Dec. 11--If you disregard the matter of quality, the success of "Ida" is improbable indeed.
Until 2014, Music Box Films was best known internationally for its acquisition and U.S. distribution of the original Swedish-language "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy and, earlier, "Tell No One." That twisty French thriller put Music Box on the map in 2008, one year after the company's launch.
This year, the Chicago-based distributor scored another impressive art house success, one predicted by many -- though its place among the five foreign-language nominees isn't yet secured -- to win an Oscar come February.
The film in question, "Ida" from director Pawel Pawlikowski, is an austere but swiftly paced 1960s-set drama about a young Catholic convent girl, on the brink of taking her vows. Then she learns she's Jewish by birth. With her boozy magistrate aunt, she embarks on a literal and metaphorical journey to learn the truth about her earliest years.
Already "Ida" has been cited best foreign language film of 2014 by the New York and Los Angeles film critics associations, among others. On Thursday it was announced as one of two Music Box releases garnering a Golden Globe foreign film nomination, alongside the Israeli divorce procedural "Gett."
Music Box managing director Ed Arentz first saw "Ida" at the 2013 Toronto film festival, and he and Music Box president William Schopf made it their "No. 1 priority," Arentz says. "It has more than lived up to our expectations."
Often, Music Box finds itself bidding for a festival title against Sony Pictures Classics, the distribution freight behind many recent Oscar winners such "Amour" and "A Separation." To Schopf the likelihood of "Ida" getting an Oscar nomination can mean only good things for Music Box's future. Often, he says, "we'll be head-to-head with Sony trying to acquire a film its producers feel is a good Oscar candidate. And they'll always go with Sony because of their track record."
The numbers on "Ida" won't hurt, either. It's the No. 2 foreign language specialty title of 2014, behind a Sony Pictures Classics title, "The Lunchbox," which was not submitted by its country of origin (India) for last year's Oscars. "The Lunchbox," a warm, fuzzy rom-com, has grossed $4.2 million domestically. "Ida" is a half-million behind at $3.7 million. Music Box's film rental revenues amount to "a little north of 40 percent" of that $3.7 million figure, according to Schopf.
Call it roughly $1.5 million, minus high six-figures in Music Box's advertising and distribution expenses. That's still nearly a million in the coffers.
"A very successful release," Schopf says.
The funny thing is, Music Box owes much of its success with "Ida" to a single, early, grousy trade review coming out of the 2013 Telluride Film Festival.
Variety's Peter Debruge dismissed it as "an intellectual exercise in lieu of an emotional experience," appealing to no one "but the most rarefied cineastes ... the sort of joyless art film one might expect Polish nuns living under the clutches of 1960s communism to appreciate."
Well. Just one critic's opinion. But Debruge's description of "Ida" seems a tad wobbly. The movie runs a trim 80 minutes and, like a good short story, it packs a lot of narrative into those minutes. The early Variety review, Arentz says, "actually scared off all of our competitors. There was no bidding to speak of. We found out later there was one competing offer, and it was ridiculously low."
Arentz and Schopf know full well "Ida" could lose Oscar night, Feb. 22, to the fine, stern Russian crime drama "Leviathan" (assuming it gets nominated), a film being distributed by the powerhouse Sony Pictures Classics.
Assuming "Ida" gets nominated, "we'll likely take the plane ride out to LA," Schopf says. "I feel bullish about it. I mean, I think it should win."
"Ida" is available on VOD, DVD and Blu-ray platforms. Go to musicboxfilms.com for more information.
mjphillips@tribpub.com
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