and the winner is

Oscar season once more. There’s been much hubbub about it being the Year of The Woman, what with all the #metoo and #timesup and all that jazz. Films featuring STRONG women, such as Ladybird, I, Tonya and Three Billboards. It seems unlikely we’ll get a repeat of last year’s erroneous Best Film announcement, or indeed anything as syrupy as Blah Blah Land patting itself on the back. I haven’t seen it. I’ll wait until it’s on the terrestrial telly box and watch it sneeringly.
The other day I watched The Artist, which needed a truck to take home all the gongs it won in 2011. To be honest, I was a bit puzzled why. Yes, it was startlingly different and Hollywood likes to think it’s au fait with that, nay, even the champion of that, but I found it a tad dull, excepting the far too few bursts of speech. The plot would have fitted into a matchbox quite honestly. It purported that the central actor was somehow lost in a silent world, incapable of speech, but never really explored this exciting Kafkaesque idea. And the predicament of the beautiful actress who went above and beyond the call of duty to help the insufferable, washed up ham just made me cross.
I saw Ladybird last night (I parted with my dollar for that) and thought it excellent. Thought-provoking, funny, intelligent with intriguing, rounded characters. Hadley Freeman wrote that it deserved the Best Film gong but almost certainly wouldn’t get it. I’m in complete agreement. It’s not showy enough. And Hollywood actually prefers its women to be dangerously unhinged, ill - preferably dying, a victim of some sort or an out-there kook to consider bestowing a statuette. They don’t really like warts-and-all women taking centre stage and getting on with their lives independent of the men. Incidentally, the men in the film were also very sympathetically portrayed, excepting Kyle, the arrogant boyfriend. Who was a complete arse who deserved no better.
The absolutely captivating Saoirse Ronan has the most exceptional face. Beguiling and unconventional. I noticed in the wash of trailers before the film that both Lily James and Amanda Seyfried have not one, but two new films coming out this year. Misfortune AND carelessness on the part of Tinseltown. The depressing fact is that Hollywood likes its starlets to look exquisite and thoroughly groomed. It’s ok for Frances McDormand or Sally Hawkins to look quirky, for they are not young any more. Occasionally a young woman who doesn’t fit the mould will win, but she’ll probably belong to the category of ‘unhinged-ill-dying-victim-extreme-kook.’ Maybe the equally excellent Laurie Metcalf will win Best Supporting, so at least it'll get one gong.