In Contention

Tag: The Young Victoria

  • Emily Blunt named British Artist of the Year

    Emily BluntOkay, let me get this out the way: I love Emily Blunt.

    On screen and off, she exudes smarts, class and a welcome streak of British eccentricity. Most still remember her principally as the girl who cut through “The Devil Wears Prada” like a hot knife through butter, though it was 2004’s “My Summer of Love” which best showcased her dramatic chops and tart sex appeal. Put simply, she’s got it.

    I did not, however, love Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria.” Usually so alert and thoughtful on camera, the actress is stifled by the bland dramatics and fussy styling of Jean-Marc Vallee’s royal biopic; a practised scene-stealer herself, she gets a taste of her own medicine as Rupert Friend walks off with the film, in an underwritten part to boot.

    Meanwhile, the film that was supposed to be her star-making vehicle (and awards breakthrough) instead got shrugged off by critics, as her name tumbled down the Oscar pundits’ lists.

    So why has BAFTA’s Los Angeles branch chosen this of all years to hand her the Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year?

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  • 11/2 Oscarweb Round-up

    Gabourey Sidibe• Brian Brooks sits down with “Precious” star Gabourey Sidibe. [indieWIRE]

    • Mark Harris on Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar: cinematic soul mates. [New York Times]

    • Mark Salisbury writes up “The Young Victoria” from across the pond with quotes from actress Emily Blunt and screenwriter Julian Fellowes. [Los Angeles Times]

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  • Calling the Best Picture wild cards

    Emily Blunt in The Young VictoriaTom O’Neil has pooled the thoughts of 16 awards-watchers on which 10 films will make the Best Picture cut, and the results make for ominously predictable reading.

    All 16 agree that “The Hurt Locker” and “Invictus” are in (I guess it’s just me holding out on the latter then), while there’s near-consensus on the likes of “Precious,” “Up in the Air,” “Up” … you get the idea. Yawn. At this rate, the switch to 10 nominees looks to sap any excitement from this stage of the race whatsoever.

    More interesting, then, is to venture further down the list to see what the pundits’ more out-on-a-limb picks are. One would like to think at least one of the slots has to be filled with something slightly less expected — otherwise what’s the point? So I turned my attention to the films receiving a solitary vote from one of O’Neil’s posse.

    Those hoping for a foreign-language contender in the mix (no, “Inglourious Basterds” does not count) might want to look away, as not a single punter has one on their list, while things look similarly grim for documentaries.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume II

    Diane Kruger in Inglourious BasterdsSince I last analyzed the costume design category in July, a number of the contenders are still waiting to be seen, though several have opened and we’ve seen glimpses from others. While the number of movers and shakers hasn’t been enormous, there has still been enough movement – and more insight gained – to warrant another look.

    One thing I do not think has changed since the summer is the category’s most likely nominee.  While I’m doubtful that she will win, I’m quite confident that Janet Patterson will earn her third nomination for Jane Campion’s “Bright Star.” While the film did not catch fire to quite the extent I was expecting, I’m nevertheless confident the threads will remain in this branch’s mind until the end of the year.

    In July, I was torn about whether Colleen Atwood could emerge as a double nominee this year. But “Public Enemies,” despite featuring fine period work, seems to have become a distant memory. Even so, I’d be very surprised if she failed to get nominated for Rob Marshall’s “Nine.”

    The great Sandy Powell, on the other hand, has had her three potential nominees reduced to one. With “The Tempest” and “Shutter Island” moved to 2010, it’s only “The Young Victoria” that is keeping her in the race. Powell is a giant in the field. But is the film at all memorable?

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  • Supporting actors, step forward

    Christoph Waltz in Inglourious BasterdsA while back, certain folks were (rather unfairly) dredging up the routine annual complaint about the supposed scarcity of viable Best Actress contenders. Dave Karger, however, has located the real weak spot of this year’s awards race, and it concerns the opposite sex for a change: where, he asks, are the Best Supporting Actor standouts?

    Pound for pound, I tend to find Best Supporting Actor the least compelling of the acting races, a haven for affectionately regarded stalwarts in bit parts that are frequently less than challenging. The last two years have raised the bar considerably, but recent wins for Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin and Michael Caine are typical of the laziness with which the Academy often treats the category.

    Even by the category’s usual standards, however, this year’s pickings look unusually lean, as Karger narrows the serious contenders so far to a scant three.

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  • Apparition will release ‘The Young Victoria’ Stateside

    Emily Blunt in The Young VictoriaBob Berney’s new outfit is filling out nicely, having acquired “Bright Star” out of Cannes, announcing plans to release Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” in 2009 last week and now, snatching the domestic rights to Jean-Marc Vallee’s “The Young Victoria.”  Anne Thompson has the scoop:

    Over the weekend, Apparition closed a U.S. distribution deal for Toronto Film Festival closer The Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt in what could be her breakout role carrying a movie as the youngest British monarch. As is typical these days, the new distrib run by Bob Berney and backer Bill Pohald did not put up a minimum guarantee, but rather beat out several competitors (including Miramax, Overture and Roadside Attractions) by committing to $4.5 million in P & A and a 250-screen release. Appariiton will open the movie November 13.

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  • ‘Young Victoria’ to close TIFF, Egoyan’s ‘Chloe’ added

    Rupert Friend and Emily Blunt in The Young VictoriaToronto is obviously digging the corsets this year. Weeks after Jon Amiel’s Charles Darwin biopic “Creation” was announced as the opening film of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, fest organizers have revealed that Jean-Marc Vallée’s “The Young Victoria” will close proceedings.

    This choice of bookends gives an odd symmetry to the festival schedule: both films are (or appear to be, since I haven’t seen “Creation” yet) old-fashioned Anglocentric period biopics with minimal buzz.

    The choice of “Victoria” is an unsurprising one, given that Vallée is a hometown boy whose last, considerably more interesting, effort “C.R.A.Z.Y.” won the Best Canadian Feature award at the 2005 festival. But it’s a disappointingly stiff choice for such a prime spot.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume I

    (from left) Ben Wishaw and Abbie Cornish in Bright StarMovie stars are often given much attention for the fashion that they sport off-screen. Seldom does the on-screen attire garner as much publicity.

    Nevertheless, the Academy Award for Best Costume Design recognizes those talented men and women who design the threads actors wear on screen. Not only does this work add to the elegance and authenticity of the film, but it can also express the character and the period, mood and setting of the piece.

    For the last three years, this category has chosen films which have highlighted the extravagant attire of the upper class from centuries ago. Period films almost always triumph in this field and, in fact, garner the vast majority of nominations, though a spot or two is usually reserved every year for a fantasy effort.

    This is also a category which tends to reward designers who have been around a long time, with most nominees every year having been in the race before, although a spot or two is almost always reserved for a newcomer as well. And unlike many other crafts categories, the costume branch does not seem averse to nominating a film which scores in few if any other places.

    The most likely nominee this year, if not the most likely winner (sight unseen, of course), might be Janet Patterson for “Bright Star.” This Jane Campion effort was very well received at Cannes in May and the crafts look exquisite. Patterson, who landed two of her three previous nominations for Campion collaborations (“The Piano” and “Portrait of a Lady”), looks likely to return to the race after 12 years. I’d be surprised if she failed to be nominated.

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  • Poking the Oscar stick at the distributorless

    Cover of The Men Who Stare at GoatsMichael Cieply, writing at The Carpetbagger (which, if you haven’t been aware, has been transformed into a year-round film blog at The New York Times rather than solely focusing on the awards season), has put up brief addressing a few titles that, as of yet, have no U.S. distributor but are very much on the minds of studios looking for latter year Oscar hopefuls.

    “It’s time to think about the Oscars,” Cieply writes, “or it is if you happen to be a film distributor with ambitions for the award season that, thankfully, won’t start for the rest of us until at least September.  At least a handful of movies with awards potential, but no U. S. distributor so far, are being watched closely by players in the game.”

    Cieply then goes on to list six titles in play: Alejandro Amenábar’s “Agora,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” Jon Amiel’s “Creation,” Jean-Marc Valle’s “The Young Victoria” (reviewed by Guy earlier this month — he wasn’t a fan), Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” and Grant Heslov’s “Men Who Stare at Goats.”  Three of those were listed specifically my year-in-advance Oscar column back in February and, of course, all but one have been listed in our contenders section for over a month.  The list comes from the mouth of an anonymous industry source who’s looking, however, so I’ll admit it has more stroke than my petty ponderings.

    The inclusion of the Weir film is a surprise, however.  Just last month actor Ed Harris told me he was off to Bulgaria to shoot his portion of the film, a historical epic revolving around escapees from a Siberian Gulag in 1940.  So that film is still very much in the making and likely won’t hit theaters (if I were to make my best guess) until 2010.

    Of the others, I would bet “Agora” could really hit the ground running this season if it isn’t dashed by its own ambitions.  The rest…well, we’ll see.

  • REVIEW: “The Young Victoria” (**)

    The Young VictoriaSomewhere out there, wherever such souls reside, Anne of Great Britain must be wondering what she had to do during her reign to merit her own prettily mounted biopic. She may be the last relatively untapped figure in British heritage cinema’s well-worn library of queenly narratives, but she has once more been passed over for the privilege of fronting the latest middlebrow, true-life royal drama, fast becoming an annual fixture on the UK film calendar.

    Instead, the powers that be (noting with reluctance that the lives of both Elizabeths have been sufficiently plundered of late) have returned to that old stalwart, Queen Victoria, for inspiration. Marginal inspiration, at that –- that “young” inserted in the title is intended as the film’s creative and commercial trump card, promising a sprightlier, sexier take on the figure more frequently depicted in her latter years as a stern, cabbage-faced matron.

    Indeed, from the sly casting of impish Emily Blunt in the title role to the Easter-egg hues of Sandy Powell’s typically immaculate frocks, Jean-Marc Vallee’s film works overtime to convince us that the 18-year-old Victoria could be very amused indeed: as Blunt barely suppresses laughter at a stiff royal function, or skips down a corridor after being informed of her impending coronation, she effectively severs any connection or comparison with Judi Dench’s Oscar-nominated interpretation of the role in “Mrs Brown.”

    Meanwhile, in depicting its subject as a modern woman suffocated by her surroundings and dated gender trappings, complete with adorable lapdog and an accent that is decidedly more Sloane Square circa 2009 than House of Hanover circa 1837, the film pulls a similar trick of characterization to last year’s “The Duchess.” Working, however, in an even softer register than that already lightweight film, “The Young Victoria” plays down court intrigue in favor of dewy-eyed first love; if “Elizabeth’s” populist coup was restyling royal history as political thriller, this lands squarely in rom-com territory, with Rupert Friend’s Prince Albert the dreamy yet ever-deferred suitor.

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  • ‘Young Victoria’ surfaces

    A lavishly mounted biopic of the eponymous British monarch that boasts Martin Scorsese among its producers, “The Young Victoria” seemed primed for Oscar consideration last year. Sandy Powell’s typically elaborate costumes were an apparent shoo-in, and some pundits had star-in-waiting Emily Blunt as a dark horse on their Best Actress lists — until the film was unceremoniously yanked from the 2008 schedule.

    Now, ahead of its UK release on March 6, the Telegraph offers an extensive profile of the film, declaring it “a vibrant celebration of a joyous and passionate Queen.” The film certainly has an interesting pedigree, pairing a quintessentially British writer (Julian Fellowes of “Gosford Park” fame) with a very adventurous choice of director, French-Canadian auteur Jean-Marc Vallée. Vallée’s last film, the funky gay-oriented family drama “C.R.A.Z.Y.,” has become something of a cult item, so it’ll be interesting to see what he brings to the table here.

    The cast, as you would expect, is mighty impressive, with Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Mark Strong and Rupert Friend (soon to be seen in “Chéri”) supporting Blunt, whose lead turn Fellowes describes as “one of those wonderful meetings of part and actress that doesn’t happen very often.” The trailer below is, I think, a little dourly cut, but with the level of talent involved, this could be one to watch.