What are you doing on Sunday, March 12 at 8 p.m. EST? That’s when the 95th annual Academy Awards extravaganza is set to be broadcast. Some of us ignore the Oscars presentation; some of us are glued to our TV screens avidly every year, perhaps even wagering on the outcomes. And some of us hate-watch it privately, despite sneering publicly at all the worst proclivities of Hollywood that we believe this lavish spectacle represents. (Which specific proclivities qualify as worst will vary with the viewer, of course.)
Like many in the audience, your humble correspondent usually goes into the experience having actually seen fewer than half of the nominated movies. (Alas, being a film reviewer for a small regional newspaper consortium does not entitle me to free screeners of everything I might wish to see.) So, like a non-sports fan who inexplicably finds herself at a World Series or Super Bowl watch party, I have to come up with a team to root for and a plausible reason why.
You might find yourself in the same position, so here’s a suggestion for how to hone your bias: Become part of the cheering section for Oscar-nominated movies that have connections to the Hudson Valley. As you’ll know if you’re a regular HV1/Almanac reader, our region in recent years has become a magnet for film and television production, offering producers a plethora of talent, affordable services and locations that can mimic almost any part of the country – not to mention some enticing tax incentives. The more such movies succeed at the box office and in awards competitions, the more interesting filmmakers are likely to find our neck of the woods as a place to spend their production budgets. This is widely viewed as a good thing for the mid-Hudson economy, even if it means occasional street closures and other such inconveniences.
The Whale
This year, the strongest Oscar contender with the most visually obvious local ties is The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky and adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his 2012 play of the same name. The movie has generated both positive buzz as a strong comeback vehicle for star Brendan Fraser, and negative feedback due to what some reviewers identify as “fatphobia.” Admirers of the film lean toward such descriptors as “compassionate” and “empathetic.”
Wearing some 300 pounds of prosthetics, Fraser portrays Charlie, a morbidly obese, reclusive English professor who teaches online writing courses with the camera turned off and dreams of reconciling with his estranged daughter. Fraser is an Oscar nominee in the Lead Actor category for what is being called a career-best performance. Also nominated, for Best Supporting Actress, is Hong Chau as Liz, Charlie’s nurse and only friend. Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley are nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Most of the action of The Whale takes place indoors, and primary filming took place on the soundstage at Umbra in Newburgh. Some exterior scenes were filmed on location in New Paltz. According to the Hudson Valley Film Commission, “Many local crew members were hired. including ‘legendary’ key grip Mitch Lillian. Other locals working G&E included Jimmy DeMarco (rigging gaffer), Jack Lillian (B camera dolly grip), Greg Meola (grip), Kimberly Sauer (additional digital imaging technician), Anthony Stracquadanio (grip), Todd Sullivan (lead shop electrician). Other crew members included Rachaell Dama (costume supervisor), Michele Elise (tailor), Michelle Bayreuther (set medic), Tony Glazer (stage manager), Summer Crockett Moore (stage manager). Hilary Greer (HBG Casting) was in charge of background actors.” That’s a lot of work generated for local techies, and a lot of income pumped into the local economy.
To Leslie
Less impactful, perhaps, but still of interest to mid-Hudsonites, are movies shot elsewhere whose producers are based in the Hudson Valley, or that undergo postproduction at local facilities. One independent production company that works all over the map, but has its headquarters in the tiny Ulster County hamlet of Kerhonkson, is BCDF Pictures, headed up by Claude Dal Farra.
Some of Dal Farra’s past productions have been made right here in HV1’s readership area. This writer has had the pleasure of reviewing Bruce Beresford’s Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (2012), which starred Jane Fonda and was shot in Woodstock and Rosendale; also Peter Hutchings’ Then Came You (2019), starring Maisie Williams and Asa Butterfield, which was filmed at the Albany Airport, Bard College, the FASNY Museum in Hudson and a whole bunch of Kingston locations.
Dal Farra is clearly committed to generating local gigs as much as possible, but sometimes he takes on a product that needs to be made elsewhere. His latest is one of those: To Leslie, directed by Michael Morris from a screenplay by Ryan Binaco. It was shot in the Los Angeles area, simulating West Texas.
Made on a decidedly indie budget of under a million dollars, To Leslie is this year’s surprise breakout Oscar contender, with star Andrea Riseborough earning a nomination for Best Actress following a grassroots screening and word-of-mouth campaign by fellow thespians (including Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet) who were blown away by her performance. Riseborough is a very long shot, but just having her name up there at all is remarkable, and you might want to root for her if you have a soft spot in your heart for underdogs.
Questions have been raised about whether these promotional screenings of To Leslie may have violated ethics guidelines of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but there’s no controversy about the quality of Riseborough’s performance. She’s riveting as a thoroughly unlikable woman with a persistent alcoholism problem who uses everyone around her and alienates all who once cared about her. It’s not easy to get an audience invested in the fate of a character as repellent and self-sabotaging as this one, but Riseborough makes it work in spades.
When we first meet Leslie, even before the opening credits, she has squandered her $190,000 lottery winnings that were supposed to have turned this working-class single mother’s life around. Now she’s getting thrown out of her rented room; with nowhere else left to turn, she visits her grown son James (Owen Teague), whom she had abandoned to the care of friends at the age of 14. James agrees to take her in while she plans her next move, so long as she doesn’t drink. Within days, Leslie not only has a pile of empty bottles under her mattress, but has also stolen cash from James’ roommate.
The exasperated James puts Leslie on a bus to former friends Nancy (Allison Janney) and Dutch (Stephen Root), who also take her in, very reluctantly indeed. Again her promises to stay clean and sober collapse almost immediately, and she’s thrown out. It isn’t until Sweeney (Marc Maron), the business partner of a former school friend, offers her a cleaning job, room and board at a motel in her hometown that the desperate Leslie works up the motivation to go cold turkey and make a genuine effort at a new start in life.
Given its searing portrayal of a troubled woman living in poverty, whose only hedge against homelessness is the kindness of a motel manager, To Leslie evokes The Florida Project ten years later, with the charming child who once gave the mother’s life meaning now grown and gone. It’s a powerful glimpse into the lives of Americans who are barely scraping by. As a depiction of the relentlessness of addiction, it gains points for compassion but loses as many for the relative ease with which Leslie suddenly decides to get clean and sober, without ever relying on the help of a 12-step program or other support network. Most genuine recovered alcoholics struggle through much longer periods of backsliding and restarting.
But that’s a writing quibble; there’s much that must be telescoped to fit this much drama into a two-hour movie. The intensity and authenticity of Riseborough’s performance are worth a small suspension of narrative disbelief. The rest of the cast is terrific as well, though I was sorry not to see Janney given a chance to flex her formidable comedic chops here.
If you can find To Leslie playing anywhere in the next couple of weeks, go see it. Then you’ll have at least one good reason to sit through the Oscars broadcast on the 12th.
More WFF alumni up for Oscars
Another, more tenuous Hudson Valley connection that’s popping up this year in the CVs of several Academy Award-nominated movies is the distinction of having been screened at the Woodstock Film Festival. Aside from The Whale and To Leslie, most have no other local connections; but the good news is that indie product is getting taken more seriously by the Academy these days. Here’s a list of those additional nominees and the awards for which they’re contending:
The Banshees of Inisherin
Best Picture
Best Director, Martin McDonagh
Best Original Screenplay, Martin McDonagh
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Colin Farrell
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan
Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Kerry Condon
Best Film Editing, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
Best Achievement in Music – Original Score, Carter Burwell
Triangle of Sadness
Best Picture
Best Director, Ruben Ostlund
Best Original Screenplay, Ruben Ostlund
Empire of Light
Best Cinematography, Roger Deakins
All that Breathes
Best Documentary Feature Film
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Best Documentary Feature Film
Fire of Love
Best Documentary Feature Film
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Best Documentary Short Film
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