An Emilia Perez Best Picture win seems inevitable to me
Having seen the top 8 movies contending for best picture now (sorry Nickel Boys and I’m Still Here), I honestly can’t see any of them winning best picture besides Emilia Perez. This is mostly due to weak competition.
I can’t see Anora winning. It’s been doing decent with precursors so far, but i feel like a small indie comedy like this needs to overperform in order to get BP, while Anora has been losing some steam (especially with Mikey). One could immediately point out to Coda winning, but Coda:
Didn’t have frontrunner fatigue
Had a very likable story and cast of character. Anora is too layered to be instantly likable, and the rest of the gang are (funny) but mostly assholes.
Went up against a cold, calculated movie which was the frontrunner, which leads me to…
The Brutalist. I don’t really see it winning BP either, setting aside the AI “drama”. Based on the movie itself, I can’t see general academy voters preferring a 3.5 hour depressing, slow, calculated movie over a fast paced, stylized, showy Emilia Perez. It just fits the “slow methodical critically acclaimed drama that wins director” mold that’s been seen with Roma and power of the dog.
Conclave could win. It’s likable, has an easy to follow story, has a message in the center of it. On paper a very strong movie (and my pick for #2). However, it underperformed on nomination day, missing cinematography and director, while Emilia Perez over performed. Plus, it seems like a very traditional movie that would win in the 90s-00s, but the academy has been willing to take some risk these past few years with Parasite, EEAAO, even Coda.
Wicked’s hype has died down a bit, and at this point doesn’t seem likely to win. It did overperform a bit on nomination day, but it would be hard to see the academy giving the first half of a two parter blockbuster best picture. It also missed director and Screenplay.
A Complete Unknown has been underestimated the whole season (I’ve thought that since it was somehow considered 11th for best picture). It also massively overperformed on nomination day. If it keeps up this momentum maybe it can Coda its way into best picture, but without major precursor evidence for now it’s hard to imagine that happening. Between the two Emilia Perez has obviously been performing much better.
Now, Emilia Perez. It’s got precursor support. It overperformed on nom day, got 13 nominations, the academy obviously loves it. It’s got a good package (plus, editing is a wide open race now and I even think Audiard might be underestimated in director). Got a director nom, which other critically “meh” movies like Green Book and Coda failed to get. The reviews aren’t even that bad! It’s certified fresh on rotten tomatoes and actually has around the same metacritic score as Coda and Green Book (higher than Green Book’s, actually).
The only negative, really, is the audience reaction. But how much of the very negative IMDb and RT audience scores are just due to a reactionary backlash and twitter bubblesphere? It had around an 80% audience score before the globes win, 50% after the globes win, and now a measly 23%. It’s obviously being at least somewhat review bombed. Do the general audiences really hate it as much as the internet would lead you to believe?
Again, this is a very tough year to predict (which is very exciting), but in my opinion at this current state of the race, Emilia Perez is leading. This could obviously change when stuff like PGA, SAG, and BAFTA happen, so I’m not trying to act like it’s a sure thing, but would be happy if my prediction comes true (as in, happy that my logic was right. I don’t hate Emilia Perez but like most of the other BP nominees better).