Catching up on the Oscars, Long AFTER the Oscars

Flashback time! Because we’re slow at this!

We’d done a decent job of getting ready for the Oscars, in that we’d seen more of the movies than usual. Some, we’d seen in the theater (Marty Supreme, Sinners). Most, we’d streamed. I watched Weapons alone because my husband isn’t a big horror fan. We’d wanted to see Frankenstein in a theater but even in Portland, this proved extremely difficult to find, so we streamed it in all its happily ended pastel gore.

We also streamed One Battle After Another. In shifts. We watched the first half, then paused it while I made dinner and we ate, and then we watched the rest. I do wonder why movies are so long these days, but then I saw Boyhood in a theater so what am I complaining about?

My Internally Awarded Oscars

Anyway, I had definite favorites. After we finished One Battle, I said, “If Sean Penn doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor, the Oscars have no meaning.” I was also rooting hard for Teyana Taylor and heartbroken when she didn’t win. I mean, COME ON.

I hadn’t seen Hamnet but assumed Jessie Buckley deserved to win because I’ve never seen her give less than an Oscar-worthy performance. I definitely cheered the roof off when Michael B Jordan won because he also deserved it (but for which role since he played two? I know, it’s for the movie, not a specific role).

I enjoyed Frankenstein for what it was, but it wasn’t the best picture of the year. I had no love for Marty Supreme, and much love for Sinners. Sinners had my vote. But I could live with One Battle as Best Picture. Because it was wildly suspenseful and entertaining and funny and, well, shockingly good, despite the length.

What We Didn’t See

There were a couple of other movies up for many awards that I hadn’t seen. My husband and I kept meaning to watch two contenders. First, there was Hamnet. I’d read the book (and I know this is ridiculous because everyone else loved it) but in a basic way, it failed to work for me. Our main character Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, seemed too much of a fantasy novel stock-character: the herb-wise forest witch with tangled hair and a hawk on her arm. And here she was as Shakespeare’s wife, and I had a hard time with it. She never quite came to life for me.

The other big Oscar contender we hadn’t seen was Jay Kelly, with George Clooney. This was another one we meant to watch and kept putting off. It looked dumb. The premise sounded puny, restrained, and the trailers I watched seemed to point to a rom-com. Like, screen-idol Dad would follow his daughter to Europe and there he would meet an attractive age-appropriate woman who would finally show him what love meant. And…Scene.

I Was So Wrong!

Well, we watched it Saturday night and it was nothing like that. Jay Kelly is a true Hollywood film. It’s huge, sweeping, gorgeous. The opening is alchemical magic. Visually, each shot is a delight for the eyes. The score is expansive without overwhelming. Every performance is pitch perfect. Clooney is an aging screen icon facing how stardom has hollowed out his identity. He is flawed and irresistible. The entire movie is charming and bittersweet and funny and so very, very sad. I’m shocked that Adam Sandler wasn’t nominated for Best Supporting Actor. If he had been, it would have been a tight race in the all-important race for Oscars mentally awarded by one Karen G. Berry.

And then, the other one.

On Sunday. night, we settled in to watch Hamnet. My husband gently lay some Kleenex on the coffee table before me with the words, “I’ve heard it’s a weepy.” Knowing the story, I assumed he was right.

The good news is that almost immediately, Jessi Buckley’s Agnes filled out all the voids of the written character. Agnes ascended from trope to character right before my eyes. And Paul Mescal is a beautifully human Shakespeare. It’s such a tapestry of a movie. The costumes and set and that gorgeous forest, and every single actor, and the language, and how some of it is muttered but we didn’t turn on the closed captions because that muddling felt intimate and real to my ears.

I thought the movie was beautiful, through and through. But it is not perfect. They had to age up the twins for obvious reasons. In doing so, they lost the neat trick of their illness, the strange and magical and tragic consequence of their closeness. The film extended the related scenes of suffering and healing and limbo to what felt like melodramatic lengths. The tragedy of loss isn’t like that, not really. Losses are internally harrowing. But they are not externally operatic.    

ALL THAT ASIDE. Every other part of the movie (okay, the score got a little bombastic at times) but almost every other moment worked for me. What I loved most was how the movie examines the role of writing, drama, and catharsis in its final scenes. When Agnes goes to the play, she literally does not understand what she is seeing. The actors are walking around onstage looking absurd, people with sticks, and she demands to know what they’re doing.

And then, the magic starts for her. Ghost, son, death. She understands. As a writer, her husband has done his processing through writing, and invited the audience to share his pain and help him carry the burden of it. In return they experience catharsis of their own sorrows. I was moved right down into my core.

And I used the Kleenex.

I’m not sure what else we missed, because we always miss a few. But next year I’m going to do better as far as watching the contenders. My biggest regret is, I wish I’d seen both of these movies in the theater instead of Marty Supreme. You can read what I thought of that here. Marty Supremely Disappoints