Oscars 2021: A night where the right films won, but it lacked drama as a spectacle… until the end

The night as a spectacle lacked drama somewhat - but there were some notable moments

Producers Frances McDormand, left, and Chloe Zhao, winners of the award for best picture for "Nomadland," pose in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, Pool)

Paul Whitington

April 26 2021 01:22 PM

My favourite photo from the 2021 Oscars was a shot of Chloé Zhao gazing in loving awe at her fellow winner Frances McDormand, wondering perhaps how such a self-effacing, no nonsense person can be so effortlessly brilliant.

Nomadland was the big winner at the 93rd Academy Awards, scooping Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress on a night when most things went as predicted. The only major shock was the awarding of Best Actor to Anthony Hopkins rather than the late Chadwick Boseman, which prompted the inevitable Twitter storm.

More on that in a moment.

For various reasons, most of them obvious, the mood at Sunday night’s ceremony was muted, and almost genteel. Covid restrictions meant severely limited numbers at LA’s Union Station, and an intimate arrangement of booths, from which stars and their entourages waved to each other politely. It felt a bit like watching extremely rich people attend a theatrical revue.

Steven Soderbergh had been put in charge of proceedings by an Academy desperate to halt the inexorable slide in the TV ratings of this once-mighty event. Mr. Soderbergh’s lean and clean arrangement banished musical numbers to a pre-show, and axed the dreadful Oscar tradition of striking up the band to get rid of hyperventilating actors. Instead, winners were expected to behave themselves and keep it brief: in the main, they did.

Nomadland had been flagged as the Best Picture favourite from way out, and was a thoroughly deserved winner. Based on a book by Jessica Bruder, the film explores the spartan but liberated world of Americans who live outside the capitalist bubble, taking seasonal work and living in customised RVs. Frances McDormand plays Fern, a middle-aged widow who bravely takes to the road: she and David Strathairn were the only professional actors in the film, with all other characters played by real wanderers.

As co-producers, McDormand and Chloé Zhao shared the Best Picture Oscar, and Zhao became only the second female, and the first woman of colour, to win the Best Director award. Viola Davis and Carey Mulligan had been talked about as potential winners in the Best Actress category, but it was McDormand who deservedly triumphed. In her acceptance speech, she did not detain her peers for long: “please watch our movie on the largest screen possible,” she said, “and one day very soon, take everyone you know into a theater”. This is the first - and hopefully last - Oscars at which many of the competing films haven’t been widely shown in cinemas.

Daniel Kaluuya always gives it socks in acceptances speeches, and was true to form here. He paid fulsome tribute to Fred Hampton, the Black Panther leader he so vividly inhabits in Judas and the Black Messiah, before moving on to matters personal. “We gotta celebrate life man,” he said, “we’re breathing, we’re walking, it’s incredible. It’s incredible! My mum met my dad, they had sex. It’s amazing! D’ya know what I’m saying?” In the audience, Daniel’s sister had her head in her hands, while his mother muttered darkly, “what’s he saying?”. His contribution was bracing on a night dominated by demureness and caution.

Emerald Fennell was a deserving winner of the Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman, her witty and original satirical thriller exploring issues of violence against women, and consent. She’d been pregnant while making the film, and admitted her relief that the baby didn’t arrive till after she’d finished. “Thank God,” she said, “I was crossing my legs.”

Star turn of the night, though, was most definitely Yoon Yuh-jung, winner of the Best Supporting Actress award for her marvellous portrayal of a meddlesome, fun-loving Korean granny in Lee Issac Chung’s Minari. Her award was presented to her by last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner Brad Pitt, a fact that was not lost on the 73-year-old Korean actress. As she came to the stage she shook her head and said “Mr. Brad Pitt, finally. Nice to meet you.”

Brad rewarded her with a bashful grin.

Among the actors Yoon Yuh-jung beat on the night was Glenn Close, who’d been up for her rather fruity turn as a salty southern granny in Hillbilly Elegy. She was graciousness itself in defeat, but then again ought to be good at losing as she’s had plenty of practice - this is the eighth time she’s been Oscar-nominated, and she’s never won. She did win the people’s vote at this year’s event, though, when she rose from her seat to twerk impressively to the strains of 1998 funk hit Da Butt.

What Irish hopes there were this year rested (yet again) on the shoulders of Cartoon Saloon and their beautiful animated feature Wolfwalkers. But neither they nor any of the others nominees ever stood a chance against Pixar’s sublime jazz-themed exploration of the afterlife, Soul.

The decision to forego a main host for the third year running made the event feel a bit like a badly-organised wedding at times, with stars like Harrison Ford, Halle Berry and Reese Witherspoon taking turns to do the honours. It was a night where the right films won, but as a spectacle it lacked drama somewhat - till the end.

Best Picture is traditionally the last award to be presented, but this year it was Best Actor that finished proceedings off.

This running change prompted many to assume that the award would go to Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and cue up a tribute to the actor’s brief but brilliant life.

Instead the Academy voters, with uncharacteristic bravery, decided that Anthony Hopkins should win for Florian Zeller’s The Father, in which he plays an old man battling dementia. While Boseman fans lit up the internet, Mr. Hopkins himself was nowhere to be found, so presenter Joaquin Phoenix accepted his award on behalf of the Academy, and the event ended with a whimper, not a bang.

On her way into the event, Hopkins’ co-star Olivia Colman wryly commented, “he ought to be in bed - he’s 83.”