Oscar Indifference 2009

I'm finding it very difficult to get jazzed about the Oscars in any way this year. Perhaps this is because I'm in a weird transitional space lately -- looking for work, moving to a new apartment, haphazardly monitoring my money while occasionally splurging on shit I don't need -- or perhaps it's because 2008 was just a thoroughly weak year for American movies. Everything was a little too precious, a little too manicured, a little too much like a lot of what has done before.

And so we have a fairly generic slate of Best Picture nominees, with the obligatory nods to war ("The Reader", materializing out of nowhere with five nominations), CGI spectacle ("Benjamin Button", an ideal premise for a short film, inexplicably stretched to fill three hours), and the Famous and Important People Biopic ("Milk" and "Frost/Nixon", both serviceable and often engaging).

"Slumdog Millionaire", genial and vigorous and ultimately smacking of youth and optimism and Bollywood softshoe, can't help but feel fresh by comparison. But is it truly a remarkable achievement in filmmaking? I'm not so sure. A closer look:

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
You'd think that thirteen nominations would make "Button" the heavyweight at this year's ceremony. It's got pedigree, it's blatantly emotionally manipulative (in the sort of predictable gather-ye-rosebuds way that Oscar voters seem to love), and its formidable budget (a stimulus package of $150 million) really is up there on the screen. Yes, there is some great CGI. There is also some crappy CGI. Ironically, however, time hasn't been kind to "Button" -- the more distance audiences and critics have put between themselves and the film, the more they seem to have come to recognize this is a slow, syrupy and narratively aimless slog. What is the message of this film? That time is precious? That if love becomes difficult it should be abandoned for the sake of your offspring? That age is but a number and 80-year-olds and 10-year-olds can fall in love as they please? Roger Ebert pointed out that it wouldn't make much difference whether Button aged backward or forward because, ultimately, he has no objectives. I couldn't agree more. A film ostensibly addressing the fact that time is precious should at least aim for a two-hour running time.

FROST/NIXON
Solid, smart, and with a clarity of purpose that none of the other Best Picture nominees have. I was never completely sold on Frank Langella as Nixon, but it's an admirable effort considering President Nixon has become a larger-than-life caricature in his own right. Surprisingly, the film is at its most exciting when we're getting to know Frost and Nixon as men, both of them privately desperate to be more than the sum of their parts. Great character work and editing let us get to know these guys quickly -- both smart and capable and sad men -- and then the film becomes something more conventional and restrained once the interviews kick in. Still, Michael Sheen makes this film better than it probably deserves to be, and is Langella's equal, scene for scene, in what is truly the lead role. He should've been nominated, primarily for skillfully allowing Frost to walk a line between smarm and pathos without falling onto one side or the other too definitively.

MILK
Given the electric, non-conformist, change-the-world nature of its protagonist, I was surprised to walk away from "Milk" with the sense that what I had seen was a fairly traditional biopic that was bolstered by a truly remarkable set of performances. On paper, "Milk" is a story we've all seen 1,000 times, hitting what most screenwriting books would say are all the "right" notes in conveying its hero's rise to prominence and his weathering of personal tragedies, his shoring up of friends and allies into a coalition of a vocal minority before everything begins to crumble around him. But screenwriting isn't mathematics, and I couldn't escape the feeling that "Milk" plays it too safe given the magnitude of its subject matter, and takes no real risks in its exploration of conflicts between Milk and his team or between Milk and his detractors. Like "Ray", it's a good biopic with some compelling moments, but it unfortunately never gels into much more than that, despite convincing and challenging and interesting performances from Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch. Penn's performance is what I will most remember, though the film never rises to the level of charisma or fervor I assume Harvey Milk must have had.

THE READER
Strangely overrated and underrated at the same time, "The Reader" isn't exactly deserving of its Best Picture nomination, but it's by no means a lame duck, either. Kate Winslet moves delicately between confidence and sympathetic insecurity as a lonely woman who becomes sexually involved with a fifteen-year-old boy. The power dynamic the pair navigates both sexually and intellectually is fascinating (if not entirely believable, since the world outside of their affair is so minimally explored and nothing seems to threaten their regular hot and sweaty meet-ups.) David Kross is very good as Kate Winslet's plaything (lucky shit!), but once the film jumps ahead in time to the exposure of a secret Kate's character had long kept hidden, its story shifts gears in a major way, requiring Kate's dexterity and conviction as a performer to keep it afloat. She does, and will probably get an Oscar as a result. But it is Winslet's character's Big Secret which is both the primary tease of the film and also the story's undoing, as we are ultimately asked to believe in redemption by way of a few relatively tangential accomplishments. If it seems like I'm being intentionally vague -- I am. After all, you might want to go see the film for yourself. I recommend it, but not with as much enthusiasm as I'd like.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
"Slumdog Millionaire" is the odds-on favorite to win tomorrow night, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Though its leads get by more on charm and earnestness than on acting ability, sometimes charm is enough to carry the day. "Slumdog" is essentially candy, parable, and hyperactive youth-driven adventure all wrapped into one glossy, grungy, suspiciously Hollywood-ized package. It's a deft mash-up of high and low culture, both in its employment of quiz show structure and its race through poverty-stricken Mumbai tempered by a soundtrack that features MIA. Somehow, though, this mostly works on the all-important level of audience engagement. I'd be lying if I said I didn't check my watch a couple of times, which I think was mostly due to the story's episodic structure, as the plot presses forward from one trivia question and answer to the next in an inevitable progression towards Winning the Love of the Girl and the Money. Still, there's an unmistakable boldness to its presentation (our teenage hero is tortured within the first few minutes!) and I enjoyed and admired its energy in a year where energy on the big screen was in short supply. "Slumdog Millionaire" is exactly the sort of film for which my brain says no and my heart says yes, and in this case I'm leaning towards my heart.

WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire
SHOULD WIN: Slumdog Millionaire (with reservations. Frost/Nixon is my close #2)