First, let’s take a look at the critical frontrunner, Tom McCarthy’s overrated journalist drama Spotlight. True, I was not a fan, and as I said during my Golden Globe predictions:
“It comes off as nothing more than a flat procedural that has characters perfunctorily going from spot to spot, spouting dialogue, and slowly moving the progress of their investigation forward until it finally comes to an end, with the film never feeling like it truly comes to life, despite the efforts of a top-notch ensemble.”
However, that hasn’t stopped it from being a hit with critics, who have fallen in love with a film about journalists doing something good, the same as when the Academy fell in love with Argo, a film about producers helping to save lives.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why would it be surprising if the film won Best Picture?” Well, there are actually two answers to that question. First, the film failed to get an Editing nomination from the American Cinema Editors (ACE), a nod which every Best Picture winner has gotten for the last 25 years, going back to the time when the group had only one category and three nominations.
The fact that the film was beaten out by two titles that weren’t even nominated for Best Picture (Sicario and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and another that did, but failed to get an Oscar nod for Film Editing (The Martian) is rather surprising. Now, Spotlight did get an Oscar nod for Film Editing, but the fact that the guild itself passed on it, and specifically what they passed on it for, show that there must not have been all that much support for it. Not that it had much of a chance against Mad Max: Fury Road in the first place, but still, the film not receiving the ACE nomination is quite the eye-opener.
The second reason that it would be surprising to see Spotlight win on Saturday night is that the film is currently only in the lead for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, meaning another category would more than likely have to swing its way for it to be a real Best Picture contender.
It’s a fact that no film has won Best Picture with only one additional win since 1953, where The Greatest Show on Earth took the top honor and Best Writing (Motion Picture Story). Ironically, this is a film that is constantly named as one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time, but it still stands that winning Best Picture and one other award just doesn’t happen anymore, especially with the Academy’s need to justify some of their Best Picture winners (like when Argo inexplicably stole Best Adapted Screenplay away from Lincoln).
The question becomes: what else would Spotlight take? The film was nominated for a total of six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. It’s most definitely not in the lead for Best Director (at best, Tom McCarthy is in third place behind George Miller and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu). It’s not in the lead for Best Supporting Actor, either (Rylance looks to be the favorite here since Stallone failed to nab a SAG nomination, while Ruffalo failed to nab both SAG and Golden Globe nominations). It’s also not in the lead for Best Supporting Actress (McAdams was nominated by SAG, but has not won a single award anywhere). Finally, as already discussed, it’s definitely not in the lead for Film Editing, where Mad Max: Fury Road has a firm lead in the category.
It could pull an Argo and steal something away that it doesn’t deserve (though it can easily be said that it’s already doing that for Picture and Original screenplay), but would the Academy really want to do something that stupid again? The answer to this question remains to be seen, but it’s certainly not something I’d put past them.