As we predict the possible winners of next year’s Academy Awards, it’s worth remembering, to quote an Oscar-winning script, that sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine. Or something.
Which means that this time last year, no one had even heard of Still Alice, a film that eventually won Julianne Moore the Oscar for best actress. But other, more high-profile bets didn’t quite hit the mark. Here are the films that, last year, we all thought would be contenders.
Trash
Stephen Daldry started out on one hell of a roll after securing three best director Oscar nominations for his first three films (Billy Elliot, The Hours and The Reader), and while his next, the overly sentimental Sandra Bullock-starrer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, might have underwhelmed, it still received a nod for best picture. Given his pedigree, it seemed like a Richard Curtis-scripted, Slumdog Millionaire-esque drama about Brazilian street kids, but with a supporting turn from Oscar nominee Rooney Mara, would be a shoo-in. It even took the top prize at the Rome film festival, where it opened. But it wasn’t pushed by the studio as the contender it once seemed; without awards buzz, crashed and burned last month at the UK box office. It’s still without a confirmed release date in the US.
The Search
After The Artist arrived from nowhere to win five Oscars, director Michel Hazanavicius made an understandable next move: he reteamed with its breakout star, his wife Bérénice Bejo, recruited multiple Oscar nominee Annette Bening, and cast them in a film set in a war zone. Even with all that effort, The Search proved to be a wild goose chase. In fact, it was rubbished by many critics when it premiered at last year’s Cannes. The response even led Hazanavicius to shave 17 minutes off the film and present a new, “angrier” version at Toronto. But still, the film refused to show the Oscar potential it once promised, and while some territories have now seen a proper release, it’s yet to be shown in the UK or US.
Unbroken
Strictly speaking, Unbroken is an Oscar-nominated film. It picked up three technical nominations, including best cinematography for Roger Deakins, but given the hype, it’s not quite what we all expected. It seemed like an easy win on paper, with a tale of overcoming adversity that combined sports and war genres, but second-time director Angelina Jolie didn’t know quite what to do with it all. Even a script rewrite from the Coens couldn’t help matters, and the result was an overly formulaic piece of Oscarbait that didn’t reach the highs it ambitiously set out towards. Her next film as director, which sees her starring with the Bra of Brangelina, aims to be part of next year’s race.
Big Eyes
Given Tim Burton’s fall from grace, it’s perhaps no surprise that this didn’t quite catch on in the way that we originally thought it might. It’s easy to see why it seemed like such a great opportunity, with a leading duo of two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz and multiple nominee Amy Adams, a fascinatingly strange true story, and a kitsch 60s setting that would play to Burton’s strengths. While it might have led to better reviews than Dark Shadows and Alice in Wonderland combined, the response wasn’t quite good enough, and neither star was in the race for an Oscar. It was also a box-office dud, and to no one’s astonishment Burton’s next film will see him return to the mind-numbing 3D madness of an Alice sequel.
Grace of Monaco
It’s been a patchy few years for Nicole Kidman, with low points aplenty from a role in trashy Nicolas Cage thriller Trespass, to playing Jennifer Aniston’s nemesis in the Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It. But neither received quite as much scorn as her performance in last year’s much-ridiculed Cannes opener where she played an extremely dull and pampered version of Grace Kelly. The film, originally viewed by Harvey Weinstein as awards gold, was soon tainted by a feud between him and the director, as well as by its future status as a bad-movie-night mainstay. It was laughed out of UK cinemas last summer, while Weinstein has promised that the US will get to see a “writer’s cut”, which will come as a glorious treat to anyone who’s already seen and heard the existing one.
Suite Française
Bar her, admittedly well-cast, turn in Sam Raimi’s otherwise disappointing Oz the Great and Powerful, Michelle Williams picks her work wisely, choosing to showcase her talents in smaller projects – a strategy that’s led to three Oscar nominations. It seemed as if a lead in wartime romance Suite Française would net her another, with the director of The Duchess at the helm, but the shoot finished in September 2013, and there was no qualifying run for this year’s ceremony. It’s set to hit UK cinemas in March – not usually a great sign, but the same could have been said for last year’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won four Oscars last week. So the jury’s still out on this one, taking their suite time.
- This article was amended on Wednesday 25 February 2015. We mistakenly called Oscar nominee Amy Adams an Oscar winner. This has been corrected.
