The Academy Awards panel have unveiled their Best Picture shortlist- but which nominees are worth your investment?
Such is the enduring and bizarrely prestigious nature of the Academy Awards that without fail, when a new 'Best Picture' shortlist of nominated motion pictures arrives on our browser, the simple instant assumption of many viewers is that each and every one of the movies included is essential viewing. Well, over the course of multiple review round-up feature articles, I'll be debunking that falsified, largely unjustified industrial myth by bringing you definitive, unbiased verdicts on all nine candidates.
Today, it's the turn of Steve McQueen's
12 Years A Slave, David O. Russell's
American Hustle, Martin Scorsese's
The Wolf of Wall Street and Alfonso Cuaron's
Gravity to go under the metaphorical radar. Without further ado, then, let's dive in, and sort the worthy inclusions from those which are downright insulting:
AMERICAN HUSTLE
If each Oscar shortlist must contain an entry which is representative of the panel's tendency to elevate productions that provide accurate depictions of history in lieu of groundbreaking storytelling, then
American Hustle most certainly fits the bill this year. This reviewer wouldn't attempt to deny that
Hustle's throwback to the corporate corruption of 1980s America holds an impressive resemblance of borderline-uncanny proportions. Such authenticity seems almost for nought, though, when the core narrative (loosely based on true events) holding it together is lacking in direction and thus is liable to lose the audience's engagement in those instances where it is left wanting for comic relief.
Mark Harrison recently claimed that O. Russell's latest big-screen contribution "is a three-star movie filled with five-star performances"; I would amend this assertion, however, and brand
Hustle a three-star movie filled with five-star performers offering three-star performances.
The Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence has clearly developed her talents by a country mile since her first step into Panem, but the same cannot be said of Christian Bale, Amy Adams or Bradley Cooper, all of whom portray their characters in such a way that is virtually indistinguishable from their past work. Eric Warren Singer and O. Russell's screenplay has evidently been crafted to suit the stylistic attributes of each of these three coveted stars, and this only becomes more apparent as the narrative progresses and their character arcs develop towards tiresomely familiar resolutions.
It's perhaps telling that despite having acquired a number of 'Best Picture' nods during this current awards season, the film itself hasn't attained many victories on this front as of yet, with Jennifer Lawrence being the most successful contributor so far in scooping a considerable array of 'Best Supporting Actress' titles. In spite of director O. Russell's attention to detail with regards to authenticity and his ambition with regards to casting formidable Hollywood talent, the narrative at the movie's heart is simply underwhelming, redeemed only partially by one of Lawrence's finest performances yet. The general consensus appears to be pretty divided at present, yet from this reviewer's perspective (for what it's worth), audiences expecting an accolade-worthy narrative to complement this lacklustre production's star power will likely feel
Hustled of their cash come the credits, the irony of which is unlikely to be received in the same comic manner as the piece's best gags by the now £8-poorer viewer.
3/5
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
Any dedicated Academy Awards follower will know director Martin Scorsese to be a regular on the annual nominees shortlist- indeed, it's been barely two years since
Hugo graced our screens and became the American helm's latest awards super-magnet. To see his latest collaboration with Leo DiCaprio,
The Wolf of Wall Street, amongst the 'Best Picture' candidates for 2013 set to vie it out in March, then, is no shock. That said, what
does defy convention here is the broad mainstream appeal that this
extremely sexual, verbally explicit and eventually violent production will have for the world at large, assisted in no small part by yet another career-defining contribution from DiCaprio himself.
One might rightly argue that the accomplishments which the iconic
Titanic star has made in just twenty years of screen-time have been so regularly and capably expressed that they warrant no further attention. When we merely analyse DiCaprio's versatility in his most recent three roles, however-
Django Unchained's Calvin Candy,
The Great Gatsby's titular starstruck lover and now
Wolf's real-life elusive entrepreneur Jordan Belfort- our appreciation of his unrestrained talents becomes that much greater, and will no doubt continue to warrant reiteration and re-evaluation in his future efforts. If Candy was slightly akin to
Blood Diamond's Danny Archer and Gatsby to
Romeo + Juliet's doomed Montague, then Belfort marks a profound departure from any of his previous portrayals, a distinction which thus enables a prevalent sense of actorial innovation to dominate our understanding of and incredulous response to the performance as a whole.
Unlike countless other productions which rely on their headliner(s) to compensate for an oft-mediocre narrative (evidence of which can be seen even here in O. Russell's case), the merits of
Wolf don't end with DiCaprio: in fact, they scarcely begin with his stellar performance. Be it in Scorsese's constantly-subversive directorial methods or in the menagerie of superb supporting portrayals from Joanna Lumley, Matthew McConaghuey, Margot Robbie and most of all Jonah Hill, virtually none of the piece's contributory elements fall short of its lead star's phenomenal benchmark. At a rather daunting 3 hours,
Wolf could arguably have benefited from additional editing and trimming of the oddly comedy-light final half hour or so, but these structural quibbles aside, Scorsese, DiCaprio and the elite production team behind them have crafted a piece of cinema which ranks close to the status of a masterpiece, and one which becomes no less essential even in light of its minor, negligible shortcomings.
4/5
12 YEARS A SLAVE
As a direct result of his awarding
Sherlock: His Last Vow and
American Hustle with substantially reduced scores compared to what the larger critical community would have you believe, this reviewer wouldn't blame some of On-Screen's readership for approaching his review of one of the most widely acclaimed historical motion pictures in years with trepidation. If you find yourself falling into that speculative category, then feel free to breathe an extensive sigh of relief- in
12 Years A Slave's case, third (or even twelfth)'s time the charm. Far removed from
Hustle's far-fetched and soulless storytelling approach and
Wolf's last-minute structural mishaps, this is cinematic character drama in its most devastatingly powerful form, a harrowing, brutal and potentially timeless recollection of one of the darkest showcases of human nature in our history.
Chiwetel Ejofor is of course spellbinding in the role of
12 Years' tragically deceived and emotionally tortured protagonist, whose deriving from a real-world source naturally necessitates an unrelenting and frequently challenging viewer experience, constructed to bold effect by director Steve McQueen. Ejofor's praises have been sung across the internet for the past fortnight, though, and as such, our recognition of the performances from those who
interact with his character is now just as vital, if not moreso. Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti and Brad Pitt each hold but minuscule roles in contrast, yet there isn't a single fault to be attributed to any of their portrayals. More prominent is
X-Men: First Class and
Prometheus' Michael Fassbender, his Edwin Epps representing a constantly startling and dramatically invigorating conduit of racial corruption and his inescapable screen presence threatening to steal Ejofor's thunder on multiple occasions. Should any actor best Fassbender to the Oscar panel's 'Best Supporting Actor' gong, then yours truly would wholeheartedly recommend a thorough assessment of just how relevant the Academy Awards are to this industry eighty-six years on from their inception.
12 Years is in some respects a unique case, since any recommendation from us of a viewing of the piece must come with an equal word of warning: anyone undertaking a viewing should be under no illusion that the rare pleasure of experiencing such a film as this comes
not on any emotional level, but rather out of sublime admiration for the extent to which McQueen can elicit pathos from his audience. Onlookers to either side of our seat in the auditorium frequently recoiled and seemed visibly shaken during its most violent (and likely most true-to-form) sequences, their body gestures akin to those you'd expect in viewers witnessing one of the classic horrors-
Alien, The Thing or the like- for the first time.
On a superficial level, then,
12 Years A Slave doesn't appear to be an enticing prospect for everyone, and yet such aesthetic and moral fears of what is depicted must be put aside if cinema-goers consider themselves to be proponents of all that is fair and just in modern society. The Second World War has its
Saving Private Ryan, Auschwitz has its
Schindler's List and now the defining cinematic depiction of African-American slavery has arrived. No matter how challenging the experience is for the audience, we must not surrender our attention for a second, for if we do, then we neglect a hauntingly didactic masterpiece, and in doing so, we neglect the reality of our history. Such a reality drives us to better ourselves as a unified race, even if this is only an act of self-comfort, or of limited relief from the burden of knowledge that humanity's greatest crimes can never be undone.
5/5
GRAVITY
For our full review of Alfonso Cuaron's
Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, follow the link here!
http://on-screen-reviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/gravity-review.html
5/5
For all the latest news, reviews and features on each of the Oscar 'Best Picture' nominees, keep it On-Screen in the weeks ahead!
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