Why I'm Still Here Will Win Best Picture
One week 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. This also appears to be a far more competitive race than in years past, which has often spat out at best two-horse races (like The Power of the Dog vs. CODA in 2022, or 1917 vs. Parasite in 2020), but more often a runaway coronation (as we've had in the last two years, with Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once).
No, this one genuinely feels wide open in large part because of how many new names are up for the big awards. For the first time in history, the 5 Best Director nominees at these Oscars are all first-time nominees. Only 1 out of the combined Best Actor and Best Actress nominees has ever won an Oscar, and only 4 of them have even been nominated before. But it's not just the absence of bona fide star power helming the nominated movies; it's the fact that there isn't a traditional frontrunner, as a small handful of films have split honors across the awards circuit thus far.
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 2nd.
It wasn't all that long ago that it was rare and thus fairly noteworthy when a foreign film was nominated for Best Picture. Even as the category field expanded from its typical 5 to 8-10 nominees some 15 years ago, only once in the first many years of that expanded era did a single foreign language film land a vaunted nod. Yet, for the now seventh consecutive year, there is an international/foreign-language nominee among the field, and that's not the only feat; last year, there were an unprecedented two such nominees, and while neither one won the award, we did for the first (and still only) time get a foreign film winner 5 years ago. This year, the Brazilian drama I'm Still Here will try to avoid the fate of last year's Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest and instead replicate Parasite's feat in 2020 of stunning the World and breaking through with a Best Picture win.
I'm Still Here tells the true story of the family of Rubens Paiva, a dissident politician-turned-journalist "forcibly disappeared" by the right-wing Brazilian dictatorship. Much of the film specifically follows his wife Eunice and her children's (including Paiva's son Marcelo, whose memoir served as the basis for the screenplay) fight to learn both the whereabouts of and true story behind their husband/father. Despite its serious content and an organized far-right boycott, it opened # 1 in the Brazilian box office, and went on to become the highest-grossing Brazilian movie since the COVID-19 pandemic. Its unlikely success speaks to the power of word of mouth: if you make a movie that's, well, just good, people will watch it. And I'm Still Here is very good, most agree: it's comfortably among the best-reviewed Best Picture nominees, and the best-reviewed of all Best International Feature nominees, a field that includes fellow Best Pic contender Emilia Pérez. And speaking of the one-time Oscar favorite! I mentioned this in my argument for Wicked, and similar logic applies: while Emilia Pérez's star seems to have faded, its 13 nominations and longstanding position as Oscar frontrunner shows there is, indeed, a market for another foreign-language winner for top honors. The two films are nothing alike, it should be said, but might some of the motivation for would-be Emilia Pérez voters be a foreign-language film that prominently centers women's stories? And might that lead defectors to instead back I'm Still Here?
I think it's highly possible, but perhaps fortunately for Walter Salles's film's chances, there are two stronger arguments to be made that the Brazilian underdogs could rise to the top of a wide-open race. One is on the back of its star. Fernanda Torres is a tour de force as Eunice Paiva, and unsurprisingly, has positioned herself as a strong contender for Best Actress, having won a Golden Globe and Satellite Award already and landed nominations at the BAFTAs and Critics' Choice. She's considered only a slight underdog for the Oscar, and given her years of goodwill built up in the industry, as well as the sentimental story of her mother once being nominated for the same award. As pointed out the other day when discussing The Substance, it's become increasingly common for Best Picture wins to pair with wins for its lead actor or actress. Not a stretch, then, to imagine a sea of goodwill that lifts Torres to Best Actress would carry her film with her for Best Picture. The last, but certainly not least reason for belief is the times we live in. The second Trump inauguration and early days of his administration are factoring heavily on the consciousness of much of America, and it's not a stretch to imagine it may also weigh heavily on that of the Academy. Well, I'm Still Here depicts a real story of what happens to everyday people who dare to oppose the rise to and then abuse of power by a vindictive far-right authoritarian government... I'll let you connect the dots.
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