Rebecca Ford: It was quite a week, and I feel confident in stating there was no one in the room at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night—the f
Rebecca Ford: It was quite a week, and I feel confident in stating there was no one in the room at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night—the final of four awards shows over three days last weekend—that wasn’t shocked when Anora won best picture, after having also won at the Directors Guild Awards just an hour earlier.
This whole season has been unpredictable, without a definitive front-runner since sort-of front-runner Emilia Pérez self-immolated. There are a lot of explanations for that, from the mix of very competitive films to the awards schedule shifting drastically after the LA fires. So when Sean Baker’s Anora won the top prize, not only at the Critics Choice, but then also at the DGA and PGA, it felt like we finally had one, which we discuss at length on this week’s episode of Little Gold Men. But how certain do you really feel about the Oscar best-picture leader now, David?
David Canfield: Pretty good! The extensive majority of films that win that trifecta go on to win the Oscar for best picture, and those that haven’t, do not exactly fit the profile of Anora. Take La La Land: This was a studio-backed, box-office smash that felt like a front-runner all season, until a diminutive, beloved indie called Moonlight took it down. A film of a similar profile, 1917, also won PGA and DGA, before losing the Oscar to an international underdog: Parasite. You get the idea: The Goliath ultimately gets slain.
But Anora is simply not a Goliath. To win with PGA and DGA as a true indie, which Anora is—just listen to a Baker acceptance speech—you need to have found a lot of love in the industry. And Anora has done that. You and I have heard as much for months, so we shouldn’t be surprised at this stage, even if things were starting to feel messy.
We have BAFTA and SAG left in terms of pivotal precursor awards shows, and Anora is up for the top award at both. The only other films that can say that are A Complete Unknown, which I do not think has what it takes at this stage; Emilia Pérez, dealt a seemingly fatal blow by the scandal of its star’s social media past; and Conclave, which conceivably could win both and position itself as a challenger. But SAG-snubbed The Brutalist also feels competitive at BAFTA, while the BAFTA-snubbed Wicked could be sturdy at SAG, which loves massive, uplifting blockbusters. All of which is to say: Behind Anora, it’s still very scattered, which only helps Anora, right? From my vantage point, it’s been out front all along, hiding in plain sight.
Ford: I will say that when I was at the first awards event of the week—the AFI Awards on Thursday—I began to think that Wicked might have a real chance at best picture. It’s a room full of Academy voters (tied to the top 10 TV shows and films of the year), and all the energy seemed to be directed at Wicked. That film got a huge applause when its clip played—granted, it was the “Defying Gravity” number, and it feels almost impossible not to clap during that musical feat—but also everyone in the room was coming up to the table to talk to Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Michelle Yeoh. Even Jeff Goldblum was whimsically making his way around for many hugs and congrats. When Jon M. Chu won a surprise best-director award at Critics Choice, I wondered even more if a best-picture Oscar might happen.
And though Conclave didn’t pick up a lot of hardware over those days (though they won best-ensemble and –adapted screenplay at Critics Choice), I agree with you, David, that it’s similar to Anora, because everyone also likes this movie very much. It’s not polarizing; it doesn’t have haters. On a preferential ballot, that means a lot.
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