Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actress

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Actress

The nominees are:

Cate Blanchett in TÁR

Ana de Armas in Blonde

Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie

Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once

I have been covering the Oscar race in one capacity or another for 14 years now. In that time, there has never been an acting race this strange or this close. There have been surprises, certainly. Olivia Colman’s 2018 Best Actress win springs to mind immediately. Maybe Best Supporting Actress in 2013 felt this close, with Jennifer Lawrence and Lupita Nyong’o going down to the wire. But, this is infinitely closer and, again, stranger than that.

It started at the nomination stage with Andrea Riseborough’s moderately surprising nomination. She was, after all, nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards. But, the film world blew up and pretended like the nomination had manifested from nothing. Collusion and improper campaigning accusations were thrown around, and the Academy was essentially forced to investigate. They found nothing because there was nothing. 

It’s a good performance by a popular actor in an independent movie. Her team’s grassroots campaign had a helluva lot more integrity than most studio campaigns, for which millions of dollars are thrown around in hopes of getting this kind of recognition. That ultimately was what it was all about. The wealthy studios, who got so used to working this system to their advantage, got outplayed and they didn’t like it. It was a manufactured controversy from the word go.

The part of it that was not manufactured and had nothing to do with campaign procedures was the perception that Riseborough’s nomination specifically came at the expense of either Daneille Deadwyler or Viola Davis, two performers of color who gave brilliant performances in critically acclaimed films. Again, not Riseborough’s fault, but it served as further proof that we are hardly out of the #OscarsSoWhite days. Truly, if you saw Deadwyler’s performance in Till, there’s virtually no way to leave her off your top five. My guess, the still heavily white Academy didn’t watch it.

Once we got through all of that hullabaloo, Cate Blanchett continued to pick up every award under the sun for one of the great performances of the 21st century. When she picked up the BAFTA, her victory seemed all but assured. Truly, if Renee Zelwegger in Judy was undeniable, there was nothing going to stand in the way of this coronation.

Then, Everything Everywhere All at Once began to steamroll everything. It was already strong as the leading nominee at the Academy Awards. It won the DGA and PGA, all but cementing its status as the one to beat for Best Picture. When the Screen Actors Guild Awards arrived, the film was a freight train barrelling downhill. It won the most SAG Awards ever, including ensemble and leading actress for Michelle Yeoh. 

It felt like something had shifted. All of a sudden, Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn’t going to be just another Best Picture winner. It started down a path of historic victory, which is where we are now. And, due to a quirk of the schedule, it picked up all this momentum just before ballots were in hand. In a lot of years, the votes would already have been cast before the SAG Awards, but not so this year. This year, voters watched one movie win every award under the sun, then received their ballots. The face of that movie: Yeoh. So, how could the momentum not sweep her up, as well?

I could go through all the stats. In the face of all of this, they’re not particularly convincing. We’ll throw out the Golden Globes because they’re wonky and strange and not representative of much of anything. Let’s look at SAG and BAFTA, our favorites. We’ll use 2007 as the cutoff point because that was the year BAFTA really announced itself as the place to look for surprises. 

If you have forgotten, 2007 was the year Best Actress was supposed to go to Julie Christie for Away from Her and Supporting Actress was a race between Ruby Dee in American Gangster and Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone. Christie and Dee won their respective SAG categories and were favored at the Oscars. The BAFTAs went to Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose and Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton, in actress and supporting actress, respectively. Cotillard and Swinton, of course, went on to win the Oscars.

The next year, SAG went with Meryl Streep in Doubt for actress, while the BAFTA went to Kate Winslet in The Reader. Winslet won the Oscar. In 2009, SAG got it right with Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, while the BAFTA went to Carey Mulligan for An Education. All three matched in 2010 on Natalie Portman in Black Swan. The next year, Viola Davis won the SAG for The Help and Streep won the BAFTA for The Iron Lady. Streep won the Oscar. It flipped again in 2012, when Emmanuelle Riva won the BAFTA for Amour and Jennifer Lawrence won SAG and the Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.

The next five years in a row, they all matched. Then came the Colman-Glenn Close race, when the world expected Close finally to win a long-overdue Academy Award for The Wife. Instead, Colman, BAFTA in hand, shocked the world. They matched on Zelwegger in 2019. Then in 2020, SAG went with Davis again, this time for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. BAFTA and the Academy went with Frances McDormand in Nomadland. Last year, SAG picked the winner with Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but that film had not been released yet in England and was not eligible for the BAFTA.

It should be noted that no actress this century has won the Academy Award for Best Actress without winning at least one or the other of the SAG award or BAFTA. So, we can pretty safely discount Riseborough, Ana de Armas, and Michelle Williams, but we already knew that. If we’re reading all the stats correctly, Blanchett has the numbers on her side. But as the poet said, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once – Yeoh is a legend. There are no two ways about it, and her resumé speaks for itself. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Memoirs of a Geisha. Crazy Rich Asians. She’s already in the Mummy franchise, the Kung Fu Panda franchise, and the MCU. Next up, she will be joining the Avatar universe, and she’s doing the highly anticipated film adaptation of Wicked. She can and has done it all.

She is as much an action star as a dramatic performer, and Everything Everywhere All at Once is really the first time since Crouching Tiger in 2000 that she has been allowed to flex both muscles at once. She gives it everything she’s got in a career redefining performance that will most likely net her an Academy Award. As much as I prefer Cate Blanchett’s performance this year and as much as I feel like Everything Everywhere All at Once flounders as a film, it would be hard to begrudge Yeoh her flowers.

Cate Blanchett in TÁR – The fascinating thing to me about all of this is that in actually watching TÁR, this feels like a no-brainer. Blanchett is one of the finest actresses of her generation – probably of any generation – and this is the best she has ever been. There is no one capable of doing the things Blanchett can do when she’s working at this level, and the character of Lydia Tár practically demands she raise her game to heights heretofore unimagined.

Blanchett plays Tár as a wrecking ball, destroying everything in her path but without the self-awareness that a wrecking ball swings back the other way. She destroys her own life and looks outward for anyone to blame but herself. She doesn’t mind being thought of as a mad genius, but at the end of the day, she’s really just mad. Blanchett never takes a wrong step in guiding the audience down the path of decadence and self-destruction. We’re passengers. Blanchett is the conductor, and she takes us places no actor has ever gone before.

Ana de Armas in Blonde – I really wanted to like Blonde. I greatly enjoyed director Andrew Dominik’s two previous films to this one, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly. The casting of Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe is inspired. And, the behind-the-scenes pedigree is undeniable. The film, however, forces one to wonder what the hell any of these people thought they were doing. This is a disaster of epic proportions. 

The shame is that de Armas is damn good in the movie. She puts her whole self into the performance, mind, body, and soul. Unfortunately, over and over, Dominik proves that the only thing he is interested in is the body part of that equation. De Armas and the filmmakers are completely at odds over the film’s portrayal of Monroe. Somewhere in de Armas’ version, there is a good movie. Virtually none of that makes it into the movie we got. The nomination is earned as much for the performance as for what de Armas endured to bring anything resembling a human portrait out of the process. She deserved better.

Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans – Speaking of actresses nominated by the Academy for playing Marilyn Monroe, we come to Williams. This is the performers’ fifth nomination, including that 2012 Best Actress nod for My Week with Marilyn. She has yet to win, and she’s not really in the running this year, but she will get over the hump someday. She’s a magnificent actress, the Academy loves her, and still just 42, she has a lot more career in front of her.

All that said, I am not entirely sold on the Mitzi Fabelman character in Steven Spielberg’s film. Williams does a fine job with the role, and the sequence of her dancing on the family camping trip is a true standout scene from the year. But, I don’t see the depth in the character that Spielberg must have been hoping to bring out. She borders on one-note, a bit of a flibberty-gibbet who is just as likely to bring home a monkey as the groceries. Being that the whole movie revolves around Sammy Fabelman’s feelings about his mom and dad, there wasn’t enough there there for it to come together, despite Williams’ best efforts.

Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie – This is the performance there was so much fuss about. The poor, alcoholic screw-up trying to reconnect with family is nothing we haven’t seen before. Riseborough does it better than most, committing fully to the bit, but the movie doesn’t give her anywhere to go. She is hung out to dry, so to speak, playing the same scene over and over with different characters. First with her son. Then, her old friends. Then, her new boss. Then, strangers. It gets old quickly.

Riseborough’s portrayal of an alcoholic perpetually sinking to rock bottom feels true and lived in, lacking in the histrionics of most Hollywood portraits of the disease. If nothing else, To Leslie is evidence of the possibilities for Riseborough’s career as a leading lady. She has been a supporting player in a number of great films over the years such as Never Let Me Go, Birdman, and The Death of Stalin. If she ever gets to be the lead of a great movie worthy of her talents, this won’t be the last time we see her at the Oscars.

The final analysis

I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Michelle Yeoh is better in Everything Everywhere All at Once than Cate Blanchett is in TÁR, for whatever it means to compare art and performances. But, Yeoh is the performer of the moment. It is her time. Blanchett’s got two Oscars, and though the Academy is not above handing out a third – Frances McDormand just won her third – there is a sense that she’s been rewarded. All the stats be damned, the sentiment and the momentum are with Yeoh.

Will win: Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once

Should win: Cate Blanchett in TÁR

Should have been here: Mia Goth in Pearl

A note about my favorite snub: Both Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair got Oscar nominations for The Exorcist. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie made it in for Carrie. Hell, Kathy Bates won Best Actress for Misery. So, where are our modern horror nominations? This is a longer discussion, but the point is Mia Goth is on another level in Pearl. From dancing by herself in the cornfield to delivering that minutes-long monologue at the dinner table to that final shot, Pearl is a wholly unique creation that could only have been brought to life by Goth.

Next time: Best Picture

Countdown to the Oscars: Everything Everywhere All at Once leads with 11 nominations, Banshees and All Quiet right behind

As expected, Everything Everywhere All at Once led the way Tuesday morning with 11 Academy Award nominations, two ahead of The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front. That puts the Daniels’ (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) critical and commercial hit in the driver’s seat for Best Picture at this midway stage of the Oscars race.

Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams were up early to present the nominees, and the universe-hopping sci-fi dramedy from Scheinert and Kwan showed immediate strength, pulling in surprise notices for Costume Design, Original Score, and Original Song. It also nabbed two of the slots in Best Supporting Actress, with Jamie Lee Curtis getting her expected nomination and Stephanie Hsu making good on the buzz around her. Michelle Yeoh is firmly in the running for Best Actress, and Ke Huy Quan remains the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor. The Daniels were also nominated for Director and Original Screenplay, while the film also picked up an all-important Editing nomination.

Joining Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and All Quiet on the Western Front in the 10-film strong Best Picture lineup are Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, The Fabelmans, TÁR, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking. Along with The Daniels, the Best Director lineup consists of Martin McDonagh for Banshees, Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans, Todd Field for TÁR, and Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness. Östlund was a surprise and a welcome one, probably bumping out one of James Cameron (Avatar), Baz Luhrman (Elvis), or Edward Berger (All Quiet).

Berger’s popular German-language adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which just recently dominated the BAFTA nominations, was a monster in the craft categories, making his missing out in Director a little more curious. Overall, All Quiet was recognized for Cinematography, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Original Score, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature, where it is the likely frontrunner. In addition to Director, the missing Editing nomination also suggests weakness for All Quiet, as that category is usually a bellwether of Best Picture strength.

This does not always hold true – and as recently as last year, this was not the case – but often a strong Best Picture nominee will have nominations for Picture (of course), Director, Screenplay (either Adapted or Original), and Editing. The only three films to be cited in all four of those categories this year are Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and TÁR, meaning those are the films most likely to be battling it out for the top prize.

In addition to those four nominations, Banshees also picked up four acting nominations – Colin Farrell for Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon for Supporting Actress – and an Original Score nomination for my favorite working composer, Carter Burwell. Meanwhile, Field’s TAR picked up the expected Cate Blanchett nod for Best Actress and an inspired nomination for Florian Hoffmeister’s stunning cinematography.

Along with Farrell, Austin Butler (Elvis) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale) will battle it out as the three lockstep favorites for Best Actor, making this one of the more exciting acting races in years. Some of that excitement is likely to dissipate once we learn who wins the BAFTA and the SAG awards, so for now, let’s enjoy the mystery. Bill Nighy also made it into the lineup for the Akira Kurosawa remake Living, and Paul Mescal earned probably the biggest surprise nomination of the morning for his tremendous work in the critically beloved Aftersun.

Blanchett will have to fend off a strong surge from Yeoh in Best Actress, which also features Ana de Armas (Blonde), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), whose late buzz caused quite a stir online but proved to be fruitful. This came at the expense of Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and Viola Davis (The Woman King), making this the second straight year and 83rd time in 95 years that no black performers are nominated for Best Actress. That said, Yeoh is the first East Asian actress ever nominated in this category, so we can rejoice in the breaking of that glass ceiling at least.

In Supporting Actress, Curtis, Hsu, and Condon are joined by frontrunner Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Hong Chau (The Whale). The surprise omission is that of Triangle of Sadness star Dolly de Leon, whose absence is made all the more shocking by that film’s apparent strength with voters.

Over in Supporting Actor, Judd Hirsh (The Fabelmans) and Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway) round out a lineup headed by Quan, Gleeson, and Keoghan. Hirsch probably took the Fabelmans spot from Paul Dano, while Tyree Henry earned the nod in a competitive race for the fifth slot, beating out Dano and Eddie Redmayne (The Good Nurse).

Just behind Everything Everywhere, Banshees, and All Quiet in the nominations haul were Elvis with eight and The Fabelmans with seven. As for the other Best Picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick and TÁR each showed up strong with six, while Avatar: The Way of Water earned four, Triangle of Sadness three, and Women Talking two, with Sarah Polley receiving the film’s lone other nomination for Adapted Screenplay.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever likely just missed out on a Best Picture nomination, earning five nods overall, the most for any non-Picture nominee. In addition to Bassett, the superhero blockbuster was recognized for Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects, and Original Song for “Lift Me Up,” a collaboration among Rihanna, Tems, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Goransson. This gives Coogler one of the more fascinating Oscar resumés for a director – he is a Best Picture nominee for producing a film he did not direct (Judas and the Black Messiah) and now an Original Song nominee. 

Also strong below the line were Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which each earned three crafts nods. Meanwhile, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale also earned three nominations, being cited for its Makeup and Hairstyling, in addition to the two acting nominations.

So, how am I feeling? 

The good: Five of my top 10 films of the year are nominated for Best Picture, while three more were recognized in other categories (EO in International Feature, Bardo in Cinematography, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in Documentary). I am overjoyed at the nominations for Field, Östlund, and Mescal, as well as all the love for The Banshees of Inisherin.

The disappointing: I think I am going to have to resign myself to this being the year of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Everyone – critics, Academy voters, audiences, all the people I work with – loves this film. It truly did not work for me, and it will be difficult to spend this Oscar season watching it collect plaudit after plaudit. But, sometimes that happens. I am pleased for everyone who finds joy in this film’s success.

Beyond that, it is an oversight, plain and simple, that voters could not find one space for any of the remarkable performers in the Women Talking ensemble. Most likely, because all of the performances were so strong and there was not a single one for voters to rally behind, they all split the vote and missed out. But, that’s no excuse. Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, in particular, will be coming for their makeup Oscars one of these days.

In addition to Polley missing in Best Director, there were no nominations at all for Till, The Woman King, or She Said, all strong films directed by talented women. And, though Mescal snuck into Best Actor, it is a bummer that Charlotte Welles got no recognition for her Aftersun screenplay, which tells her story so beautifully and truthfully.

What else? The producers of the Academy Awards had better be figuring out how to get “Naatu Naatu,” the nominated original song from RRR, on the broadcast because I promise it will be the highlight of the night. I am excited to catch up on some of the nominated documentaries and international features I missed this year, specifically Lucas Dhont’s Close and Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes. 

A final note, in my pre-nominations piece yesterday, I requested the Academy spread the wealth. That didn’t happen. As mentioned, there were 41 feature nominees in 2021. This year, there are 40. That is not sustainable for the future of these awards. We need more films recognized, not fewer.

That said, this year’s broadcast is likely to be buoyed by the fact that two of the most successful and popular films of all time are nominated for Best Picture (Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick). It will also be helped if producers can entice the nominated Rihanna and Lady Gaga to perform their respective songs. And, honestly, there will probably be some rubberneckers tuning in to find out what might happen after last year’s Will Smith fiasco.

As always, we will dive into all of this in greater depth in the coming weeks, so check back in this space for more Countdown to the Oscars coverage, as well as the rest of my Year in Review series and hopefully some new film reviews and other stuff soon.

New Movie Review: TÁR

Just being mad does not make one a genius, nor does genius require that one be mad. Case in point: writer-director Todd Field and his latest creation, Lydia Tár. Field’s third film should leave no doubt that he is a genius of the cinema, but he is far from mad. Rather, in interviews, he comes off as humble and humbled by his unusually protracted Hollywood journey. Whereas for the titular protagonist of TÁR, portrayed with equal parts ferocity and precision by Cate Blanchett, her madness seems to grow as her genius comes into question.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, and if there is one thing TÁR exudes, it is patience. So let’s begin at the beginning. We are introduced to Lydia Tár during a New Yorker conversation on stage in front of hundreds of – it would not be a stretch to call them – worshippers. Worshippers at the altar of high society. Worshippers at the altar of classical music. And worshippers at the altar of the great composer who claims before them that she controls time itself. As she will find, however, there is no more dangerous place to be than placed upon a pedestal.

Immediately after this, Lydia indulges the fawning of a fan in the lobby. In fact, she revels in it, both in the attention of a beautiful woman and in the flattery of her own brilliance. For Lydia, the two go hand in hand. She is hurried away by her assistant, Francesca (a perfectly seething Noémie Merlant), who has seen this act before. The maestro (not maestra, we are informed in the opening scene) is needed at lunch with a wealthy benefactor who hopes to learn her artistic secrets. He fancies himself an amateur conductor and wishes to see her notes. She refuses and suggests he lacks whatever alchemy produces great artists, an alchemy which she, of course, is certain she possesses.

Within three scenes, Field and Blanchett have established so much about their main character. She is a gifted self-promoter who feeds off the adoration of the crowd. She needs their love, but beyond that, she absolutely believes she deserves it and has earned it through her “genius.” And, possessed of this genius, she also feels it is hers to share with the crowd or withhold from a benefactor. With all of this firmly in mind, Field delivers the coup de grâce of his film’s first act.

Lydia delivers a guest lecture to a conducting class at Juilliard. A student who identifies as BIPOC and pangender conducts a piece by an unknown modern, female composer, of whom Lydia is instantly dismissive – most likely in the very manner the classical music establishment would have first dismissed her. She suggests the student give a try with some Bach. He demurs and says that he cannot in good conscience conduct a piece by a composer whose personal life was so reprehensible. She seems personally offended on Bach’s behalf, and what follows is a lengthy treatise on an age-old debate: Can we – and more importantly, should we – separate the art from the artist?

Of course, this is Lydia’s class, and she holds all the power. In front of a packed house – her favorite – she pokes, prods, and belittles the student who dared question Bach’s place in the pantheon. Her position: simply that it would be infantile to deny or disregard someone’s obvious genius based on his questionable personal life. Would not the student, she asks, want to be judged on his work and not his own private life? At this, he has had enough and angrily storms out of the classroom. Perhaps in Lydia’s eyes, she has won. But won what, and at what cost?

The rest of the film will engage with and deconstruct this argument, using Lydia Tár herself as the subject. We will come to learn of accusations of impropriety from a former protégé. We will witness acts of petty deceit and staggeringly poor judgment. We will see her treat those closest to her, including her partner, Sharon (a wonderful Nina Hoss), with coldness and ingratitude. We will watch her act in ways that would have future students refuse out of principle to engage with her work.

This would be fascinating enough to watch in and of itself, particularly with Blanchett’s wrecking ball of a performance at its center, but it would be somewhat trite. The argument between art and the artist, by now, is shopworn and a little boring. The trick of the film and what makes it a masterpiece is that Field is not interested in debating whether artistic genius excuses personal failings. He seeks to interrogate whether genius itself is a myth, and this becomes far more exciting to explore over the course of the film.

For the purposes of this investigation, it is immaterial if Lydia Tár is guilty of the specific charges levied against her, and Field smartly leaves it up to the audience to decide how much is true, how much is fabricated, and just how much we can believe any of the stakeholders. During a conversation with a retired composer and former mentor of hers, Lydia is told that these days, an accusation is as good as a conviction in the court of public opinion. The film’s final hour bears this out.

As Lydia’s world unravels, we learn more about what it took to fashion the mystique that surrounds her, and we begin to question how much is real and how much is smoke and mirrors. It is not by accident that in her moments of greatest self-doubt, Lydia lights a pair of candles to stare into her own reflection. In a late, standout scene that features Blanchett and Hoss going toe to toe to great effect, Sharon asks if Lydia remembers the politicking and maneuvering it took to place the conductor in her position of power.

You see, Sharon is the first chair violinist of the Berlin Philharmonic, which Lydia conducts. We learn in the film’s opening conversation that historically, orchestras once were led by the first chair violinist, something which Lydia deems highly illogical – of course, the conductor is vital to the orchestra! But, without Sharon, could Lydia have reached the heights she has? Indeed, without the musicians who sit before her, what would there be to conduct?

It is here that we should note Field’s fascinating opening gambit. Before that New Yorker conversation and before anything else, the film begins with its end credits played in reverse, culminating in the title card, “Written, produced, and directed by Todd Field.” Field has been coy in interviews as to the exact meaning behind his decision to start the film this way, but it certainly foregrounds the reality that it takes hundreds and hundreds of people to mount a movie. Field’s name may be most prominent in the credits, but his film could not exist without all the names that come before it.

It is a metatextual act of humility on Field’s part, the kind of humility Lydia Tár would be incapable of displaying. This humility is well earned and very real for Field, who has been out of the game for the better part of 16 years. Though he has directed many commercials, he has not had his name on a short, a documentary, an episode of television, or a feature film since the equally brilliant, though vastly different Little Children in 2006.

He has been attached to numerous projects over the years alongside fellow luminaries such as Joan Didion, Cormac McCarthy, and Jonathan Franzen, among others, but nothing ever came to fruition. If you ask Field how it is that TÁR came to be the project that finally made it happen, he will tell you he is just as surprised as anyone. The vagaries and whims of Hollywood, he suggests.

Whatever it was that brought Field back and TÁR to the big screen, the cinema is better for it. If genius exists, then Field has it, propped up as he is by the tremendous actors and many fine craftspeople – Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir foremost among them – who helped make this film happen. If, on the other hand, genius is a myth, then Field is doing a damn fine imitation.

See it? Yes.