One film directed by a woman has entered the talk for Best Picture all because Anne Thompson has put herself behind it. She’s going it alone, as far as I can tell, but she did the very same thing last year with the Grand Budapest Hotel. Virtually everyone in the Oscar punditry world did not think it had the stuff to last through to the end of the year. She did and it did. Now she has Diary of a Teenage Girl listed not just for frontrunner status but for Best Actress as well.
Thompson does not predict films she hasn’t seen but instead puts them in the contender categories. That’s why Jennifer Lawrence, a near slam dunk for Joy, is listed as a contender and not a frontrunner. She does this in opposition to the majority of pundits online. Here is her Best Picture frontrunner list at the moment:
Best motion picture of the year
Frontrunners:
“Carol”
“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”
“Inside Out”
“Love & Mercy”
“Mad Max: Fury Road”
Contenders:
“Bridge of Spies”
“Clouds of Sils Maria”
“The Danish Girl”
“The Hateful Eight”
“Joy”
“The Martian”
“The Revenant”
“Son of Saul”
“Suffragette”
“Trumbo”
“The Walk”
And for directing she has:
Achievement in directing
Frontrunners:
Olivier Assayas (“Clouds of Sils Maria”)
Pete Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen (“Inside Out”)
Todd Haynes (“Carol”)
Marielle Heller (“Diary of a Teenage Girl”)
George Miller (“Mad Max: Fury Road”)
Contenders:
Danny Boyle (“Steve Jobs”)
John Crowley (“Brooklyn”)
Sarah Gavron (“Suffragette”)
Tom Hooper (“The Danish Girl”)
Jay Roach (“Trumbo”)
David O. Russell (“Joy”)
Ridley Scott (“The Martian”)
Steven Spielberg (“Bridge of Spies”)
Quentin Tarantino (“The Hard Eight”)
Bob Zemeckis (“The Walk”)
Probably none of her frontrunners in this category will get in. I’d be willing to bet money on it. But nonetheless, it’s heartening to see two names popping up here from the female side — Marielle Heller for Diary of a Teenage Girl and Sarah Gavron for Suffragette.
Diary of a Teenage Girl has six positive reviews on Metacritic, though none of them, at least so far, hit the 100 mark. There is still hope for it, particularly with Thompson putting her chips behind it this early.
