Oscarwatch: Why It Won’t Be Lincoln

Any critic or pundit that still has Lincoln as their Best Picture frontrunner makes a strong case. It ticks all the boxes in regards to what is expected from a potential ‘Best Picture winner’. With 2012 providing not only a wealth of quality films, but some of the best pictures of recent years, sticking to one frontrunner at this point in time would be fruitless. Every guild and association that announces it’s annual accolades puts a thought in Academy voters’ minds, and rightfully so.

On the back of Argo winning big at the Golden Globes, what it should mean is that voters will rethink their position on the film, and perhaps rewatch it for the first time since its initial release last Autumn. Upon this rewatch, they may think long and hard about the fact that it is indeed one of the better (if not the best) motion pictures of 2012, a fact that attracts even more attention for the simple reason that director Ben Affleck was inexplicably snubbed to make way for Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Benh Zeitlin. Congratulations to Zeitlin of course, but say what you will, there’s no way in hell he deserves to be there more than Affleck.

The direction of Argo is masterful, creating almost unfathomable depths of seat-gripping intensity while also allowing the seriousness of the situation to be interspersed with the hilarity of Chris Terrio’s near flawless screenplay. It is a film you walk out of feeling impressed, and a film you talk about for days after; longing for that crucial second viewing. It is that second viewing that will win Best Picture votes for Argo. Unlike Lincoln and Les Miserables, it’s not a slog. It doesn’t require effort. It still maintains equal or even surpassing levels of quality while being a fun, easy watch. And it’s a period picture…about Hollywood! What’s not to vote for, right?

While Argo will certainly be providing a respectable amount of competition, the lack of Affleck in the director race certainly doesn’t do it any favours regardless of how many awards Affleck picks up along the way for his individual contribution. That’s not to say it can’t win, because it can. History proves it, though it hasn’t for a while. In 1990, Driving Miss Daisy won four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. But Bruce Beresford (who?) though? Nowhere to be seen. And he was no Ben Affleck. And Driving Miss Daisy is certainly no Argo.

As much as there is a case for Argo though, there is just as much a case against it. That case, in this instance, is called Silver Linings Playbook and it is nominated for eight Oscars including (perhaps most importantly) the ‘Big Five’ (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay). Not to mention the additional strong support by way of Supporting Actor and Actress nods for Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver and the all-integral Film Editing nomination.

It’s a little known fact that to have a shot at Best Picture, you need to at least pick up a nomination for Film Editing. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for Editing, and about two thirds of the Best Picture winners have also won the Editing Oscar. There’s no escaping it.

So how does Playbook sneak it? It’s easy. Figure out a way to detract votes away from Lincoln. It’s the only way.

After the nominations were announced, but before the Golden Globe winners, I said that for Playbook to win, they were depending on the inclusion of Amour in the Best Picture race to work in their favour. Amour will certainly garner votes, but only if they are at the expense of Lincoln will it benefit Silver Linings Playbook. Personally, I thought that would be enough to swing it. Then, Argo swooped in and won Picture and Director at the Globes.  With Affleck nowhere to be seen on an Oscar ballot, this will do wonders for Argo’s Best Picture chances, again, at the potential expense of Lincoln.

Can Argo’s recent boost be what Playbook needs to pull off the miracle win? It’s increasingly looking like that could be the case. Still, you’d have to be an idiot to ever count out a Spielberg powerhouse.

Best Picture Predictions

1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. Lincoln
3. Argo
4. Les Miserables
5. Life of Pi
6. Zero Dark Thirty
7. Django Unchained
8. Amour
9. Beasts of the Southern Wild