Oscars acting races have been pretty much settled since last month’s Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
You can safely bet on Leonardo DiCaprio (“The Revenant’’) for Best Actor, Brie Larson (“Room’’) for Best Actress, Alicia Vikander (“The Danish Girl’’) for Best Supporting Actress and Sylvester Stallone (“Creed’’) for Best Supporting Actor.
But as Oscar polls open Friday, there is genuine suspense — for the first time in years — over which film will win Best Picture, after three different contenders took the top prize from the three most predictive industry groups.
“The Big Short” pulled off a surprise upset by winning the Producers Guild of America award. But its status as Oscar favorite only lasted a week — until the Screen Actors Guild’s ensemble award, its rough equivalent of Best Picture, went to “Spotlight.”
The Directors Guild of America was widely expected to settle the issue by choosing one of those contenders for its top prize last weekend. Instead, the award went to Alejandro Iñárritu for “The Revenant.’’
This was a huge shocker, because (1) it was the first time the three groups gave their top prizes to different films, and (2) the DGA had never awarded its coveted prize to the same director two years in a row — Iñárritu won last year for “Birdman.’’
All of this confusion has been playing out while the motion picture academy is embroiled in the fractious #OscarsSoWhite controversy. For the second year in a row, there was not a single nonwhite person among the 20 acting nominees. And the only two black-oriented features that drew nominations were represented by white nominees — Stallone for “Creed’’ and the screenwriters of “Straight Outta Compton.’’
With Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee promising to boycott the ceremony, it was a public-relations nightmare for the academy, which quickly responded with a plan to make its membership more diverse on an expedited basis.
In addition to recruiting more minority members, this would be accomplished partly by moving members who hadn’t worked on films in the last 10 years to nonvoting status (with exceptions made for previous nominees and members who managed to work on at least one film during three consecutive 10-year periods after their induction). This infuriated many older Oscar voters — even those with exemptions — because they felt they were being labeled racist.
You really have to wonder if a month’s worth of this heavily covered diversity crisis is going to impact the voting, which ends on Feb. 23 (five days before the ceremony).
As it happens, Iñárritu, a Mexican, is the most prominent nonwhite nominee at the Oscars this year. And he wasn’t shy about flashing the diversity card when he accepted his DGA award — mocking Donald Trump and his vow to build a wall between Mexico and the United States.
Any other year, I’d say that “The Revenant’’ doesn’t stand a chance — no one has ever directed back-to-back Best Picture winners in the academy’s 88-year history. (Iñárritu won Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in addition to Best Picture for “Birdman.’’)
Could the diversity crisis push “The Revenant’’ over the top in a close race? Could it be hurt by a backlash? With so many historical precedents going by the boards, I wouldn’t rule anything out this year.