Why Promising Young Woman Will Win Best Picture
'Tis the week before the Oscars, and 8 films are ramping up their campaigns in a last-minute push for the top prize of them all, Best Picture. The biggest award has the potential to be either one of the most anticlimactic or most surprising result in recent years. The former is true, because really only two films have won any of the prizes on the awards circuit, and one of those [Chloe Zhao's Nomadland] is a notable step ahead in the sweepstakes. However, neither frontrunner is a traditional winner, nor is without controversy; those facts, as well as the Oscars' less predictable preferential voting system means that no nominee can be counted out of the race. Spotlight's and Moonlight's upsets in 2016 and 2017, and Parasite's stunner last year taught us to expect the unexpected, so we're here to give fans of all 8 nominees reason to believe on Sunday.
If Promising Young Woman wins Best Picture, it’s not going to be because it’s the actual best picture, let me be clear about that from the get-go. The slim chance the “revenge” thriller has a shot at taking home the biggest prize of the night would be purely political, to paraphrase right-wing conspiracy theory Facebook comments. Many think simply nominating writer/director Emerald Fennell for the top two awards is a radical enough act in and of itself; for the first year in Oscar’s history two women were nominated for Best Director, in Fennell and Chloe Zhao for Nomadland. But could this sleeper hit win? It’s divisive enough in nature, sure, but the Oscars seem to love to award the divisive film at the end of the night... can it happen here, too?
Promising Young Woman follows Cassie (Carey Mulligan) as she seeks to avenge the death of her best friend who was a victim of rape in college. Marketed as a revenge-comedy-thriller, this film is different from many of the others in the category this year. It’s a film that focuses on women and assault in an industry that has not yet blacklisted or even given a slap on the wrist to most sexual predators and abusers and rarely cares about women. (Case in point: this is the first ever year that saw two female directors nominated - dark!) Many-- including myself --are shocked the film got the big nomination at all. It’s already likely a shoo-in for Best Actress in Mulligan and could potentially garner a Best Original Screenplay win as well. It’s wild to see a film with this sort of plot sneak in with so many nominations alongside people like noted abuser Gary Oldman, who got a nomination for Mank.
This is how I can see it going down this week before the big night: because Best Picture is the only award with preferential voting- everyone that felt this movie was “so needed” or a “hard watch” or “absolutely sobering” will rank it a bit higher than others they might have liked more to pat themselves on their back. Because so many people will do this strategically, the film will quietly and quickly skyrocket to the top slot and win the biggest award at the end of the night. Is it likely? Maybe not. But is it possible? Definitely so.
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