Oscars 2017 Predictions: Will Moonlight beat La La Land? Stats, trends and my personal picks
By Anna MM Vetticad
The Oscars are
always political, but this year the function and the selections will no doubt
be more so than ever. Already, the directors of the five nominated films in the
Best Foreign Language category have issued a joint statement about rising
xenophobia worldwide. Mentions of Donald Trump are expected to dominate winners’
speeches. And last year’s #OscarsSoWhite campaign is likely to be a major factor
in the choices this year, which already has an unprecedented number of
non-white nominees.
With just a day to go for the announcement, here are my predictions for
the four most high-profile gongs of Oscars 2017:
BEST PICTURE:
Nominees:
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
With 14 nominations
and universal critical acclaim, La La
Land is the odds-on favourite to pick up the most prestigious trophy of the
night. The film shares the record for most noms ever with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic
(1997). The big question on the big day will be whether it will equal or
beat the record for maximum wins, held by Ben-Hur
(1959), Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of
the King (2003) each with 11 trophies to its credit.
Statistics by and
large seem to favour La La Land. Damien
Chazelle’s deliciously energetic yet contemplative musical has already scooped
up Best Picture awards at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes (in the musical or
comedy category). It also won the Producers Guild of America
(PGA) Award, considered a strong indicator of who will bag the top Oscar. Since
its inception in 1990, 19 out of 28 PGA winners have gone on to carry away the Best Picture Oscar.
If La La Land does not win, the film with
the best chance of pulling off an upset is Moonlight,
a poor black boy’s journey to adulthood under the crushing burden of a
neglectful, drug-addicted mother, racial prejudice, homophobia and poverty. Already,
Moonlight has taken home the
Best Picture Golden Globe in the drama category.
Personally though,
this is not my favourite of the nominated films. Moonlight was moving and thematically relevant but not, to my mind,
as deeply satisfying as some of the other films in this category. Clearly, most
critics across the world and in India disagree with me. So be it.
In a contest
between La La Land and Moonlight, I would pick La La Land, a film of profound sadness
despite its apparent liveliness. But my personal favourite from this shortlist is
not even La La Land. My vote goes to
the immensely inspiring and uplifting Hidden
Figures. The true story of how black women overcame excruciating racial and
gender discrimination to play a key role in America’s space programme is, to my
mind, the most beautiful – and beautifully acted – film of the nine in
contention. I am deriving hope from an award it won this season that, like PGA,
is considered highly predictive
Hidden Figures walked off with the trophy for Outstanding
Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the year’s Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Awards. Since 2008, six winners of SAG’s best cast award have gone on to
win the Best Picture Oscar. Could this year be the seventh?
Likely winner: La
La Land
Possible spoiler, very close: Moonlight
My personal favourite: Hidden Figures
My second choice (and very close): La La Land
BEST DIRECTOR:
Nominees:
Barry
Jenkins for Moonlight
Damien
Chazelle for La La Land
Dennis
Villeneuve for Arrival
Kenneth
Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea
Mel Gibson
for Hacksaw Ridge
This one is as neck-and-neck as the Best Picture race. If La La Land wins the top honour this
year, then it is possible that Academy members may choose to
compensate Moonlight by electing
Barry Jenkins as Best Director.
Still, this season’s trends favour Chazelle.
He dominated the Golden Globes where he won Best Director and Best Screenplay
trophies, picked up a BAFTA for Best Director and won the highly prophetic Directors Guild of America
Award. That last one is a statistical clincher, since the DGA winner has gone
on to get the equivalent Oscar all but seven times since 1948.
For the record, Chazelle should have received
a Best Director nomination at the 2015 Oscars for his cracking music-themed
film Whiplash. As things stand, this
is his first Best
Director Oscar nom.
Likely winner: Damien Chazelle
Likely spoiler (and very close): Barry
Jenkins
My personal favourite: Damien
Chazelle
Should have been nominated: Theodore
Melfi for Hidden Figures
BEST ACTRESS:
Nominees:
Emma Stone
for La La Land
Isabelle
Huppert for Elle
Meryl
Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins
Natalie
Portman for Jackie
Ruth Negga
for Loving
In a
category filled with brilliant women all of whom delivered brilliant
performances, Emma Stone is a frontrunner going by the season’s trends. Her turn
as a young woman who defies socially prescribed choices to follow her dreams,
took her out of her career comfort zone into a genre that required her to sing
and dance in addition to act on screen. She did
all three with equal aplomb.
She has
already won the year’s Golden Globe (in the comedy or musical category),
SAG and BAFTA Awards. Her
performance in La La Land has earned her accolades across platforms,
from the popular to the hard-core arty and serious, including 2016’s Best
Actress trophy at Venice, the world’s oldest film festival. Although Natalie
Portman beat her at the Critics Choice Awards and Isabelle Huppert won the Best
Actress Golden Globe in the drama category, Stone is seen as a shoo-in for an
Oscar. A loss for her will be a big surprise.
Most likely winner: Emma Stone
Closest competitors: Isabelle
Huppert and Natalie Portman
My personal favourite (tough one): Emma
Stone
Should have been nominated: Taraji P.
Henson for Hidden Figures
BEST ACTOR:
Nominees:
Andrew
Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge
Casey
Affleck for Manchester by the Sea
Denzel
Washington for Fences
Ryan
Gosling for La La Land
Viggo
Mortensen for Captain Fantastic
This
category is harder to predict than the Best Actress this year because the
awards season has not thrown up a clear frontrunner. Casey Affleck beat out Andrew
Garfield, Denzel Washington and Viggo Mortensen to a Golden Globe in the drama
category, while Ryan Gosling won a Globe in the musical or comedy category. Washington
was not nominated for a BAFTA, the other four were; the prize went to Affleck.
And all five gentlemen were in contention at the SAG Awards, where Washington
emerged the winner.
Still, in
a year when political correctness will be more at play than ever before, Academy
voters may hesitate to vote for Affleck considering the cloud of sexual
harassment charges he carries as baggage. Likewise, Washington may have an edge
because of the manner in which the Academy has been shamed for its pro-white
bias in recent years.
If
Washington does win though, it would be a pity if the victory is attributed to
anything but his stellar turn in Fences. As
a householder who invites both sympathy and disgust (the latter is quite an
achievement for a man with such a naturally likeable personality) he walked
that fine line between being hard to love yet hard to hate on screen. Washington
deserves to be named Best Actor at this year’s Oscars, not because of the
colour of his skin, but because he did indeed deliver the year’s best
performance by any male artiste in 2016.
Likely winner: Denzel Washington
Possible spoiler: Ryan Gosling
My personal favourite: Denzel
Washington
My second choice: Ryan Gosling
A version of this article has been published on Firstpost:
Photographs courtesy:
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