially the same?
In a cruel twist, the filmed version of Lin-Manuel MirandaTony is winning Hamilton, the only title that many members of the Academy were most eager to give and that really offers some hope for the future, is not technically a film and, in a special decision, was considered ineligible by the Academy.
And then, Oscar night comes, Hamilton, like the rest of us kidnapping each other and in relative isolation, we will not be in the room where it happens.
This story first appeared in the February 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.