The race was wide open ahead of Saturday’s awards night in Venice, after a festival that featured a dark Marilyn Monroe biopic, an imprisoned Iranian director and a morbidly obese Brendan Fraser.
Critics were deeply divided on many of the 23 films in competition at the 79th Venice Film Festival, but it was a standout year for individual actors.
There was a huge standing ovation for Fraser, who made an unlikely comeback from the wilds of Hollywood as the 600-pound English professor in The Whale, sparking talk of Oscar nominations and a “Brendanaissance.”
Cate Blanchett is also an award winner for her performance as a classical music conductor in “Tar,” which takes a nuanced look at Cancel culture.
And Hugh Jackman’s performance as a father dealing with a depressed teenager on The Son has been called the best of his career.
While some reviewers found the Monroe biopic Blonde too unrelentingly dark, most were blown away by Cuban star Ana de Armas’ “wildly emotional” performance.
Sexual identity was a recurring theme throughout the 11-day festival, with Trace Lysette becoming the first trans actress to appear in a competition entry for Monica.
Last year’s Best Actress winner, Penelope Cruz, played the mother of a trans teenager in L’Immensita, whose director Emanuele Crialese admitted for the first time at his press conference that she was born a woman.
– Politics and protest –
A jury headed by actress Julianne Moore, which also includes Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, will select the winners.
A last-minute favorite for the Golden Lion grand prize is “No Bears” by Iranian Jafar Panahi, who was jailed in July for “propaganda against the system.” That was the subject of a flash mob protest on Friday’s Venice red carpet, led by Moore.
Another political film that received rave reviews was the documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which follows artist Nan Goldin and her fight against the Sackler family, blamed for the opioid crisis in the United States.
It’s the latest from Laura Poitras, the journalist who first contacted whistleblower Edward Snowden and won an Oscar for the resulting film, Citizensfour.
Also well loved in Venice was “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a pitch-black Irish comedy-drama chronicling the dispute between two friends, played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
“Argentinien 1985”, the true story of the lawyers who take on the country’s military junta, also received a lot of praise.
Venice is considered a launch pad for Oscar campaigns, with eight of the last 10 Oscars for best director going to films that premiered at the festival.
Netflix had been hoping for a big year, but Blonde tested the patience of many critics, as did Mexico’s two-time Academy Award winner Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrituto with his fantastic semi-autobiography Bardo.
The streamer is also behind “White Noise,” a scathing satire of US consumerism and academia starring Adam Driver – but that, too, drew mixed reactions from reviewers.
