Last year, eventual best actress winner Jessica Chastain declared that she would be skipping the red carpet in order to show solidarity with the makeup team that turned her into Tammy Faye in Michael Showalter’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, as their category was among those cut from the main show in order to make room for, among other things, a tribute to James Bond. It was a nice gesture, but it also (probably inadvertently) highlighted just how much the makeup and hairstyling category has come to reflect the dynamics in the main acting races. The last five rounds have been won not by aliens, witches, or now-Senator J.D. Vance’s hillbillies, but rather by latex-assisted actorly transformations into real-life notables.
Which means that, once again this year, we’re left to parse a pretty tight race that feels, at least in the wake of the BAFTAs, like it might end up being settled vis-à-vis a last-minute interloper. Until recently, it seemed as though best actor frontrunner Austin Butler’s journey from swivel-hipped Memphis boy to Vegas-stranded “Fat Elvis” would be an even match against best actor almost-frontrunner Brendan Fraser’s journey from the couch to the candy drawer in The Whale. There’s no doubt that Darren Aronofsky’s film invites its captives to linger over every wrinkle and fold of the fat suit encasing Fraser as though patrons at a carnival freakshow, in a manner far removed from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, which in comparison revels in restraint (a word we still can’t believe we’re associating with that filmmaker). But there’s the rub.
BAFTA may have given Elvis the makeup prize last weekend, but they also gave Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front its biggest overall boost, and at just the right moment. Is it fair to surmise that the voters who are most apt to, correctly, be appalled at The Whale’s will end up splitting between All Quiet on the Western Front and Elvis, leaving an opening wide enough for The Whale to sail its way to a win? We’re going with our guts on this one.
Will Win: The Whale
Could Win: All Quiet on the Western Front
Should Win: Elvis
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