The Oscar race starts now
6 burning questions emerging at Toronto Film Festival
Can you feel the promise of Oscar gold in the air? Thursday marked the launch of Toronto International Film Festival, where A-list stars including George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon will show off their wares. Here are our six burning questions going in.
Q: Which movies will break out of the pack?
A: A tepid response in Toronto can sound a death knell for Oscar hopefuls, while a standing ovation means a strong advance toward the Academy Awards stage. This year, interest is brewing in social satire “Downsizing” (starring Matt Damon); Guillermo del Toro’s Cold War-era fairy tale “The Shape of Water” ; power producer Harvey Weinstein’s “The Current War,” about the battle over electricity in Thomas Edison’s era (starring Benedict Cumberbatch); and Emma Stone’s Billie Jean King biopic, “Battle of the Sexes.”
The best-picture race is “so wide open at this point,” says Dave Karger, special correspondent for IMDb.com. “Nothing except for “Dunkirk” seems to be a sure thing. There are a lot of spaces to be filled.”
Q: Who is already gunning for best actor?
A: All eyes are on Gary Oldman, who takes on the Winston Churchill biopic “Darkest Hour.” “Word is good,” says Anne Thompson, editor at large for film industry news site Indie Wire.
Though hopes are high for Oldman, Toronto is also “where he could stumble,” says Tom O’Neil, founder of awards prognostication site GoldDerby.com. “Is this just another Churchill biopic? It needs to work very hard not to be.”
Damon has two horses in this race: “Suburbicon,” playing an Everyman-turned-murderer in the suburbs, and “Downsizing,” as a man who takes a financial incentive to become miniaturized as a solution to overpopulation.
Q: Will “Mother!” be director Darren Aronofsky’s next “Black Swan”?
A: Everyone seems curious about Aronofsky’s latest psychological thriller, which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as a couple who renovate an old home and receive a peculiar collection of surprise visitors. “I’m curious to see if it can rise to the level of Black
Swan, which was a film that took horror elements but really transcended any genre,” says Karger. “Can “Mother!” match that?”
Adds Thompson: “What’s great about Darren Aronofsky is he can surprise us and give us images we haven’t seen before, even if they’re disturbing.”
Q: What’s the word on Clooney’s movie?
A: The new dad of twins is bringing “Suburbicon” (and perhaps Amal?) to Toronto, a dark look at American values based on a Coen Brothers script and starring Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. Clooney last directed the disappointing “Monuments Men,” so the question becomes whether his 1950s-set satire can capture Oscar voters. “The Academy crowd really loves their Clooney,” says O’Neil. “There’s a lot of goodwill behind Clooney, hoping for the best.”
But “Suburbicon” arrived to so-so reviews at Venice Film Festival. “I’m always so interested
in what George Clooney is up to, but he’s yet to direct a movie that was huge commercially,” says Karger. “So my question is whether ‘Suburbicon,’ will be that for him?”
Q: What about best actress?
A: The race is wide open, particularly with Meryl Streep’s “The Post” still waiting in the wings (it won’t be at the fest). But Toronto is where breakouts happen: “It’s where we saw Brie Larson break out with ‘Room’ and become the front-runner,” O’Neil says. “That’s going to happen with Sally Hawkins in ‘The Shape of Water’ and Saoirse Ronan in ‘Lady Bird.’”
Most agree that Judi Dench, who reprises her Oscar-nominated Queen Victoria (from 1997’s “Mrs. Brown”) in the new “Victoria & Abdul,” also has a strong shot. And Stone could serve up a return to trip the Oscars playing tennis superstar King.
“The best-actress race will look very different after Toronto than it does now,” says O’Neil.
Q: So, who are the wild cards?
A: Let’s talk about Margot Robbie. The actress takes on Tonya Harding in the highly anticipated “I, Tonya,” which will open on the prime second night of the festival without a distributor, much as Natalie Portman’s “Jackie” did last year before it swept into the Oscars race. “‘I, Tonya’ is standing out as one of the most high-profile buys,” says Thompson.
Other question marks include Angelina Jolie’s Netflix original “First They Killed My Father,” Denzel Washington’s “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” (a late entry to Toronto’s lineup) and Dees Rees’ “Mudbound,” a segregationist post-WWII tale snapped up by Netflix at Sundance Film Festival.
Finally, will Oscar odds coalesce around “Molly’s Game,” a poker drama directed by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jessica Chastain? “Hollywood has been desperate for years to give an Oscar to Jessica Chastain,” O’Neil says. If the film is wellreceived, “she could finally find the pony she can ride to victory.”