David Fincher’s frontrunner Mank is a brilliant but nostalgic choice, while there are no nominations for stunning sexual politics drama The AssistantNews: Two female directors and nine actors of colour nominated for 2021 OscarsFull list of
Oscars 2021 nominationsAs ever when the Oscar nominations are announced, there is a sense of mystery about the industry’s revealed groupthink, that consensus which is unveiled as solemnly as the half-time score at the
Super Bowl. This is an interesting and lively Oscar nomination list, but is there something a bit retrograde and nostalgic about the frontrunner – however brilliant it assuredly is? Will the 2021 Oscars reflect modern America and contemporary issues in the way increasingly demanded of awards ceremonies? I’m not sure.David Fincher’s Mank is a gorgeously rendered monochrome fantasy about the genesis of Orson Welles’s classic 1941 movie Citizen Kane, and the role played by its co-writer Herman Mankiewicz, played by Gary Oldman; it is now the frontrunner, surging ahead with 10 nominations, notably in front of Chloé Zhao’s stunning docu-fictional road movie Nomadland, Sound of Metal, with Riz Ahmed as the drummer losing his hearing, Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah, about the FBI’s killing of
Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, the dementia drama The Father, with a heartwrenching performance from Anthony Hopkins, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, an exceptional tale of Korean
immigrant farmers in Reagan’s America, and Aaron Sorkin’s egregious liberal-patriot drama The Trial of the
Chicago 7 – all with six.But as for Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, her wonderful and resonant tale of the old west and one of the very best
American films of the year – zilch. Or how about Kitty Green’s stunning sexual politics drama The Assistant? No movie could possibly have confronted with more ferocity and candour the issue of Weinsteinian abuse — something that so recently was convulsing the entire industry. But no nominations there. Those films were comprehensively bested by efforts like News of the World, a very moderate, stolidly unexciting western starring Tom Hanks (with four nominations) or indeed Ron Howard’s ropey and muddled family drama Hillbilly Elegy (with two nominations, including one for Glenn Close for best supporting
Actress, in the borderline absurd role of the frizzy-haired backwoods grandma.)