In Contention

Tag: Happy-Go-Lucky

  • Looking for comedy in the awards world

    Over at his OscarWatch column, Dave Karger recently asked a question that has been bothering me for some time regarding this year’s awards race.

    Namely, how the hell are the Golden Globes going to fill out the ballot in the Comedy/Musical races?

    Best Actress looks solid enough. So far, we have two clear-cut frontrunners — Sally Hawkins and Anne Hathaway — in the Actress category, though I wonder if they will wind up placing Hathaway in the drama field, where I think she belongs. Meryl Streep will inevitably get cited for “Mamma Mia!” and I feel confident that Emma Thompson will grab a deserved nomination for “Last Chance Harvey.”

    Karger thinks Sarah Jessica Parker could round out the list, though I might look at Beyonce Knowles in “Cadillac Records” (much as the thought of her playing Etta James upsets me) or Rachel Weisz in “The Brothers Bloom” as alternative filler nominees. (The Globes don’t mind elevating supporting roles when there’s a paucity of contenders, though Weisz is a legitimate lead, in my opinion.)

    It’s the Best Actor category that’s really problematic. From what I can see, Dustin Hoffman has this in the bag for his endearing autumnal turn in “Last Chance Harvey” — not just because it’s a lovely performance, but because I can barely think of any competition for him. With the news that Josh Brolin has (rightly, I think) been denied comedic classification for “W.,” Karger thinks the other nominees might pan out like so:

    I’d also make the case for Paul Rudd, who anchors the current hit Role Models with his signature deadpan delivery, and Ghost Town‘s Ricky Gervais, who was brilliant in a sophisticated comedy that nobody saw. The HFPA could go the more obvious route with Get Smart‘s Steve Carell or Hancock‘s Will Smith, but here’s hoping they’ll think out of the box and recognize another understated humorist: Michael Cera from Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. We can dream, right?

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  • Standing up for the women

    Kim Voynar has a sharp piece up at MCN in which she decries the absence of female-focused (and female-directed) films from the top line of Oscar contenders.

    Of particular irritation to her is that femme-driven films like “Rachel Getting Married,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “I’ve Loved You So Long,” “Frozen River” and “Wendy and Lucy” — the latter two directed by women too — are garnering fawning reviews and plenty of awards attention for their stars, yet for the most part are being written off as Best Picture contenders. The Oscar pundits, she believes, aren’t helping either:

    Twenty-three films on the Gurus of Gold Best Picture chart and of those, not a single damned one is directed by a woman. That’s just sad — both generally speaking, and because I’m rather shocked that Frozen River, at least, hasn’t manbaged to garner even a single vote in its favor. The only femme-helmed film even showing up on the Gurus’ Best Pic chart is … The Secret Life of Bees? Seriously? No offense to that film, but Dakota and the Bees above Frozen River? I honestly cannot imagine an objective version of reality where the former is a better film artistically speaking. And don’t get me started on the mostly dreadful Body of Lies being anywhere on that list when Frozen River is not. Oy.

    She has a point, even if her argument is (I suspect consciously) on the naive side. The truth is that tiny, discomfiting films like “Frozen River” and “Wendy and Lucy” would likely never be deemed Best Picture contenders, no matter who directed them — though I wish that weren’t so, particularly in the latter film’s case.

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  • Italy leads the charge at European Film Awards

    Proof positive that 2008 is a banner year for Italian cinema: Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo,” both masterpieces of a very different stylistic ilk, lead all nominees for the European Film Awards, with five nominations apiece.

    Joing them in the hunt for Best European Film are “The Class” and “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which makes four of my favourite films of the year in the list. Rounding out the nominees in that category are “Waltz With Bashir” and “The Orphanage,” neither film one to be sniffed at either.

    By any standards, that’s one hell of a group — I would be very surprised if the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best Picture match that collective quality. I’d be hard pressed to pick a personal favourite, though my gut says the Italian nominees will split the vote, and the wonderful “The Class” will emerge victorious.

    Four of those six reappear in the Best European Director category, with Steve McQueen (“Hunger”) supplanting Mike Leigh as the British nominee in that race. More puzzlingly, Leigh is also absent in the Best European Screenwriter category — curious, since “Happy-Go-Lucky” strikes me as more of a writerly achievement than the nominated “Waltz With Bashir.”

    More thoughts, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.

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  • 11/1 Oscarweb Round-up

    Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky• Mark Olsen goes deep with Soderbergh on “Che.” [The Envelope]

    • Tom O’Neil chats it up with “Happy-Go-Lucky” star Sally Hawkins. [Gold Derby]

    • Jeffrey Wells susses through conflicting running time numbers for “Australia,” which, by the way, 25 days out from release, where the hell is this movie? [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Anne Thompson spends some quality time with Danny Boyle. [Variety]

    • Yeah, wait until you see Newton as Condi — if you can stand it. [The Guardian]

    • Anthony Breznican reports on the twisting and turning Oscar season of 2008. [USA Today]

    • Boy…Karina Longworth really doesn’t like Angelina Jolie’s work in “Changeling.”  [Spout Blog]

  • Does ‘Rachel’ have Oscar legs?

    One advantage of the hectic festival environment is that, while seeing more movies in a month than is medically advisable, it offers a pretty ruthless method of separating the wheat from the chaff. If a film still sticks in your mind after seeing a million others in such a compressed timeframe, it clearly has something special. (For me, those would be the films in my London Top Ten list.)

    On the other hand, there are a couple of films that, even if they seem quite impressive in the moment, ultimately get lost in the crush. And so it was with me and Jonathan Demme’s much-vaunted “Rachel Getting Married.”

    One of the first films I saw in the festival press screenings, I enjoyed it for the funky looseness of Demme’s direction and a couple of interestingly barbed performances — even if I didn’t quite get the ecstatic wave of praise that greeted it in the US. A month later, however, with numerous other films jostling for attention in my brain, I find it difficult to remember much about the film at all… and that goes for the actors too.

    Of course, that’s an entirely subjective test, one that is largely irrelevant to awards prognostication — there are still plenty of ardent devotees declaring it the best film of the year (huh?), and they will no doubt continue to do so. Still, something caught my attention yesterday which suggested I might not be alone. In their always-interesting Oscar Futures chart, those wicked guys at Vulture sense a downturn in momentum for Anne Hathaway in the Best Actress race:

    This category is getting pretty competitive — was she really as good as everybody thought two weeks ago?

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  • Ebert hearts Hawkins

    I happened upon this a week late, so apologies for that, but I still think it bears mentioning. It’s no secret that Roger Ebert is probably one of the few critics who means anything to Academy voters. Whether it’s true or not that his backing of such underdog contenders as “Crash” played into their victories, people thinking you wield that kind of influence is an influence in itself.

    What I’m saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that when Ebert gets truly excited about a film or a performer, the sun often shines a little brighter on their Oscar campaign. And someone whose publicist must be smiling is Sally Hawkins, a well-liked but comparatively low-profile contender who needs passionate support to come through in a crowded Best Actress race. And, in his glowing four-star review of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” passionate support is precisely what Ebert offers:

    Poppy is one of the most difficult roles any actress could be assigned. She must smile and be peppy and optimistic at (almost) all times, and do it naturally and convincingly, as if the sunshine comes from inside. That’s harder than playing Lady Macbeth. Sally Hawkins been in movies before, including Leigh’s “Vera Drake” and Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream,” but this is her star-making role. She was named best actress at Berlin 2008. I will deliberately employ a cliche: She is a joy to behold.

    (It’s) a role very few women could play. Maybe Meryl Streep could sustain that level of merriness, but then what can’t she do? And now I must ask, what can’t Hawkins do? There are countless ways she might have stepped wrong. But she breezes in on her bicycle and engages our deepest sympathy.

    That’s heady praise there. He is also deeply impressed by Hawkins’s co-star Eddie Marsan, describing his performance as “spellbinding.” I’m not saying Ebert strikes gold every time, but should he continue to champion Hawkins and the film to such an extent, some voters might just be listening.

  • ‘Hunger,’ ‘Bruges’ lead British Independent nominees

    The British Independent Film Awards are an odd, under-the-radar institution that frequently like to avoid the obvious and champion the underdog. Last year, for example, they bypassed the starrier likes of “Eastern Promises” and “Notes on a Scandal” to award their top prize to Anton Corbijn’s magnificent, under-rewarded “Control.” The previous year, they were even more daring: Best Film justly went to “This Is England” over “The Queen,” while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — gasp — lost to the unknown leads of Andrea Arnold’s “Red Road.”

    So it is this year that the nominations feature one doozy of a snub: while the top prize, Best British Independent Film, features such obvious contenders as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Hunger,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” is nowhere to be found. Ditto Best Director and Best Screenplay — the omission particularly galling when the likes of (gack) “Son of Rambow” made the cut. Did Leigh run over the voters’ dogs or something? Sanity at least prevailed in the acting categories, where Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan and the wonderful Alexis Zegerman all made the cut.

    Zegerman’s category, Best Supporting Actress, is an indication of how slim the pickings were this year: nods for the mediocre likes of Hayley Atwell in “The Duchess” and Sienna Miller in “The Edge of Love” don’t suggest a very deep pool of nominees. Meanwhile, Kristin Scott Thomas’ mention for the fun but flimsy trifle “Easy Virtue,” which I saw this morning at the Festival, is clearly an indirect nomination for her ineligible awards-bound work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

    Still, there’s plenty to cheer about here, not least the impressive showing for Martin McDonagh’s superb “In Bruges,” which jointly leads the field with “Hunger,” both films receiving seven nominations. The inevitability of the nominations for “Hunger” and “Slumdog Millionaire” doesn’t make them any less deserving, and “Man on Wire” is a pleasingly left-field choice in the top category.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Button’ rises, ‘Torino’ surfaces, ‘Doubt’ swoops

    Apologies for the slightly delayed wrap. Much to discuss this week — here are the highlights:

    • With some formerly hot prospects now off the radar, this week’s Off the Carpet column surveys the landscape, and concludes that things look good for “Benjamin Button.”

    • “The Soloist” withdrew as the AFI fest opener; their loss is “Doubt”‘s gain.

    • With a trailer for “Gran Torino” finally emerging, we wonder if Clint Eastwood is the real frontrunner for Best Actor.

    • The Gotham Independent Film Awards unveiled the season’s first set of nominees — good news for titles like “Ballast” and “The Visitor.”

    • More impressions from the London Film Festival, including hot foreign-language contender “The Class.”

    • Still in London, we caught up with “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s superb Best Supporting Actor contender, Eddie Marsan.

    • This week’s edition of Tech Support put Art Direction in the spotlight.

    • We were in a listmaking mood this week, rounding up some of the most scandalously unnominated actors of this era …

    • … while John Foote reminisced over his personal favourite movie moments.

    • And finally, who should host the Oscars? Our answer may surprise you.

  • 10/21 Oscarweb Round-up

    Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace• Kim Voynar sets up Film Essent at MCN. [Movie City News]

    • Tom O’Neil collects some more guesses from Oscar prognosticators. [Gold Derby]

    • And he reports that “Slumdog Millionaire”‘s Dev Patel will be campaigned as a supporting actor. [Gold Derby]

    • John Campea explores the reasons why “The Dark Knight” will land a Best Picture nomination in the wake of delayed and underwhelming competition. [The Movie Blog]

    • Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt discuss the Gotham nods. [indieWIRE]

    • Brooks Barnes looks into Wall Street’s creative affect on Hollywood. [New York Times]

    • Brad Brevet sits down with “Happy-Go-Lucky” helmer Mike Leigh. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Lauren Schuker looks at Paramount’s two release date retreats as a sign of the economic crisis. [Wall Street Journal]

    • The meteoric downfall of Roberto Benigni. [Spout Blog]

    • Anne Thompson had a good time watching “Quantum of Solace.” [Thompson on Hollywood]

  • INTERVIEW: Eddie Marsan

    Eddie MarsanIt is somehow fitting that I meet Eddie Marsan not in the lounge of some swanky West End hotel or members’ club, but amid the worn wooden chairs and scuffed 1970s wallpaper of his local pub in the villagey West London suburb of Chiswick. For Marsan is not a movie star, but an actor — and that’s the way he likes it.

    “I have friends who are leading men, and they’re only ever allowed to play leading men of a certain type,” he says over a lunchtime drink once we’re settled into a corner booth. “But as a character actor, there’s a wider variety of projects available. On the big Hollywood films, all they care about is having their lead in place, so it’s actually easier for someone like me to slip in. And I’m happy to do so.”

    “Slipping in” is precisely what the 39-year-old London native has been doing to impressive effect over the last couple of years. After a long apprenticeship in British television, he can now boast having worked with such A-list auteurs as Martin Scorsese (2002’s “Gangs of New York”), Terrence Malick (2005’s “The New World”), Michael Mann (2006’s “Miami Vice”) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu (2003’s “21 Grams”).

    2008, however, has been Marsan’s breakthrough year, with two major credits on opposite ends of the creative scale: an appearance opposite Will Smith in summer blockbuster “Hancock,” and now, a career-best performance in Mike Leigh’s serio-comedy “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is garnering well-deserved awards buzz for the actor in the supporting race.

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  • Updated predictions, but…

    …no column this week.  Seriously, what’s there to discuss?  The expected box office miss for “Body of Lies?”  The expected critical approval of “Happy-Go-Lucky” (which makes some strides this week)?  But I know people get ancy if the predictions aren’t updated, so I am here to be your savior.  Not a lot of shifting and sliding but some notable indications here and there.

    A quick note, however, regarding the “up” and “down” arrows you see on the charts each week.  It seems a few folks have been confused about their actual meaning, so let me reiterate that here.  Just because a contender has an arrow next to his or her name does not mean he or she has positive or negative buzz.  The arrows simply indicate that an entry has risen or fallen on the chart since the last update, and a rise or fall can be the result of any number of factors on the chart that might have nothing to do with the contender in question.  Keep that in mind.

    Here are this week’s updated predictions:

    Main Category Charts
    Technical Category Charts
    The Contenders
    Oscar Prediction Archives

  • U.S. critics wild for ‘Happy’

    Wow. I was expecting a warm Stateside reception for Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” but even so, this is exceptional. For those who place stock in such things, the film’s Metacritic score is sitting at 82, but more importantly, some top critics have fallen hard for this one.

    If the film’s awards hopes seemed to be slipping oh-so-slightly following a respectable but somewhat muted festival showing last month, these reviews should give it a second wind. Sally Hawkins, in particular, should gain traction in a crowded Best Actress field with amazing notices like this one from Stephanie Zacharek:

    Poppy’s cheerfulness isn’t a shield against reality … And that’s where both the boldness and the delicacy of Sally Hawkins’ performance come in. This is the finest performance of the year — though it’s only October, I can’t believe I’ll see anything better … Here, Leigh has given her the challenge of a lifetime — the kind of role an actress can play at just one point in her life — and she more than meets it.

    Zacharek is no less ecstatic on the film itself:

    It takes more than ambition, and more than money, to make an intimate masterpiece like Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a picture so seemingly light that it might be hours (or even days) before you realize how deep and rich it really is … Leigh and his actors work mysterious magic in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” This is a movie about hitting the groove of everyday life and, nearly miraculously, getting music out of it.

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  • Miramax Highlights goes live

    Miramax Films\' Happy-Go-LuckyFirst Paramount Vantage, then Universal, and now Miramax Films.  Studios are leaping into the online FYC phase of campaigns this season.  MiramaxHilights.com is showcasing three modest enterprises for contention: John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” (with a new poster I haven’t seen yet) and “Fernando Mereilles’s “Blindness.”

    There isn’t anything available for each film yet.  No screenplays or score downloads.  I assume that will come in time, as will category placements.  The biggest question mark for these films in that arena is whether Philip Seymour Hoffman is pushed as a lead or supporting actor in “Doubt.”  My guess is still the latter.

    Thanks to reader Jacob for the tip.

  • More than just happy

    I’ve already discussed how many critics seem to be misinterpreting Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” and its protagonist, Poppy, by interpreting it as a sheer feelgood work — and in doing so, missing much of the film’s complex, subtle social observation.

    So I’m glad to see that Mike Leigh has addressed the issue at a NYFF press conference. In this video courtesy of IFC.com, Leigh and the film’s star, Sally Hawkins, discuss with Lisa Schwarzbaum the issue of Poppy’s optimism, with Leigh stressing that there is a lot more to her character than simple cheeriness. First saying that “to desribe her as being unadulteratedly happy is not really to understand her at all,” her goes on to draw an interesting parallel between Poppy and the title character in the very differently-toned “Vera Drake.”

    Finally, with a grin, he insists that while “Happy-Go-Lucky” is indeed “anti-miserablist,” it’s not necessarily the start of a trend in his work: “Wait until you see how depressing the next film might be!”

    More from the conference here.

  • In defense of ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’

    Brad Brevet, over at Rope of Silicon, likes “Happy-Go-Lucky.” A lot. And like me, he’s a bit perturbed by some of the hostile criticism that has been lobbed at the film, and its protagonist Poppy in particular — such as Jeff Wells’ wildly off-base (to my mind) accusation that the film is guilty of “emotional fascism.”

    In response to such critiques, Brevet has written a smart, thoughtful defense of the film. (I praise it not only because he quotes extensively from my own review, though that’s an obvious point in its favour. Ha ha.) The core of his argument is that the film is less an isolated character study than it is a study of its own audience, and how they respond to character:

    Happy-Go-Lucky was hardly about any of the characters in the film as much as it was about the audience watching the film. Taking that into consideration, film critics are perhaps the absolute best audience for this film. Critics of any sort can be cynical and jaded creatures and when confronted with someone that is altogether happy despite not having an abundant amount of wealth or status (i.e. Hollywood reasons to be happy) it annoys the cynical sort.

    I say this in general terms and without direction of blame or accusation, but it is what comes out of judging art as a profession. Why else would the most trying times for the film’s central character be met with the most glowing responses? As Lodge said, the character hasn’t changed … As much as Poppy may want to change the folks she encounters inside the film she ultimately ends up changing the people watching.

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  • Best Original Screenplay: beyond the obvious

    Everyone has a favourite Oscar category, and Best Original Screenplay is mine. It’s partly because I’m a screenwriter myself, so I feel a little more invested in the outcome. My evaluation of the category often comes down to the question: “Which screenplay do I most wish I’d written first?”

    More importantly, however, it’s the category where the Academy takes its greatest artistic risks. With the Best Picture category generally weighted towards adaptations, they often use Best Original Screenplay as a way to acknowledge the edgier, more adventurous work that voters can see the greatness of, but don’t yet have the guts to honour with their biggest prize. Hell, once in a blue moon they even give it to (gasp) a foreign-language film.

    It’s this convenient ghettoising mentality that ensures the likes of “Citizen Kane,” “The Red Balloon,” “Chinatown,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Talk to Her” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” don’t go empty-handed. Sure, it sucks that they couldn’t win more. And, being the Academy, they make more than their share of screw-ups. (Let’s try and forget that, in 1960, “Pillow Talk” beat — wait for it — “Wild Strawberries,” “North by Northwest” and “The 400 Blows,” shall we?) But they occasionally hit on an otherwise-snubbed masterpiece, and for that we should be grateful.

    This year’s Best Picture slate appears to be heavy on prestige adaptations, allowing for a more idiosyncratic ragbag of contenders on the Original Screenplay front, mixing familiar Academy-anointed favourites with some exciting new voices.

    There is, of course, a chance this could be a year when the paths of the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay races converge, principally in the shape of “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black. Already high hopes for “Milk” were amplified by an excellent trailer, and a number of Oscar clairvoyants are labelling it the front-runner in the top race. If this turns out to be the case, Black will likely benefit.

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  • Breakthrough for Hawkins and Franco

    As regular readers may know, I’ve been yammering on about a Best Actress nomination for “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s delightful Sally Hawkins since I reviewed the film back in April. So I’m pleased to see that Hawkins will receive the Breakthrough Actress award at next month’s Hollywood Film Awards.

    As I said when they named their crafts honorees earlier this month, I’m a bit mystified by these awards, which appear to honour as-yet-unseen films rather frequently. Still, it’s difficult to argue with this selection: in a crowded field of Best Actress contenders, Hawkins is the freshest face out there. It’s a good omen for her Oscar chances — last year’s honoree was Ellen Page.

    “Happy-Go-Lucky” didn’t emerge from the festival circuit with quite the amount of heat I hoped it might, but Hawkins remains a solid contender for awards consideration. As we know now, the performance has a major Marmite factor — people either love or hate Hawkins’ character — but it’s sure to stick in people’s minds.

    Elsewhere, the Breakthrough Actor award went to James Franco — another obvious choice, and a move that gives credence to the Best Supporting Actor buzz for his performance in “Milk,” something Kris just discussed.

    “Milk” scored twice with the awards, with newbie (not that you’d know it from the marketing) scripter Dustin Lance Black named Breakthrough Screenwriter. Meanwhile, “Doubt” helmer John Patrick Shanley picked up Breakthrough Director. The latter strikes me as something of a safe choice in a year that has given us stellar debuts from such talents as Martin McDonagh and Philippe Claudel, but we only have the trailer to go on.

    Finally, pointing to two Oscar inevitabilities, the Animation award will go to Andrew Stanton for “WALL-E” (well, duh), while “Iron Man” will be recognised for its visual effects.

  • “An Oscar-less Toronto” — but not for Searchlight

    Anybody who’s kept even half an eye on film news recently knows by now that, compared to previous years, the consecutive Venice and Toronto festivals have done little to illuminate the Oscar race. (Unless, I suppose, you were one of those predicting major glory for “Miracle at St. Anna.”)

    The Hollywood Reporter adds their verdict to the pile here, quoting an executive as declaring the fest “an Oscar-less Toronto.” There’s little new perspective in the article, but it’s a handy enough precis. They do think one race has benefited from the festival:

    But the festival might have helped clarify at least one category: the best actress race. The beneficiaries have been Anne Hathaway in Jonathan Demme’s dysfunctional-family drama “Rachel Getting Married”; Sally Hawkins in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” the Mike Leigh film about a chipper young schoolteacher; and, if Searchlight chooses to make an awards push for her, “The Secret Life of Bees” star Dakota Fanning.

    Hmmm. It’s not as if Hathaway and Hawkins weren’t deemed contenders before Toronto. (The Golden Globes may as well drop the other three slots for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, right?) And Dakota Fanning? With those reviews? Yeah, right.

    In any case, as they acknowledge, Searchlight has other priorities now, having nabbed the two hottest Toronto titles:

    The lone film that has emerged as a genuine standout is Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” which went in as a question mark and will leave as a contender in pretty much every major awards category. To a lesser extent, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” also is generating awards talk, though its cast is entirely unknown.

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