If I were still attending Telluride, I’ve no doubt that the screening of Hamnet last night would be a life-changing experience. Those are to be had now only at film festivals, especially that one. It is not the biggest community of people attending — it’s too expensive, for one thing — and it narrows the demographic significantly. That means you’re in an ideal setting for the ideal cinematic experience, a room full of like-minded people doing what they love to do. It isn’t just that those saw Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet; it’s that they were the first-ever audience on the planet to see it. That does funny things to your head and your heart.
I’ve experienced it many times myself, and I know I would be as caught up in it. Sometimes those movies do well in the Oscars, like 12 Years a Slave. Sometimes they never capture that same magic — the splendour in the grass, the glory in the hour — as that one moment in the mountains of Telluride. The Oscar race is a slog. It is not really built to sustain the magic. It will forever be my biggest lament, after 26 years of covering the Oscars, that it has become such an exclusive experience, catering to some but not all.
Be that as it may, I am currently reading Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, the novel, or should I say listening to it. It is beautiful writing and imagery. Capturing it would only have required a sensitive, intelligent, talented artist like Chloé Zhao. But it is the kind of thing where, if you let the work be its authentic self, you can’t lose. So we already know it’s likely that the adapted screenplay will win. But can it also win Best Picture and Best Director, as Clarence Moye told me over text last night that it could?
Adapted Screenplay is a given. There is a good chance Jessie Buckley is now the defacto frontrunner for Best Actress and there aren’t many who will be able to top her performance, I’m guessing. If it is driven by this kind of intense emotion, it’s harder to, as Shakespeare would say, “put asunder.” Can it win Best Picture? Sure. Anything can win Best Picture. There are no rules on what kind of movie can win now, especially with the new Academy. It’s only a matter of consensus.
This is a painful sit, both the story and the movie. I already know without seeing it. Here is a quote from the book:
“What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any time, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. Never for a moment forget they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye, borne away from you like thistledown.”
And:
“Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as ‘slipping away’ or ‘peaceful’ has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.”
And:
“I find,’ he says, his voice still muffled, ‘that I am constantly wondering where he is. Where he has gone. It is like a wheel ceaselessly turning at the back of my mind. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, I am thinking: Where is he, where is he? He can’t have just vanished. He must be somewhere. All I have to do is find him. I look for him everywhere, in every street, in every crowd, in every audience. That’s what I am doing, when I look out at them all: I try to find him, or a version of him.”
I already know I can’t bear it. When you have a child, the second they are born and you hold them close, that is when the nightmare of worrying about them begins. It never leaves you. It clings to you day in and day out — like a low-frequency hum that is always there. So I imagine one’s greatest fear played out would be hard to watch on screen. But there is much beauty to the story and to the world Maggie O’Farrell has written that Chloé Zhao has now brought to life.
Some have said that Chloé Zhao can’t win a second Oscar so soon after winning for Nomadland in 2020. Sure, she can. If Anora can win Picture, Director, Screenplay AND Editing, along with Best Actress, anything can happen at the Oscars. This is especially true with the preferential ballot, which needs either passion to drive a winner without a second recount. But Hamnet also has the benefit of being a film these kinds of voters can get behind: feminist-leaning and directed by the history-making first woman of color director.
Hamnet is about intense grief, which can translate to catharsis for those who feel grief over how the election went and how the country is progressing. Remember, to understand the Oscars, to predict them, is to understand what drives a consensus to feel, and what drives them to vote.
The best thing Hamnet had going for it heading into this moment was that people were underestimating it. It wasn’t already placed atop lists of pundits. I was toying with it for Best Actress and Adapted Screenplay but not Picture or Director. Now, I expect it will or could become THE FRONTRUNNER, which will put some pressure on it to deliver, though it sounds like it does.
Can it win the Producers Guild? Well, Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes are among the producers. Can it win the Directors Guild? Sure. I think for Chloé Zhao, it would be a moment where the win felt less like a social justice kind of thing, as it did with Nomadland, and more like a thing where she deserved it, if you know what I mean. That would likely be the narrative that would propel it, should it go that way.
Sinners is, to me, the kind of film that should win Best Picture, but Film Twitter and the hive mind don’t seem like they are as behind that win. A win for Sinners would be more in keeping with an industry trying to save itself from complete and utter ruin: it’s an original story, filmed on large-format film, that has made over $300 million. A win for Hamnet is more in keeping with what the Oscars have become: “a perfect little world that doesn’t really need you,” to quote Laurie Anderson.
That doesn’t mean it is a bad choice. It just means this is the world as we know it now, within the confines of a community that is best reflected in the mountains of Telluride than anywhere else.
Glancing over the reception of other films seen at Venice and Telluride, only Hamnet seems to have the necessary juice to go all the way. Right now, I’d say there are three top contenders for Best Picture:
Hamnet
Sinners
Sentimental Value
Weaons (in my view, not the general consensus – it deserves to be there, anyway)
That’s four, leaving us with six.
Now, all eyes look to movies that haven’t been seen to see where they land, like:
One Battle After Another
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Wicked For Good
Frankenstein
House of Dynamite
Marty Supreme
The Lost Bus
Those that I think probably might not get there based one early takes, though they might not matter much, especially if those we haven’t seen are worse — never say never:
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere sounds more like a Best Actor showcase than a Best Picture contender. For one thing, you need hundreds of number-one votes for Picture with a group of voters who are not exactly the boomer demographic that would feel passionately about this — you never know, of course. A Best Actor contender can and often does drag a movie along with it.
After the Hunt is getting mixed reviews, though I know it will be my jam, and I’m eager to see it. Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri are likely safe as nominees, and it’s possible they can draw the movie in with them, but I don’t feel as confident about that.
Jay Kelly doesn’t seem to be the movie Netflix will get behind, and I imagine they’re pivoting to something else right about now. They have a large slate, as usual, with Frankenstein screening at Telluride too (and Venice), The Ballad of a Small Player, which sounds interesting but perhaps not as much of a sure thing as some had hoped. Perhaps Kathryn Bigelow’s movie will gain traction when it screens in Toronto. But I would imagine, just guessing here, that Frankenstein turns out to be their strongest.
There used to be a saying I had on my website, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away that said, “Nobody knows anything.” It is a quote by William Goldman about the movie business. When it comes to the Oscars, we do know something. We know what the whole thing will come down to, more or less.
The pundits are, I think, too quick to draw conclusions. They have to be, especially those who have built followings with people who read them and look to them to be “right” when it comes to Best Picture. You usually see this drama playing out on X, with announcements that so-and-so has removed such and such from their predictions. I think a movie like Hamnet can sometimes overshadow what the Oscar race is and bring it back to where it should be: looking at movies as works of art with the power to move people and leave them changed.
I wish I’d seen it. I wish I’d experienced that unique moment that can never be replicated. The experience is one thing, the movie is another. The question as to whether Hamnet can win Best Picture is not one that can be answered based on an experience like that. Of course it can, but it will depend on where the consensus goes and why.
