Annette, Stillwater, and the limits of Cannes Oscar buzz

For decades the Cannes Movie Competition has helped set up and generally stretch the definition of an “Oscar film,” establishing auteurs starting from Quentin Tarantino to Bong Joon Ho for his or her first pictures at Academy gold. And with the primary Cannes since Parasite’s Oscar win now underway, all eyes have been caught on this 12 months’s Croisette premieres, on the lookout for the subsequent avant-garde gem that’ll take Hollywood by storm.

Up to now it has not arrived.

A star-driven title directed by a world star, opening night time movie Annette was the primary to undergo a spherical of awards-buzz evaluation. By no means thoughts that the murmurs going into this week’s premiere had already made it fairly clear this was hardly going to be Oscar bait, or that it’s bought a really (in awards-season phrases) unfriendly August U.S. launch date, or that the movie’s director, Leos Carax, has been too esoteric even for the Academy’s international-film department, regardless of his motion pictures like 2012’s Holy Motors discovering extensive acclaim. This was not going to be an Oscar film. So why did I get an electronic mail telling me its betting odds for a best-picture nomination had been skyrocketing after it met a divisive essential response? (10-1!)

I get the eagerness: Cannes was canceled final 12 months, and the 2021 version is already, by far, the starriest, glitziest movie pageant to happen because the pandemic began wreaking havoc on the trade final 12 months. However Annette, which has its oddball pleasures and artful virtues relying on whom you ask—not, most likely, Vanity Fair’s critic—can barely exist by itself earlier than it will get swallowed up into the prognostication game. Whereas notices for star Adam Driver had been notably glorious, the actor has greater tasks coming down the pike that’ll possible take campaigning priority (each of which, because it occurs, are directed by Ridley Scott: Home of Gucci and The Final Duel). Annette would wish much more than a blended preliminary response to get a real pageant campaign-launch off the bottom. 

Whereas Cannes is notorious for extreme consideration paid to the size of standing ovations and variety of walkouts for its premieres, the films normally converse for themselves. Thursday night time noticed the debut of a extra believable maybe-contender in Stillwater, if solely as a result of it’s the primary adult-oriented movie from director Tom McCarthy since best-picture winner Highlight. But once more, sturdy evaluations notably got here its male lead’s method, on this case to Matt Damon, and he was moved to tears by—you guessed it—an extended standing ovation. (Five minutes, in case you had been questioning.) However the thriller, netting strong reactions that don’t rise to the extent of great awards contender, most likely received’t channel the clapping and crying into a lot of a marketing campaign past a push for its star. 

Anyway, so sure, right here we’re, assessing Oscar buzz at Cannes to date by telling you, reader, that there actually isn’t a lot—at the very least within the apparent titles. Over within the Un Sure Regard part, After Yang, Kogonada’s first film since his well-received 2017 characteristic debut, Columbus, might fall into the sci-fi useless zone for Oscars, however raves are coming in quick, notably for star Colin Farrell; Todd Haynes’s documentary debut, The Velvet Underground, might deliver him again to the Dolby Theatre as an Oscar nominee as lauded titles like Carol and I’m Not There couldn’t. And with buzzy new movies helmed by everybody from awards darlings Wes Anderson and Sean Penn to artwork home favorites Mia Hansen-Løve and Sean Baker nonetheless to return, the complete image isn’t but in view. The hunt for the subsequent Parasite stays on—simply don’t be shocked if it’s in the end in useless.