A Guide to the Oscars

Who even watches the Oscars?” said First Things editor R. R. Reno when I proposed to write this article. Around twenty million people, it turns out. Although it’s true that viewership for the Academy Awards has been declining over the past few years, the Oscars are still a litmus test for contemporary, dominant culture. If you plan on tuning in this Sunday, here is a rundown of all the films nominated for Best Picture. I watched them so you don’t have to.

The Brutalist

Three and a half hours long, with a twenty-minute intermission, The Brutalist follows László Tóth, a Jewish architect and immigrant, as he attempts to rebuild his life in the aftermath of World War II. (I’m encouraged by the fact that Hollywood is still making longer films, in spite of the “brain rot” plaguing our TikTok society.) The film’s cinematography, acting, script, and score are all excellent. Yet I ultimately cannot recommend The Brutalist. When Harrison Lee Van Buren, an industrialist and Tóth’s patron, rapes him out of jealousy for his beauty and artistic ability, all subtlety is thrown out the window. It does not take a genius to realize that Brady Corbet, the film’s writer and director, is using buildings as an analogy for filmmaking. The film has remarkably little to say about architecture or brutalism. It’s a film about artists, not about art.

I predict it will take home the Oscar.

I’m Still Here

The “far right” attempted to boycott this film in Brazil. As such, I went into it expecting leftist propaganda. It may very well be, but I’m Still Here hit me like a gut punch nevertheless. The film follows the real-life story of Eunice Paiva (and her five children) in 1970s Brazil, as she grieves the forced disappearance and murder of her husband, Rubens Paiva, at the hands of the country’s right-wing military dictatorship.

Some have accused the film of cherry-picking an uncommon and particularly tragic case, as well as downplaying Rubens’s communist ties, in order to push a leftist narrative. I cannot speak to whether these accusations are accurate. What I do know is that Fernanda Torres gives a career-defining performance in a movie that might as well be a horror story for anyone who is a father. In that sense, the film is a brilliant and moving achievement.

Anora

Anora is about a Brooklyn prostitute. It’s essentially a goofball romantic comedy. After Anora elopes with Vanya, the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch, hilarity ensues, as his family does everything in their power to separate the couple. The family’s goons soon arrive and embark with Anora on a city-wide manhunt to find Vanya after he runs away. Sean Baker, the film’s director, is known for his humanizing films about “sex workers.” But what most impressed me about Anora was his ability to humanize and sympathize with the goons. One of them, Igor (brilliantly played by Yuri Borisov), is paradoxically a man of virtue and innocence who attempts to form a true romantic attachment with Anora.

Anora is a brilliant exposé of what objectification does to the objectifier and the objectified. The results are never pretty either way. I just wish Baker would realize that “sex work,” which he has so much interest in humanizing, cannot be separated from objectification. It is dehumanizing in and of itself.

The Substance

The Substance, a body horror film, follows the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a TV star past her prime. In an effort to recapture her youthful looks and success, she injects a “substance” into her body that causes her to spawn a younger version of herself with whom she must share a consciousness. Problems and disgusting prosthetics ensue when the two bodies inevitably start thinking of themselves as separate people.

The film is a commentary on Hollywood’s unrealistic standards for women’s bodies. Although it does a good job of “hypnotizing” the viewer with its aesthetic, it is ultimately superficial and lacks any subtlety whatsoever. In other words, it lacks substance. The TV producer, Harvey (see what they did there?), might as well be a cartoon character. While struggling to urinate in a bathroom, he yells at his phone, “We need her young, we need her hot, and we need her now!” Take away the tired feminist messaging, and you are left with only shock value. Our supply of shock is plentiful as it is.

Dune: Part Two

Frank Herbert’s Dune was said to be unadaptable. But Denis Villeneuve managed to pull off the impossible. Villeneuve, who can be described as the new David Lean, proved his mastery of the science fiction genre with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Dune solidifies his place among the best directors working today. Many lament that Hollywood “is not what it used to be,” unable to produce an era-defining spectacle. Dune proves that our problem is not a lack of talent, but a lack of support for artists of great vision and skill.

Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez, a musical (with songs, dance numbers, the whole enchilada), follows a lawyer in Mexico as she helps a drug lord undergo gender reassignment surgery. Many of my friends believed that I would be incensed by the film’s representation of my home country and its culture. I’m afraid I must disappoint them. The film is not good, by any means; it’s also not outrageously bad.

Although the movie is not remarkable, the drama surrounding it is. After Hollywood “selected” Emilia Pérez as this year’s avatar of the “trans experience,” its success on the award season path was all but assured; it beat Wicked in the Best Musical category at the Golden Globes. Yet from Mexican anger over Selina Gomez’s lousy Spanish, to insensitive interviews given by the film’s French director, to the resurfacing of racist tweets by Carlos (now Karla) Gascón, who plays the drug lord, the film has been mired in scandal, angering audiences both on the left and the right. I predict that its luck will run out and it won’t be taking home any awards.

A Complete Unknown

Everything that can be said about this film has already been said by First Things contributor Eddie LaRow. You can find his review here.

Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys follows Elwood and Turner, two black students in early-1960s Tallahassee who are unjustly sent to an abusive and racist reform school. The story is, in itself, completely unremarkable. We’ve seen this a million times before. Its selling point, however, is that it was shot completely in the first-person perspective. Does this elevate Nickel Boys above mediocrity? Sadly, no.

While this gimmick does grant the audience a handful of interesting shots, it grows stale after a while. It also creates a number of awkward scenes where one can tell that the camera doesn’t quite fit where it should, as well as some questionable acting by those forced to look directly at the camera. If this movie wins the Oscar for Best Picture, it will suffer the same fate as Moonlight and The Green Book: obsolescence.

Conclave

Vere Papa mortuus est, and so a conclave must convene to elect the next pope. Conclave’s “problematic” theology has been written about ad nauseam by various thoughtful writers (see senior editor Dan Hitchens’s review here). The script misunderstands the purpose of the Chair of Saint Peter, seems to condone the breaking of the seal of confession, and is fine with the selection of a pope that could cause a serious crisis of legitimacy as long as he has the “correct” views on politics.

Despite its suspect ecclesiology, the film’s vibes were “immaculate” (to borrow a Gen Z phrase). The scenery, the clothing, the acting, all speak to a longing for spiritual greatness, a greatness that the Church once embodied but has visibly diminished over the last few pontificates. After the film was released, a deluge of memes hit the internet that largely ignored the plotline, focusing instead on the film’s aesthetics. Cardinal Tedesco, the movie’s conservative “villain,” has become an internet icon with his cool demeanor and vape pen. The liberal cardinals have been easily forgotten. Perhaps, then, the film has inadvertently become a net positive for the conservative side of Catholicism.

Wicked

Every year, the academy gives one or two Best Picture nominations to blockbuster movies as a consolation prize for general audiences. If you are an average American, this may be the only film on the list you actually saw (or heard of), so I won’t go into detail. But if you are interested in further thoughts on this year’s favorite musical, you can read my review here.