By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor
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For sheer unpredictability, it’s hard to beat this current awards season. Oscar prognosticators like me often bemoan how boring and expected the nominations and winners wind up being year in and year out.
That’s certainly not the case with 2012, though. At different points, nearly all of the top-tier Best Picture hopefuls were considered in the pole position for the Oscar.
Early on, the expected prestige pictures such as Les Miserables and Lincoln topped most pundits’ predictions, despite not having been seen at that point. Then, Argo came on the scene and became the somewhat consensus pick, with Silver Linings Playbook always considered a sort of spoiler (as I previously wrote about here). Lately, Zero Dark Thirty has gotten a lot of love, but the nominations last week more or less killed off that film’s chances.
The one movie that’s always been looked at as a surefire nominee but rarely as a potential winner is Life of Pi. Ang Lee’s film was penciled in for a Best Picture nod pretty much as soon as it screened at the New York Film Festival. I was in attendance that morning, and the room buzzed about how it was now a lock to get nominated.
Despite that acclaim, no one talks about Lee’s film as a winner … up until now, that is. When the Academy announced their nominees, Lincoln expectedly led with 12 nominations, but Life of Pi was in second place with 11, catching some off-guard. That total wasn’t especially surprising, but what was unexpected was that it earned three more nominations than Les Miserables, which tied with the surprisingly good showing that Silver Linings Playbook had with eight nods.
This begs the question: Is Life of Pi a viable threat to win Best Picture?
There are two schools of thought here on this argument. One posits that Lee’s film is a truly viable contender now because of its high nom total and obvious, widespread love within the Academy. The other cautions that it would have to defy much of Oscar history to win Best Picture. The reason? It doesn’t have a single acting citation to its credit.
So, which school of thought is the one to get behind? Each has some true merit to it, and while I might be inclined to lean in one direction, I certainly can see both sides of the debate.
With every film in contention featuring at least one Achilles heel to keep it from being a done deal for Best Picture, Life of Pi is certainly going to get its share of votes. The question is whether or not it’ll be able to secure enough to beat out its competition.
Providing some solace to those who think Life of Pi is on the verge of a big win is the fact that wide support from Oscar voters is almost essential to win the top Oscar. Nominations in Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects clearly mean that more than one branch approves of Lee’s vision.
On the other side of things, you have to look at a film with no acting nominations as one that’s going to have a hard time winning Best Picture. Only 11 have ever done it, with only four doing so in the past half-century (Braveheart, The Last Emperor, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Slumdog Millionaire).
Moreover, the acting branch is the single biggest group of Academy voters, so if they don’t see anything even nomination-worthy in your flick, how likely are they to vote for you to win? No one in the cast even seemed to come close to nod. Usually there’s at least someone who was in the conversation right up until the end, but that was not the case here. Contenders Irrfan Khan and Suraj Sharma barely caught on during the precursors.
Historically, the previous winners to compare Lee’s work to are The Last Emperor and Slumdog Millionaire. Both had an international flavor and managed to win Best Picture without any acting nominations. The difference with those flicks (and even Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), though, is that they dominated the awards season and were pretty much foregone conclusions on Oscar night. Not only is Life of Pi far from that, but it’d also be a legitimate upset for it to take home Best Picture.
I think being a bit on the unique side is both a blessing and a curse for the flick. While not being a carbon copy of something else certainly makes it feel fresh in a way, it also could wind up scaring voters off. Even the precursor groups that usually embrace such a thing have by and large only nominated the work, not giving it the wins it would have needed.
What we’re left with is a situation in which the acting branch of the Academy would have to decide to go head over heels for the film in order for it to have a real chance at winning Best Picture. I find that hard to believe, considering something such as Lincoln has a trio of acting nominations, and Silver Linings Playbook has the rare quartet of nods to its credit.
I’m of the belief that Life of Pi is not only still behind Lincoln and Argo (I have a feeling that it could surprise, despite Ben Affleck’s snub), but Silver Linings Playbook as well. I do think it’s jumped over Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty, though, and that’s a big accomplishment.
All in all, I wouldn’t be shocked if Life of Pi wound up winning Best Picture, but it still has long way still to go in my book.