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Source: Variety
The Golden Globes have always held a peculiar place in the film award circuit, and not just because of it being one of the few awards ceremonies to simultaneously honor both cinematic and made-for-television productions. Since its inception in 1944, the Golden Globe Awards has raised eyebrows for a wide variety of reasons, from perplexing award categories to controversies surrounding its parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In recent years, the Golden Globes has made considerable efforts to rebrand itself as something more worthy of respect (even going so far as to cut itself off from the HFPA, with the Golden Globe Foundation now serving as the event’s primary overseer), and while not everyone is once again sold on the Golden Globes, many of the efforts to change for the better are easy to notice and appreciate. With there now being a greater push to be more inclusive in terms of who gets to vote and what gets to be voted on, the Golden Globe Awards still have quite a way to go before it can be as esteemed as many of its contemporaries, but for the time being, one will have to judge the show on what it currently has to offer. Speaking of which, it wasn’t too long ago – the morning of Monday, December 9th to be more precise – that the nominations for the 82nd Golden Globe Awards were made known to the public. Some of the nominees were more or less expected shoe-ins, while other inclusions (or perhaps even omissions) proved to be rather shocking. In any case, while the results of the Golden Globe nominations can’t give award enthusiasts a perfect picture of how the Academy Awards and all other upcoming film award ceremonies will play out, chances are that what it’s chosen to nominate isn’t too far off from how many of those other organizations will make their decisions, and it’s thus worth at least some of one’s time to look at what the Golden Globes has chosen to nominate.
Leading the pack with a surprisingly large number of nominations is Jacques Audiard’s musical crime comedy “Emilia Perez”, which managed to secure a total of ten nominations and triumph over just about every other film and individual in terms of nomination count. It’s worth noting, however, that the film was double nominated in two of the categories – both Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana received nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, while both “El Mal” and “Mi Camino” were featured among the nominees for Best Original Song – which means that the total number of categories “Emilia Perez” is nominated in is actually only eight. Still, eight is a remarkably high number for a film to receive; in addition to the aforementioned categories, “Emilia Perez” will also vie for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical of Comedy (Karla Sofia Gascon), Best Director and Best Screenplay (both for Audiard), and Best Original Score (Camille and Clement Ducol). It would seem that the film is nominated in just about every category that it was able to qualify for, and even if this high nomination count doesn’t translate into a complete sweep at the upcoming award ceremony (set to take place on Sunday, January 5th and be aired on the CBS television network), its overwhelming presence bodes well for its future and should at the very least earn it an accolade or two.
The highest honor that “Emilia Perez” could possibly earn at the Golden Globes is, as previously stated, the prize for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, one of the two Best Picture prizes offered by the organization that is also being competed for by five other films. These are Sean Baker’s romantic comedy-drama “Anora”, Luca Guadagnino’s sports romantic dramedy “Challengers”, Jesse Eisenberg’s road comedy-drama “A Real Pain” (it’s not uncommon for many of the films nominated in this category throughout its history, despite being labeled as comedies, nonetheless include rather heavy dramatic elements), Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” (it’s also not unheard of for horror films to end up in the Comedy or Musical category as well – e.g. 2017’s “Get Out”), and John M. Chu’s blockbuster fantasy musical “Wicked”. On the other end of ths spectrum is the category for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Like its more comically/musically oriented counterpart, there are six features that have a chance of receiving this highly coveted award: Brady Corbet’s historical drama “The Brutalist”, James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”, Edward Berger’s mystery thriller “Conclave”, Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction action epic “Dune: Part Two”, RaMell Ross’ historical drama “Nickel Boys”, and Tim Fehlbaum’s historical drama “September 5”. As is the case in the other category, there’s a solid array of quality feature films to be found here, and no matter which of the six ends up winning, few would argue against the presence of the majority of these films (the same goes for the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category as well).
As stated earlier, “Emilia Perez” will also compete for the Best Foreign Language Film prize, and while its placement as a nominee in the more prominent Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category may imply that it has this other accolade in the bag, one shouldn’t overlook just how competitive this category also happens to be. Also vying for this award are Payal Kapadia’s French/Indian-produced drama “All We Imagine as Light” (for which Kapadia will also compete for Best Director), Magnus von Horn’s Polish/Swedish/Danish-produced historical psychological horror “The Girl with the Needle”, Walter Salles’ Brazilian-produced political biographical drama “I’m Still Here”, Mohammad Rasalouf’s German-produced “The Seed of a Sacred Fig”, and Maura Delpero’s Italian-produced drama “Vermiglio”. Given their exceptional quality, any one of these films could pull a surprise upset and keep “Emilia Perez” from claiming victory.
Lastly, in terms of film-specific categories, there is Best Animated Feature, for which six films made predominantly using the medium of animation will compete. These are Gintz Zilbalodis’ fantasy adventure “Flow”, Kelsey Mann’s coming-of-age comedy-drama “Inside Out 2”, Adam Elliot’s tragicomedy “Memoir of a Snail”, Disney’s fantasy musical “Moana 2”, Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham’s comedy “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul”, and Chris Sanders’ science fiction adventure “The Wild Robot”. Like all those that had been nominated in the other categories, these are all highly commendable feats of cinema, and no matter which of them is ultimately selected as the winner, one can at least find some relief in knowing that many of them are more than worthy of such an honor.
