GOING FOR GOLD
Peter Howell gets the inside scoop from two Oscar voters,
This week, we’re handicapping the prospects of the eight Best Picture contenders at tonight’s Academy Awards. Today: Roma.
Quick pitch: Alfonso Cuaron’s neorealist B&W masterpiece, set in the early 1970s, salutes the women who raised him while also potently observing turbulent times. Indigenous worker Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), maid and nanny for an affluent Mexico City family, finds common cause with her boss (Marina de Tavira) when the men in their lives desert them. As their personal worlds shatter, social unrest erupts around them.
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Jorge Antonio Guerrero and Veronica García.
Written/directed by: Alfonso Cuaron Nominations: 10 Key early kudos: Critics’ Choice Best Picture/Director/Foreign Film; Golden Globes Best Director/Foreign Film; Directors Guild of America Best Director; Toronto Film Critics Association Best Picture/Director.
Box office (domestic, U.S. dollars): Netflix, not revealed. Ladbrokes odds: 1/3 William Hill odds: 2/7 Why it could win: This masterful memory drama by Cuaron seems to be the Oscar leader after vaulting through industry and critics awards. It has won more than 30 critics’ prizes, plus two Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America Award.
Why it might not: No foreign-language movie or Netflix release has ever won Best Picture. And the preferential ballot for this category may favour a more mainstream choice.
Howell’s line: It’s the odds-on favourite to win Best Picture — but so was La La Land in 2017.