The Contenders: 12 YEARS A SLAVE Becomes The Oscar Front Runner With Toronto Win
The Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award doesn’t always precisely line up with Oscar. But in the last five years, four winners have gone on to Best Picture nominations and two (Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech) have gone on to win Oscar’s big prize. So if nothing else, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which won the People’s Choice Award at the 2013 fest, just earned itself a guaranteed spot on the Best Picture nominations list. As of today, it’s also you’re likely winner.
The reception for 12 Years a Slave was outstanding at Telluride, where people who saw the movie instantly touted it as the Oscar front runner. Given the hyperbole that tends to come along with these Oscar season fests, I didn’t buy it. But with the People’s Choice Award win, 12 Years a Slave proves that beyond critics and hardcore cine-maniacs, the film has an audience. Word of mouth will likely be strong with this one, even if the uncompromising look at slavery is brutal.
But that’s where it gets sticky. A film that serious could itself be a problem. Remember Saving Private Ryan? Even though it was the highest grossing movie of the year, an obvious audience favorite, the serious tone was no match for the equally brilliant but lighter Shakespeare In Love. And you’d have a hard time convincing me that any of the pictures to win since Schindler’s List in 1993 were serious movies. (Maybe The Hurt Locker.)
Still 12 Years a Slave has one other thing going for it: History. Like Lee Daniels’ The Butler, a 12 Years a Slave win would likely include a directing Oscar. Not only would it be the first movie directed by a black man to win best picture, McQueen would also be the first black man to win the directing Oscar.
Mr. Daniels and Mr. McQueen could even split the vote in the end, with The Butler, which just crossed the $100m mark, taking the top prize and 12 Years a Slave winning the director trophy. Given the Weinstein’s power, I wouldn’t give up on The Butler so easily. But the obvious favorite at the moment is 12 Years a Slave… with three and a half months of Oscar movies still to come.
Updated Predictions Chart for the 2013-2014 Oscar Season