Yahoo News Critics Choice Noms Analysis: New Life for ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Saltburn,’ Five-Alarm Fire for Bening and Cruz
The fact that Warners’ Barbie so dominated the Critics Choice Award nominations that were announced on Wednesday morning — it landed a record 18 noms, five more than the next-highest scorers, Universal’s Oppenheimer and Searchlight’s Poor Things, which had 13 each — is obviously very interesting. But does it mean that Barbie is truly that much more popular among CCA members than anything else, or is it just more reflective of the fact that there are categories at this awards show that don’t exist elsewhere but inherently benefit Barbie (e.g. best comedy, best young actor/actress, a best song category without a cap on noms from one film, etc.)? Only time will tell.
However, several specific Critics Choice noms, or lack thereof, are more obviously significant.
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In the best picture category, two of the three non-English-language films that have performed extremely well this season — all three earned best drama picture Golden Globe noms this week — were not included: A24’s Past Lives made the cut, but Cannes winner Anatomy of a Fall (Neon) and runner-up The Zone of Interest (A24) did not. Anatomy and Zone appear to have been bounced by Warners’ The Color Purple and Amazon’s Saltburn, two titles that were reeling after being left off the AFI’s top 10 list and out of the best picture Globes categories in quick succession. This gives them a bit of a second wind and reason to fight on.
The best actor field is exactly what was projected, but the crowded best actress race shook out in an interesting way. Two perennial contenders up for tour-de-force performances in Netflix films, Annette Bening (Nyad) and Natalie Portman (May December), were outpaced by two actresses most CCA members couldn’t have picked out of a lineup a year ago, but who really made major impressions this year, Anatomy’s Sandra Hüller and Past Lives’ Greta Lee. On the heels of their Globe noms, this is a very big deal for Hüller and Lee, and a troubling development for Bening and Portman, the former of whom has been shooting a film and unavailable to do much promotion for one of her all-time greatest performances.
Supporting actor shook out as expected, but supporting actress included a pleasant surprise for Team Barbie that some expected to come first at the Globes, but did not: a nod for America Ferrera, who today was chosen over Globe nominee Rosamund Pike (Saltburn), LA Film Critics Association co-winner Rachel McAdams (Lionsgate’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which did land two other noms) and Penélope Cruz (Ferrari), Taraji P. Henson (The Color Purple) and Hüller (Zone). Ferrera’s monologue gets applause at every screening of Barbie, and while she obviously didn’t write it, she certainly delivers it memorably.
In the writing categories, far-from-assured noms went to Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret on the adapted side (over The Zone of Interest, Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and A24’s Priscilla) and to Air (over Saltburn and Anatomy).
The CCA’s foreign language film category includes all the heavy-hitters that were eligible — Zone, Anatomy, IFC’s The Taste of Things (the film that France submitted as its Oscar representative over Anatomy) and Netflix’s Spanish-language Society of the Snow — plus two Japanese films, Neon’s Perfect Days, which is the country’s Oscar entry, and Toho’s Godzilla Minus One. I’m a little surprised that those last two beat out Kino Lorber’s Four Daughters (Tunisia’s Oscar entry) and Sony Classics’ The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany’s Oscar entry), which have received robust pushes and been recognized elsewhere.
Among animated titles, four Globes nominees repeated — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Toho’s The Boy and the Heron, Pixar’s Elemental and Disney’s Wish — but the CCA bounced two others, Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Toho’s Suzume, in favor of Netflix’s Nimona and Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Strangely enough, I feel like the Academy could pick an almost entirely different set of nominees than any of these groups have thus far — only Spider-Verse and The Boy and the Heron strike me as safe-bets to repeat.
The song category seems to be coming in to focus, with both the Globes and CCA noms going to the same three Barbie songs — “Dance the Night,” “I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For?” — that are clearly duking it out for two Oscar noms (the Academy caps song noms at two per film), as well as “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, “Road to Freedom” from Netflix’s Rustin. Globe nominee “Addicted to Romance,” a Bruce Springsteen tune from She Came to Me, missed out today to “This Wish” from Wish.
In the craft and tech categories, a handful of things struck me as noteworthy. Saltburn beat out The Zone of Interest for a cinematography nom, and Maestro and Wonka for a production design nom. Napoleon and Wonka landed costume noms over Oppenheimer and Priscilla. In the film editing race, Air and Maestro won spots over American Fiction and Past Lives. Poor Things got in over American Fiction in the score category. And Oppenheimer landed noms for hair/makeup and visual effects, the former of which was not assured and the latter of which will not be possible at the Oscars, given that the film was denied a spot on the VFX branch’s longlist of 20.
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