The prediction that we’re making here will come as a surprise to no one except possibly myself. Because no film’s narrative this awards season has felt as media-manufactured to me as that of Sarah Polley’s Women Talking. Before it even premiered at Telluride, the film was being pegged as a major Oscar pony, and for all the expected reasons. And it was a narrative that hardly changed even after the film was seen and failed to set the world on fire.
As such, we were going to call this race for All Quiet on the Western Front, a film with a very strong anti-war message that, following its BAFTA sweep, is peaking at absolutely the right time. It doesn’t hurt that Edward Berger’s film is adapted from a landmark novel by one of Germany’s most famous writers. And that the film is defined more by its images than its words might not matter to fans of the film (those nine nominations tell no lies), so much so that those voters will have no reservations about choosing it over the film that’s almost entirely defined by its words.
And then Marky Mark happened. This year, the best actress Oscar race has become a kind of culture war ground zero, but mini versions of that war are being waged elsewhere. Wahlberg didn’t ignite one at the SAG Awards when he mispronounced the title of Polley’s film as Women Are Talking so much as he unintentionally but perfectly underlined one of its messages about the trouble that men have when it comes to actually listening to women.
Wahlberg’s faux pas may have been innocent, but for others, joking about Women Talking’s title has come easy and quite deliberately. Not only has this elevated the profile of the film, it’s also given Polley ample material for her own jabs at her critics’ expense, most recently at the WGA Awards, where she collected the award for adapted screenplay. And that this all played out on the last few days of Oscar voting may just be enough to tip the scales in Polley’s favor.
Will Win: Women Talking
Could Win: All Quiet on the Western Front
Should Win: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
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I did not get Glass Onion, could you tell us why it should win?
well your wanting glass onion to win says a lot about your taste or tastelessness. This was one of the worst films of the year with a sloppy screenplay, bad acting and a confusing plot. Then there were none.