Best Film
If there is a surprise here, it’s that Juno, the small independent comedy,
will be battling it out with four heavy-duty dramas. Academy voters clearly
see Juno, about a 16-year-old girl who decides to give up her baby for
adoption when she becomes pregnant, as a counterbalance to the bleak,
violent tone of the two leading nominees, There Will Be Blood and No Country
for Old Men, which have eight nominations each. The other two best picture
nominees – Atonement, based on Ian McEwan’s novel, and Michael Clayton, set
in the world of corporate law – each have seven. With the exception of Juno,
the choices show that “it’s a year of doom and gloom”, as Ella Taylor, film
critic for LA Weekly, puts it, “although it’s not clear if that represents
the mood of the country or the mood of liberal Hollywood”. My feeling is
that the Academy will recognise There Will Be Blood for its epic grandeur,
achieved on a surprisingly small budget.
Surprise omission: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
My prediction: There Will Be Blood
Best Director
The really big surprise here is Jason Reitman for Juno, showing just how much
the indie comedy has appealed to Oscar voters. Reitman won’t win, though;
neither will Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton. It’s between the Coens, for No
Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson, for There Will Be Blood and the
artist turned director Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly, about a magazine editor who writes his autobiography by blinking
after he is paralysed by a stroke. The Coens are probably favourites,
closely followed by Anderson. Both films have their detractors, though –
they are dark and violent, with problematic endings – so Julian Schnabel may
sneak past them. His Golden Globe win suggests voters may be impressed by
the film’s fresh, inspired vision.
Surprise omission: Sean Penn, Into the Wild
My prediction: Julian Schnabel Best Actor
Best actor
Daniel Day-Lewis’s harrowing portrayal of a brutal oilman, Daniel Plainview,
in There Will Be Blood has made him the odds-on frontrunner for best actor.
His only real competition will come from Hollywood favourite George Clooney,
as a scheming corporate lawyer in Michael Clayton. Johnny Depp, as Sweeney
Todd, Tommy Lee Jones, as a grieving father in In the Valley of Elah, and
Viggo Mortensen as a Russian mobster in Eastern Promises, have their fans,
but Jones seems to have been nominated as much for his small-town cop in No
Country for Old Men as for Elah. Sweeney Todd probably isn’t liked enough as
a film, while Mortensen has the drawback of being Eastern Promises’ only
nomination.
Surprise omission: Mathieu Amalric, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
My prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best actress
It’s really hard to see how anyone’s going to beat Julie Christie to the best
actress Oscar. Not only is she achingly moving as a woman succumbing to
Alzheimer’s in Away from Her, the Academy would love to bring one of
cinema’s most beautiful and accomplished actresses back to the stage to give
her a second Oscar, 38 years after she won her first, for Darling, in 1965.
In any other year, the French actress Marion Cotillard would have stood a
great chance, playing the French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en rose. And,
though Laura Linney gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as a middle-aged
woman dealing with her dying father in The Savages, and Ellen Page is
terrific as the feisty 16-year-old in Juno, it’s Christie’s to lose.
Surprise omission: Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
My prediction: Julie Christie
Best Supporting Actor and Actress
As usual, many of the most intriguing performances last year came in the
supporting categories. Javier Bardem is favourite to win best supporting
actor for his emotionless, psychopathic hit man with the weird hairdo in No
Country for Old Men. But the prolific Philip Seymour Hoffman, as a maverick
CIA agent in Charlie Wilson’s War, could surprise. Tom Wilkinson, who was
nominated once before, for In the Bedroom, is one of three actors nominated
for Michael Clayton. Hal Holbrook, 83 next month, would be the most popular
winner. Nominated for his role as a lonely old man in Into the Wild, he’s
the oldest male acting nominee in history.
Surprise omission: Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood.
My prediction: Javier Bardem
Cate Blanchett, also nominated in the best actress category for Elizabeth,
will be tough to beat, as one of the six actors playing Bob Dylan in I’m Not
There. (One of the others being Heath Ledger, who tragically died last
week.) Amy Ryan, playing the mother of a missing child in Gone Baby Gone, is
her main competitor. The film hasn’t been seen yet in the UK because of the
story’s echoes of the Madeleine McCann story. Blanchett is only the second
performer nominated for an Oscar for playing someone of the opposite sex,
the other being Linda Hunt, who played a half-Chinese photographer in The
Year of Living Dangerously (1982). And if Ruby Dee wins, as hoodlum Denzel
Washington’s mother in American Gangster, she’ll be, at 83 years old, the
oldest person ever to win an acting Oscar.
Surprise omission: Kelly Macdonald, No Country for Old Men
My prediction: Cate Blanchett
Best Screenplays
It will be surprising if Diablo Cody, stripper turned screenwriter, doesn’t
win best original screenplay for Juno, her first produced script. Cody has
the most original new Hollywood voice since Tarantino, and Juno has clearly
struck a nerve in middle America. Strong competition comes from Tony Gilroy,
for Michael Clayton, and from Brad Bird, surprisingly nominated for
Ratatouille. Surprise omission: Paul Haggis, In the Valley of Elah My
prediction: Diablo Cody Best adapted screenplay is the toughest category to
predict, with four films in serious contention: Atonement, written by
Christopher Hampton; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Ronald Harwood;
No Country for Old Men, by Joel and Ethan Coen; and There Will Be Blood, by
Paul Thomas Anderson. All are powerful, surprising adaptations, although
There Will Be Blood bears so little relation to its source, Upton Sinclair’s
Oil!, it’s almost an original screenplay.
Surprise omission: Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson’s War
My prediction: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
