Why Frankenstein Will Win Best Picture
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Less than a week now until the Oscars, and no less than 10 films are ramping up their campaigns in a last-minute push for the top prize of them all, Best Picture!
It's been a marvelous year for movies, and this race has been a fascinating one. It's certainly not quite as wide-open as last year's felt, and in fact, early indications were that we might be headed for a runaway coronation (as we've had twice in recent years, with Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once). But the wealth has begun to be spread a little more in recent awards shows, and two changes to this year-- a much later ceremony than usual and the requirement for all voters to screen all films before voting --both would seemingly favor the nominees with late-breaking momentum as opposed to the early ones.
What's more, I can't remember an Oscars with a more wide-open race in most of the acting categories; of the four, only one (Jessie Buckley for Best Actress) has been a constant winner, and even she doesn't feel like a guarantee, with the groundswell of support some of her fellow nominees have. Acting races can usually tip off a Best Picture race: Mikey Madison's "upset" over Demi Moore last year spelled a huge night for eventual Best Pic winner Anora. As such, with so much unknown in those categories, it's highly possible we get some chaos in the biggest of them all as well.
Those facts, as well as the Oscars' less predictable preferential voting system means that no nominee can truly be counted out of the race. Spotlight's and Moonlight's back-to-back upsets in 2016 and 2017, Parasite's stunner in 2020, and CODA's late surge in 2022 all taught us to expect the unexpected, so we're here to give fans of all 10 nominees reason to believe on Sunday the 15th.
Frankenstein is a film from a beloved, acclaimed director, adapted from extremely popular source material, and starring one of the chief elder millennial heartthrobs and one of the chief Gen Z heartthrobs, the latter an exciting breakout star. In other words, this movie felt like one tailor-made to score big at the Oscars. How could a period piece with Guillermo del Toro, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Elordi NOT be a smash success?
And yet, despite all the pieces it had, Frankenstein seemed to be met with a pretty muted reception, both among critics and moviegoers. The latter could probably be explained by the fact that Mary Shelley's novel has already been depicted in film many times over, but likely has much more to do with the fact that Netflix purchased the rights, meaning the film received only a limited screening around Halloween week. The more ambivalent critical reception-- it's the second lowest-reviewed of the Best Picture nominees per Metacritic, and the lone movie below it is F1, whose pedigree is obviously built on its mass appeal -- is certainly a good deal more surprising. But, crucially for this movie's Oscar odds, that has not translated to a muted reception on the awards circuit. Frankenstein has landed many a nomination at just about every major awards show, and amongst the nominees for the Best Picture equivalent at the Golden Globes, Critics' Choice, SAG, and Producers' Guild and Writers' Guild Awards. It also won Best International Film back in September, at the acclaimed Venice Film Festival. But, it should worth noting, it did not receive nearly as much love at any awards show like it did at the Oscars: it's the third-most nominated film of all on the night, with 9 nods in total.
It doesn't necessarily mean anything that only two films are more nominated at these awards than Frankenstein, but it certainly doesn't hurt the monster's chances. Maybe this really was “made for the Academy,” after all? In other words, while it may not have realized its potential with traditional critics or commercial audiences, that doesn't mean it didn't hit every bit as hard with members of the Academy as it seemed primed to do. It’s not unlike the Oscars to choose a favorite that confounded the viewing audience. In fact, Del Toro's previous (and still lone) Best Picture win could be described that way: The Shape of Water received more love than Frankenstein did, but it was far from the best-reviewed of the slate of nominees in 2017, and was nowhere near the cultural or cinephile sensation that some other nominees (like Get Out, Lady Bird, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread) were, and that didn't prevent del Toro from sweeping both Best Director and Best Picture. This is where the ranked choice voting format of the Oscars can again rear its head: just about every nominee has undergone some level of backlash or controversy, and thus has cause to be divisive. Might the universal appeal of the Mexican director and his lead actors win the day?
The latter point in particular could be key: it’s almost unheard of for a Best Picture winner to not include an acting winner, and in Jacob Elordi, they could have one. It's not common for a movie to pin its hopes on a nominee in the supporting roles, and the young Australian is the movie's lone acting nominee at these awards. But in one of the most wide open races in recent memory, Elordi, who already collected a win at the Critcis' Choice Awards, has a real shot at winning. If the much-discussed up-and-coming star is to take home a statuette, it could spell a real wave of goodwill for his movie, and good news for the biggest honor of all.
Comments