Oppenheimer, Poor Things Lead Oscar Nominations, Gerwig Snubbed Again

Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, and as expected, Christopher Nolan’s atomic-age biopic Oppenheimer led the way with 13 nominations, one shy of tying the all-time record. The epic story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the program to build the first atomic bomb was nominated in all the big categories, including Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Adapted Screenplay, along with significant below-the-line support, and it remains the frontrunner for the top prize. Right now, it’s simply a matter of how big that win will be.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ and Emma Stone’s comic fantasy Poor Things earned 11 nominations, including Picture. Lanthimos and Stone are both producers on the movie, so each ended up with multiple nominations on the day, Lanthimos for Picture and Director and Stone for Picture and Actress. Mark Ruffalo also was nominated for Supporting Actor, his fourth such nomination.

Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s recounting of the Osage oil murders, landed 10 nods, including Picture, Director, and Actress for Lily Gladstone, who becomes the first indigenous woman nominated for Best Actress.

Barbie came next with eight nominations, including Best Picture, but Greta Gerwig missed out in the directing category, which will go down as the biggest snub of the year. Despite broad crafts support, the film also failed to nab an Actress nomination for Margot Robbie or an Editing nod. Nevertheless, both Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera earned supporting recognition in their respective categories, so the love is out there for the billion-dollar behemoth.

Rounding out the 10-strong Best Picture race are American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Maestro, Past Lives, and The Zone of Interest. Both Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) and The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) also garnered directing nods, suggesting the international flavor of the Academy is only getting stronger.

Triet becomes just the eighth woman to be recognized in the directing category, while she was also nominated for Original Screenplay, alongside partner Arthur Harari, while star Sandra Hüller got a well-deserved nomination for Best Actress. The film also hit in the Editing category. 

Films that land in the Picture, Director, Editing, screenplay, and acting categories tend to be strong contenders, and while I’m not suggesting Anatomy of a Fall will challenge Oppenheimer for the top prize, at the very least, the French nomination committee has to be kicking itself for not submitting the film in the International Feature competition. The French went with Tran Ahn Hung’s The Taste of Things, which is a  lovely movie but did not get nominated.

Glazer’s Holocaust horror story, on the other hand, did make it into the International Feature category, a rarity for a UK production, though the film’s spoken language is German. In addition to Director, Glazer was nominated for Adapted Screenplay, and the film was recognized in the Sound category for its stunning soundscapes. Also nominated for International Feature are Io Capitano from Italy, Perfect Days from Japan, Society of the Snow from Spain, and The Teacher’s Lounge from Germany. It’s a heavily Euro-centric lineup, as even the Japanese entrant is from German master Wim Wenders.

Joining Hüller, Gladstone, and Stone in Actress are Annette Bening for Nyad and Carey Mulligan for Maestro. This is Mulligan’s third Best Actress nomination and Bening’s fifth overall (four lead, one supporting). Stone, who of course previously won this category for La La Land, has four total acting nominations (two lead, two supporting) and five overall.

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster will join her Nyad co-star in celebrating after earning a Supporting Actress nomination. She is joined by Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, America Ferrera for Barbie, and presumptive frontrunner Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers. All except Foster are first-time nominees.

Also among The Holdovers’ five nominations is Paul Giamatti in Best Actor. He is joined by Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer, Bradley Cooper for Maestro, Colman Domingo for Rustin, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction. Murphy, Domingo, and Wright are all first-timers, while this is Giamatti’s first leading nomination. His only previous nomination came in Supporting Actor for 2005’s Cinderella Man.

Cooper, meanwhile, can’t stop getting nominated and for the second time in his career pulled off the hat trick of a triple-nomination year. He is nominated in Picture, Actor, and Original Screenplay, the same trifecta he pulled off in 2018 for A Star Is Born, though that was in the Adapted Screenplay category. Overall, this brings Cooper’s nomination total to 12.

Over in Supporting Actor, Sterling K. Brown earned his first career nomination for American Fiction and will be joined by frontrunner Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer, Rober De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon, Ryan Gosling for Barbie, and Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things. This is De Niro’s ninth overall nomination, moving him into a tie for sixth-most all time.

We will dig deeper into all of these categories, as well as the below-the-line races, in the coming weeks. For now, here are a few things that stick out:

• Oppenheimer is one of the strongest frontrunners we’ve had at this point in the race in a long time. It was nominated in every category where it was eligible, it has broad support across every branch of the Academy, and it keeps winning prizes everywhere it goes.

• The Gerwig miss in Director stings. It’s a bad look for the Directors Branch. While they did nominate Triet, one wonders what the visionary director of one of the highest-grossing films of all time has to do. She also was snubbed for Little Women in 2019, to me an equally egregious omission. And with the ridiculous decision to place Barbie in Adapted Screenplay, where Oppenheimer is likely to triumph, Gerwig is nearly certain to be a bridesmaid yet again.

• Beyond just Gerwig, Barbie came up soft in general, despite eight total nods. Not only did it miss Director, Actress, and Editing, as mentioned, it converted just two of its three expected song nominations, with Dua Lipa missing out for “Dance the Night.” We could psychoanalyze this all day – and I’m sure that analysis is coming – but it sure feels like something was going on in voters’ minds regarding Barbie.

• The Cinematography nomination for independent legend Ed Lachman for El Conde is really cool. This is Lachman’s third career nod.

• Whatever heat May December might have had early on sure died a quiet death. With just one nomination for Samy Burch’s Original Screenplay and no acting nods for what is absolutely an actors’ showcase, something clearly did not click for Academy members. I am bummed most of all for Charles Melton.

• The lack of any nominations for Origin, All of Us Strangers, or The Iron Claw suggests a late-in-the-year release is not an ideal strategy. Oscar nominees need time to build buzz before voting begins, and late December just doesn’t cut it.

Okay, that’s all for now. As always, we’ll have more on all of this in the coming days and weeks. Until then, click here to head over to the Academy website for the full nominations list, and happy movie watching.

It’s so metaphorical! Parasite wins Best Picture, Bong Joon-ho named Best Director

This is the happiest I have ever been to be so wrong in my predictions. Parasite, a South Korean thriller about class warfare, is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture of 2019. With no shame, I tell you I jumped out of my seat. I cheered from the couch in my living room, a mere 2.5 miles down the road from where the big night was taking place. There is shock, confusion, elation, and appreciation, all running through my mind at once in celebration of the Best Picture of the year and one of the best Best Picture winners in history.

Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece took home four awards, including Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature, and Best Director for the man of the hour. Some films are undeniable. The stats and precursors and every bit of intuition in the world said 1917, a wonderful war picture that would have been a handsome if unadventurous winner. But some films are undeniable. 12 Years a Slave was undeniable. Moonlight was undeniable. Parasite is undeniable.

The show began with a lovely opening number by Janelle Monáe, who came out dressed as Mr. Rogers (with Tom Hanks seated in the front row, no less) and invited the Academy and all of us at home to be her neighbor. Then she blew the roof off the Dolby Theatre (located on Hollywood and Highland, as the broadcast reminded us several times, cross streets that meant nothing to me before I moved here a year ago). It was a fun, high-energy start to a show that nominally had no host.

Steve Martin and Chris Rock, both former Oscar hosts, came out to deliver the traditional opening “monologue” (yeah, I know, two people is a dialogue). They got in a few good jokes, but the timing was creaky, and as much as I love Martin, one wonders why Rock could not have handled the task himself. Rock’s barbs at the industry’s ongoing problems with race were pointed and hilarious. It set a tone that left little place for older white male Martin. But, like that, they were gone, and it was on to the awards.

Brad Pitt won the first Oscar of the night and seemed genuinely overwhelmed at the recognition and support of his peers. All of the acting awards went as planned, with Pitt and Laura Dern winning the respective supporting categories and Renée Zelwegger and Joaquin Phoenix taking the lead awards. Phoenix’s speech was heartfelt, sincere and progressive before he ended with a touching tribute to his late brother, River. The best part of Dern’s win was her mom, Hollywood legend Dianne Ladd, tearing up throughout the entire speech.

The award for best speech of the night, however, goes to Joker composer Hildur Guðanóttir, whose joy and gratitude were evident and who made a powerful appeal to her fellow female composers to make themselves heard. Guðanóttir is the first woman in Academy history to win the award for Best Original Score, and of course, it is about time.

I would say two of the five Original Song nominee performances were truly lovely, and the others just fine. Double nominee Cynthia Erivo’s performance of “Stand Up” was a powerful moment in the room, and there was something moving about seeing Elsas from around the world perform “Into the Unknown” from Frozen II alongside Idina Menzel. We probably could have done without multiple references to the infamous John Travolta “Adele Dazeem” gaffe, but low-hanging fruit is always likely to be picked.

Billy Eilish’s rendition of “Yesterday” for the In Memoriam segment was understated and respectful, while the other major musical performance we got was the most baffling moment of the night. I would put Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” performance this year alongside the Sound of Music medley from a few years back among the most unmotivated and completely dispensable Oscar moments ever. All I can think is the Academy was attempting to right the wrong of Eminem not performing his Oscar-winning song on the broadcast the year he won the award. So, on this, the 17th anniversary of that win, he got the stage. He was okay, but when people complain about the length of the Oscars, it is stuff like this that is so indefensible.

Of course, I was bummed at the Best Adapted Screenplay win for Jojo Rabbit, though it is difficult to begrudge an award to Taika Waititi, who seems like a lovely person. But the near-shutout for Little Women, which won only Costume Design, stings. I take solace in the knowledge that somewhere down the line, Greta Gerwig will direct a film that is, as we are saying, undeniable, and it will sweep everything. I look forward to that day.

Speaking of shutouts, The Irishman went 0-for-10, joining only five other films to match or surpass that goose egg, including Martin Scorsese’s own Gangs of New York. In a particularly cruel irony, one of the awards Gangs of New York was supposed to be a lock for was Best Original Song, “The Hands That Built America” by U2. That song lost to – you guessed it – “Lose Yourself.”

But while Scorsese’s film won nothing, the winners’ speeches were not short on love and admiration for the legendary auteur, who seemed humbled and appreciative of all the recognition. That included Best Director Bong, who shouted out Scorsese as a major inspiration. Bong also made special mention of Quentin Tarantino, who has long been a champion of the Korean director’s work.

I imagine the show ran a little long for some of the more casual viewers, but when Spike Lee read out Bong Joon-ho’s name for Best Director in lull in the telecast was immediately erased by a fresh wave of optimism and enthusiasm. Though the film won Best Original Screenplay, it was passed over in Editing and Production Design, so it looked like Parasite might be relegated to Best International Feature. Then Best Director happened and anything seemed possible. But until Jane Fonda read out the top award, pausing for effect like the pro she is, it didn’t seem real.

I have been watching the Oscars telecast with serious interest for 19 years, and I can count on one hand the number of moments of pure bliss the show has delivered me. Phillip Seymour Hoffman winning Best Actor in 2005. The two-shot of Lupita Nyong’o as Best Supporting Actress and 12 Years a Slave as Best Picture in 2013. Olivia Colman for Best Actress last year. And now, the Parasite sweep of 2019.

There is more to say, more to write, and we will probably go over all of it, the larger context, what this means for the future of the Academy, etc., but for now, I will enjoy my sparkling wine and toast to Parasite, the best picture of the year.

Last Cinema Standing’s 2017 Year in Review

The tendency in people is to look for a lesson, a theme, some kind of connecting thread to give all the chaos around us meaning and purpose. We invent religions and other systems of belief to cope. We study far-off stars and earth-bound microbes in search of answers. We talk, hopefully, with each other – as opposed to at each other, over each other, or not at all – creating communities to guide us, comfort us, and protect us. There must be some reason, we think, we wonder, we hope, and in the face of great uncertainty, we press on.

All of this is to say 2017 did not make much sense. At times, navigating the past 12 months felt like creeping through a dimly lit corridor, grasping at shadows instead of the light. I won’t get too political here – there will be plenty of time for that later – except to say it was a bad year and logic suggests this will be even worse.

Last Cinema Standing began as a way to start a conversation about films, to relate them to people’s lives, and to foster a deeper appreciation for what the movies can teach us about ourselves and each other. In the face of the world as it is, it is fair to ask if that mission still has meaning. I submit it means more now than ever before. I am fond of quoting Roger Ebert and in particular his calling the cinema “a machine that generates empathy.” In this new world, I cannot think of a greater need than such a machine.

So we press on. Where life does not provide a lesson, a theme, or a thread, perhaps the year in film will offer one. Beyond that, however, the Year in Review gives us a chance to reflect on and celebrate a bounty of wonderful movies and experiences. It is about the moments, the quotes, the performances, and the films that will stick with us as the calendar pages flip. Last Cinema Standing will spend the next week diving into all of that and more, but first, I wanted to share a few highlights from a year in moviegoing.

Writer-director Julia Ducournau’s Raw screened as part of the Film Society’s New Directors, New Films Festival, and it was a treat, indeed. Ducournau and star Garance Marillier stayed for a fabulous question-and-answer session afterward, during which a woman in the audience stood and angrily confronted the director. She wondered why such a film even needs to exist then stormed out of the theater. Ducournau merely smirked and continued undeterred. There must be a perverse pleasure in making a film that upsets someone to such a degree but nevertheless compels her to sit through the whole thing.

In April, the QUAD Cinema, one of those great old New York City art-house theaters, after a years-long renovation and change of hands, re-opened as a cinephile’s dream. Apart from its wonderful selection of first-run films, the operators have dedicated the QUAD to becoming the premier repertory theater in the city. As part of that mission, the programmers present the First Encounters series, in which notable figures in the film world choose films they have never seen, watch them with an audience and react.

I was fortunate to attend the inaugural event, at which writer-director-actor Greta Gerwig presented David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. A few days later, John Turturro was on hand for a viewing of Satyajit Ray’s world cinema masterwork Pather Panchali. To see a great or interesting film anew through the eyes of one who has never seen it is among the true joys of cinema – this is why we share our favorite movies with our friends – and to experience that with professionals who are also endlessly knowledgeable and boundless in the depth of their love for the form, well, that is just the icing on the cake.

In September, the Lincoln Center screened Spike Lee’s Crooklyn as the inaugural One Film, One New York selection, an initiative to unite the city under the banner of a single moviegoing experience. The film was shown for free around the city, and Lee appeared at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan and the BAM Cinematek in Brooklyn with New York Times film critic AO Scott to discuss his quintessentially New York film. My fiancée and I waited three hours in the rain to hear Mr. Lee’s thoughts, and he did not disappoint. Spike, as ever, was Spike – equal parts prickly, confrontational, and humble, but always damn right.

The following month came the New York Film Festival, where we attended a screening of Sean Baker’s lovely ode to the resilience and spirit of childhood, The Florida Project. Baker was joined onstage afterward by his co-writer and the stars of the film, including the 7-year-old scene-stealer Brooklynn Prince, who if she so chooses could feature in everything from now until the sun burns out and that would be just fine.

Eight years ago, I called Carter Burwell the best composer working in Hollywood, an opinion that has not wavered. Last month, I got the chance to tell him so when he was on hand for a screening of Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck. Long stretches of the film are carried only by music, and Burwell once again proves up to the task. In discussion, he proved worthy of admiration not only for his talent but for his kindness and generosity,

I could go on all day like this, and if you catch me in conversation, there is always the chance I will, but let’s wrap it up with this: In May, I attended the Film Society’s Chaplin Award Gala, where Robert De Niro was honored for his contributions to the cinema. It was about this time the current administration was elbow-deep in its attempts to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, among other arts programs.

It was a wonderful evening, filled with humorous, heartfelt speeches from folks like Meryl Streep, Ben Stiller, Michael Douglas, Whoopi Goldberg, and Martin Scorsese, who ultimately presented De Niro with the award. But the highlight surely was De Niro, who could not pass up the opportunity to stand up and speak for artists and art everywhere in a speech that spoke to the very core of why we were all there that night.

“Everyone knows Chaplin was a great artist, but he made his movies to entertain. It was only later that they became art,” De Niro said. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of our government’s hostility towards art. The budget proposal, among its other draconian cuts to life-saving and life-enhancing programs, eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For their own devices and political purposes, the administration suggests that the money for these all-inclusive program goes to the rich, liberal elite. This is what they now call an alternative fact. I call it what it is — bullshit.”

Bullshit it was, and bullshit it remains. If there is a lesson, a theme, or a meaning to be taken from the chaos of the past year, it is this: Art will not be silenced, and each of the extraordinary writers, directors, and performers contributing to the cinema is evidence of that fact. So we press on.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s 2017 Year in Review, in which we will look back at the year that was cinema through the best moments, best quotes, best performances, and best films of the past 12 months. Check back each day this week for a new entry. Tomorrow: Top 10 Moments.

Last Cinema Standing’s 2015 Year in Review

Another year behind us and another year of films to look forward to, but let’s not close the book on 2015 just yet. The movie industry certainly won’t be doing that as it spends the next two months reflecting on the best the year that was had to offer, all leading up to the Academy Awards at the end of February. At Last Cinema Standing, I like to take just a week to remember some of the best – and a few of the worst – films, performances, and moments from the last 12 months.

It has been a year of change at Last Cinema Standing, pretty much all of it positive. Back in January, I launched a redesign of the site, which has gotten a lot of positive feedback. In February, I introduced the Countdown to the Oscars, which drew the most reads the site has ever gotten. In fact, in the seven years since I founded this site, 2015 was the best year yet for overall readership.

In 2015, Last Cinema Standing featured more content than ever before with 40 new film reviews, extensive coverage of Q-and-A’s with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and the kind of film and industry analysis that hopefully makes this site a unique and valuable destination for readers. I hope to deliver even more content in 2016, but my focus will remain – as it always has – on quality.

I started this site because I love thinking about, talking about, and writing about film and not in a perfunctory way. I take film as an art form seriously, and my goal is for Last Cinema Standing to stand out because of the depth of discussion it hopefully fosters. I do not write quick-hit pieces or click-bait articles just to draw eyes to the page, and I never will. Readers can get that elsewhere. The people who come to Last Cinema Standing deserve a different cinema experience on the web, and every day, that is what I seek to deliver.

None of this exists without you, the readers, though. I would go to the movies anyway, but knowing I have a place to come to discuss what I watched with an intelligent, interested, like-minded group of people makes it all worth it. I have a day job and a life outside of movies, but I do this because I love it, and one of the reasons I love it is because readers seem to enjoy it. So, thank you, readers, for making this site one of my favorite things to work on day in and day out.

So, what interested you in 2015? A lot, it turns out. This year, Last Cinema Standing introduced contributor Sean Patrick Leydon and his Now Watch This column, a guide to the obscure treasures hiding on Netflix Instantwatch. That column proved incredibly popular, and we hope to bring you even more of it this year.

Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, Greta Gerwig, and Kevin Corrigan

The most read stories of the year were Sean’s piece on writer-director Rian Johnson’s excellent The Brothers Bloom, my coverage of a Q-and-A with The Tribe writer-director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky and star Yana Novikova at the Film Forum, and my piece on writer-actress Greta Gerwig’s double-feature presentation of her Mistress America and director Jonathan Demme’s classic Something Wild at the IFC Center.

Topping all of that, however, was a Q-and-A with writer-director Andrew Bujalski and stars Guy Pearce and Kevin Corrigan, who were at the IFC Center to discuss their new film Results. The success of the piece – the second-most popular article in the site’s history – was due in no small part to Corrigan’s help promoting it on social media, so a special thanks to him. He is truly one of the good guys in the business.

The mantra for 2016 is more of everything – more reviews, more events, more industry columns. Last Cinema Standing has certainly proven to be an “if you build it, they will come” venture, and as long as that remains true, my promise is to continue building this into the best site it can be. So, once again, thanks to everyone who reads, comments, and offers feedback, but mostly, thanks to everyone who goes to the movies.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 of our Year in Review with Last Cinema Standing’s Best & Worst of 2015, and check back each day throughout the week for more Year in Review coverage, ending Friday with the Top 10 Films of 2015.

Something Wild: Greta Gerwig on dangerous women

Melanie Griffith stars in Jonathan Demme's 1986 comedy Something Wild.

Bear with me a moment. I am going to get a little geeky. Of course, if this site is evidence of anything, it is of my ability to be geeky when it comes to films. Last Cinema Standing was founded on the idea that seeing a movie in the theater is the best way to see a movie. Nothing matches the experience of a room full of people awed into silence when the lights go out. No matter what shines up on the screen next, that beautiful moment of darkness before the movie starts is full of possibilities. I love it.

Everything is digital now – the projection, the sound, hell, sometimes most of a movie. I am no purist. I understand how and why we have moved in this direction. That is fine, but there is just something about hearing the pop of a real soundtrack while watching celluloid projected, warts and all, on the big screen. I like the scratches. I like the dirt. It is tangible. You can feel it. You can sense it. It makes the experience more real.

Each month, the IFC Center in New York City dusts off the projector and shows a classic film the way it is meant to be seen. I wrote last year about the inaugural screening in the Celluloid Dreams series, Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo and a tribute to cinematographer Gordon Willis. Last Tuesday, I attended the latest screening in the series, Jonathan Demme’s screwball comedy ode Something Wild (1986).

The film was followed by a question-and-answer session with actress-writer Greta Gerwig, who was there to promote her upcoming film Mistress America, of which the audience was then treated to a sneak preview. Gerwig talked at length about Something Wild and other films of its ilk and the inspiration she drew from them in writing her newest paean to Generation Y’s search for purpose. The discussion was a fascinating look into the process of a gifted young writer and performer.

Greta Gerwig speaks at the IFC Center.

“In some ways, your impression of [the movies you’re inspired by] is more useful than what the thing actually is,” she said. “I thought about that a lot when I saw Mr. Turner. It starts when he’s coming back from Amsterdam, and the shopkeeper asks him what he was doing, and I think he says, ‘I was looking at the Rembrandts.’ And it placed you so much in that time when you wouldn’t have access to those paintings. You’d have to go to the place, look at the paintings, and do your best to remember what was great about them. It’s such a different experience of art than having it be accessible to you all the time. So while we would watch things, also sometimes our memory of things would be the feeling we were looking to recreate.”

Among the many influences Gerwig named were Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan, and of course Something Wild, as well as the films of George Cukor, Ernst Lubitsch, and Howard Hawks and novels by Saul Bellow and Phillip Roth. It is an eclectic list, to say the least, but the common thread seems to be people trying to find where they belong or figuring out how to fit in once they have found a place.

Something Wild – which I highly recommend; it is on Netflix if you cannot find a 35-millimeter screening near you – follows yuppie Charles (Jeff Daniels) on a weekend fling with wild girl Lulu (Melanie Griffith), who, for all intents and purposes, kidnaps him and coerces him into an odyssey of drinking, fighting, and law breaking. It is the most fun Charles has had in a long time, breaking free of the shackles of his mundane life and letting his hair down, albeit by force mostly.

If that basic description sounds familiar, it is because modern romantic comedies have taken the trope of the free-spirited girl who teaches the uptight guy to have fun and turned it into a formula. However, modern films of this type are almost exclusively about the man. The girl is usually perfect, if a bit peppy, and the boy realizes maybe he needs more of that in his life – both pep and perfection. Something Wild and other like-minded films concern themselves with the stories of their women. Lulu is a complex person with goals and desires of her own, a fully developed female character, which Gerwig lamented the lack of in modern cinema.

“Melanie Griffith in [Something Wild] and Patricia Arquette in After Hours and even Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose – it’s a kind of female character that I feel really disappeared from movies,” said Gerwig. “They’re dangerous women. They’re not just being delightful for you. They could maybe get you into something that might get you killed, or you’re not fully sure their morality. Every third thing that comes out of their mouths is a lie. They put on lots of costumes. They’re amazing characters.”

Lola Kirke and Greta Gerwig star in Mistress America.

Gerwig’s Mistress America character, Brooke, is descended from this line of dangerous women. She is a screw-up overflowing with self-confidence and a failure who senses success is always right around the corner. She is no role model, but she fancies herself one when she takes her soon-to-be step-sister (a fabulous Lola Kirke) under her wing.

Even the dangerous woman, however, is a bit of a trope, but the beauty of Gerwig and director-co-writer Noah Baumbach’s script is that it deepens the character and subverts the cliché. Ultimately, the person to whom Brooke is most dangerous is herself. Others will recover from her actions and move on, but she has to live with herself every day.

In Something Wild, Lulu faces the same dilemma. She does not like who she is or who she was, and she has no idea who she should be. She lies. She puts on costumes. She goes by fake names. No one in the world has to know the real her – but she does. The audience may see the film through Charlie’s eyes, but he is not the protagonist. That would be Lulu, and the movie hinges on her feelings and her choices. For an ’80s throwback to the comedies of the ‘40s, it is a pretty radical idea, but if we really take a hard look at the current cinema landscape, it might be even more radical now.