2022 Oscar Nominees (pt. IV)

The Worst Person in the World

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Licorice Pizza

Parallel Mothers

In preparation of the Oscars on Sunday, I had to squeeze in a handful of films that are nominated this year—films that I’ve been curious about for quite awhile. But I couldn’t just pick just two so for the first time in DFT history (not to be confused with DTF), I [somewhat unintentionally] did a quadruple feature. With so little time left and an impulse to explore as much as possible, in the span of 48ish hours I watched 4 films nominated for Oscars—The Worst Person in the World, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Licorice Pizza, and Parallel Mothers. I didn’t plan on watching this many Oscar-nominated films this month, as much as I nerd-out about movies, within most awards seasons I’ve found that I am generally uninterested in at least half of the films up for discussion. Maybe it’s because I’m more online than I’ve ever been, but I felt like the films up for awards this year were so heavily-discussed, so often controversial and contrasting, I had to see for myself if any of them were even worth the hype. Consider this a week of leftovers—my final dip into the Oscar pool to discover what’s worth watching, so that you don’t have to. I could go on and on about my instant enchantment with Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (nominated for both Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay), but I’d hate to hype it up too much or spoil it in anyway. But this movie is about nothing and everything. And that’s kinda my shit. It’s the kind of movie that, as a woman at least, I can’t help placing myself into. The complexities and the mundanity of life, of desire, are always worth exploring, and this film did so without being overly sentimental or arduously poignant. It was so immensely joyful but it was not without its moments of anxiety, and dread, even. The world-building and character development was subtle, but intoxicating, and even though it dragged just a little in the final act it remained unpredictable, sexy, and thrilling throughout. The Eyes of Tammy Faye was a different kind of thrill, a far less relatable, far more scandalous story with a campy aesthetic and an unfettered mode of storytelling. Once the element of crazy was introduced into this story it really never stopped. Jessica Chastain stars as Tammy Faye Messner, televangelist, makeup icon, and wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker. Jessica was pretty much unrecognizable as Tammy Faye, and gave an inspired performance that, dare I say, I hope she wins for Best Actress? I was (and still am) rooting for Kristen Stewart but… damn. It’s no secret that I stan Jessica Chastain, member of the red-headed elite, but she far exceeded my expectations here. When I first saw the trailers for this film I’m pretty sure I said “Oh this could be bad. I can’t wait.” But not only do I feel like this movie was somewhat ignored this season, it’s actually really good?? Tammy Faye, who was unknowingly aligned with the worst people, was, of course, sympathetic from the beginning. She was clearly just so good, or at least pure, and it’s a shame her story ended in such tragedy and controversy because I believe that she never intended to do any wrong. Jessica really slayed this role, but I gotta say, unsurprisingly, my boy Andrew Garfield killed it in this as well! He’s nominated for Best Actor for tick, tick…BOOM!, but I honestly feel like he should be nominated for his portrayal of Jim Bakker as well. For such a chaotic story, it actually came together so easily, in a way that felt humanizing and respectful of Tammy Faye, condemning of Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell (AKA Satan). For such an over-the-top story, the way it was told seemed genuine somehow. Genuine really is the word of the night because Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza was nothing if not genuine. Was it real? Not entirely, no, but it was fun and it was sweet. It was not perfect. As many viewers and critics have pointed out, the overtly racist Asian jokes were problematic and unnecessary, as well as the 10-year age difference between our protagonists. Alana Haim, making her film debut as a girl named Alana Kane, is 25 and 15 year old Gary Valentine, played by Cooper Hoffman (Phillip Semyour Hoffman’s son), is in love with her. I feel like the movie would’ve gone on just fine without those offensive jokes and if the love story were just unrequited—instead of the reverse-Woody Allen narrative we got here. I sound so cynical but I just feel like we can only romanticize so many of these power imbalances in romance for we start to give people, namely men, the wrong idea. With that out of the way I will say this movie is charming and compelling, with a really lovable cast. Alana Haim was truly spectacular, and was both the best and the most confusing character of the bunch. Cooper Hoffman was adorable and even though Bradley Cooper was only in it briefly, he was incredible. His 10 minutes of screen time were some of my favorite moments. 70s nostalgia is alive and well and I’d be lying if I said that I don’t eat that shit up sometimes. I pretty much ate it up here, but is it Best Picture-worthy? That I’m not so sure about. Given that it’s nominated alongside so many dark films with heavy subject matter, (The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, etc) I was excited by the prospect that a chill, happy movie could win. But now that I’ve actually seen it… I think it was good! But like, is it Parasite-good or even Nomadland-good? Idk. I enjoyed the first half of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Boogie Nights, and reeeeally didn’t care for Inherent Vice (though that might be the book’s fault), but out of all of PTA’s LA-based 70s period pieces, this aesthetic was the most refined and fun to watch. It has flaws and I think towards the end it gets just a tad boring, in classic PTA manner I felt this film could’ve been 30-40 minutes shorter, but it’s the first PTA movie that didn’t all around disappoint me. Which leads me to the only real disappointment of the night: Parallel Mothers. Somewhat recently I watched Pedro Almodóvar’s 2011 film The Skin I Live In, a thriller that was shocking, scintillating, nerve-wracking, and entirely gripping overall. It was the kind of strange, polarizing film that made me immediately want to see the director’s other films, so I was ecstatic when I found out Penélope Cruz received a Best Actress nomination for his latest film: Parallel Mothers. While Penélope Cruz was superb, with a sweater-wardrobe that was to die for, this story just lacked the oomph that I was hoping for. The setup is so intriguing, I was bracing myself for another mysteriously twisted, potentially violent tale, but it was not that kind of story. Which is fine. I always prefer when films go in a psycho-sexual direction, especially when that’s clearly what this story is pointing towards, but Parallel Mothers had less to do with the dark side of motherhood and more to do with the dark side of Spain’s history. The bloodshed of the Spanish Civil War is something that is mentioned at the beginning of the film, when Penélope Cruz’ character Janis meets a forensic anthropologist named Arturo (played by Israel Elejalde) and proposes the idea of excavating a centuries-old grave full of her ancestors, but when the two are found making passionate love to one another, resulting in Penélope’s pregnancy, I thought, certainly, this film was headed in another direction. When Janis meets Ana (Milena Smit), a much younger woman giving birth on the same day as her, they form a bond and are suddenly, inexplicably tied to one another. Certainly, I thought, this would be the focus of our story. And while a great deal of the film deals with a tragic twist of newfound motherhood, the core of this film is dedicated to a much larger, truer story. I felt like both of these stories—the maternal one and the historical one—were odd to place together. It seemed like they could’ve been two entirely separate films. It’s not that Parallel Mothers had a disjointed storytelling style, in fact Almodóvar seemed to weave the two together rather well, I just felt that not enough time was allowed to properly tell either story. The set design, costuming, and overall aesthetic was so immensely pleasing to the eye, in typical Almodóvar fashion. Penélope still deserves to be nominated and Almodóvar clearly still knows how to twist and turn his stories into something else, I just wish it’d gone somewhat differently. With all that said, I think all of these films are worth exploring. Are they worthy of Oscars? Unfortunately, that’s not for me to decide, but for an Academy of stuffy old white dudes to decide.