When the best picture nominations were announced on 24 January, most of the raised eyebrows were over who and what wasn’t there: no Martin Scorsese and Silence, no Tom Ford and Nocturnal Animals (both of which had been heavily tipped) – and no Deadpool either, which the Marvel devotees had been hoping would overturn the usual superhero shutout. It took a while to notice that the David Mackenzie-directed Hell or High Water had made the list instead; although, if we’re being honest, no one is talking it up for an actual victory. (All the bookies have it as 10th in a 10-horse race, 100-1 being the standard odds.)
It’s a shame that it’s the outsider because in another era, you could see it taking the big prize. When it materialised in the US (after a premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes) it quickly developed a symbolic position: a throwback to the dusty, rambling glories of a particular strand of the Hollywood new wave – Monte Hellman, early Robert Altman, Hal Ashby. Though it’s set in modern-day west Texas, Mackenzie himself said that he was looking to the Depression-era thrillers that were popular and resonant in the 1970s: Thieves Like Us, Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger.
This forms a large part of Hell or High Water’s kick: it has a considerable amount to say about post-industrial, post-crash America. Mackenzie can himself take much of the credit for this, with the film’s copious travelling shots of burned-out, decaying and bankrupted human landscapes. This is not to downplay the mighty script by Taylor Sheridan, written before he became a hot item after the success of Sicario. (Then called Comancheria, it was picked for the 2012 Black List of best unproduced screenplays; that title might explain why Hell or High Water regularly gets called a western, despite it basically being a rural bankrobbing movie.)
It’s arguably the most contemporary and relevant of the best picture nominees, the one that most allows you to understand the socio-political predicament in which the US currently finds itself. Aided by Mackenzie’s unerring ability to get great performances out of headline actors, the cast go about their business with an unforced naturalness that is a world away from the Great Performance syndrome that often hampers the big awards movies. It’s fair to say that Chris Pine has a career-changing role, while Jeff Bridges is being rightly admired for the advanced-level crustiness he displays as the Texas Ranger on the case.
As we know, the film is the rank outsider to win. Still, stranger things have happened. Hell and High Water may not take the Oscar, but I’d like it to.
