By Lindsey Bahr, Film Writer
VENICE, Italy (AP) --Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut “The Room Next Door,” with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion award Saturday.
Nicole Kidman was awarded the best actress prize, for her r aw and exposing portrayal of a CEO embroiled in an affair with an intern in “Babygirl,” but missed the ceremony due to the death of her mother.
The 81st edition of the festival came to a close Saturday, with the Isabelle Huppert-led jury bestowing top prizes to Brady Corbet, for directing the 215-minute post-war epic “The Brutalist” and Vincent Lindon, for his lead performance in “The Quiet Son.” Lindon plays a single father whose son is radicalized by the far right.
Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio” won the Silver Lion award. The Italian-French-Belgian drama is about the last year of World War II, in which a refugee soldier happens upon a large family.
The Venice Film Festival used its closing film slot to host the world premiere of Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2.”
There was no real consensus pick for the top prize going into the evening, and eyes were focused on what the Isabelle Huppert-led jury would bestow prizes upon this year. Many of the 21 titles playing in competition have been divisive, with passionate supporters and detractors.
“I have good news for you,” Huppert said at the ceremony. “Cinema is in great shape.”
Among the highest profile of the films of the festival inlcuded: Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the not-a-musical-musical with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga ; Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas film “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the famed soprano; the erotic thriller “Babygirl” in which Kidman gets entangled in a complicated affair with an intern, played by Harris Dickinson; Luca Guadagnino’s William S. Burroughs adaptation “Queer,” with Daniel Craig as a junkie expat obsessed with a young student; and Brady Corbet’s 215-minute post-war epic about an architect and a Holocaust survivor rebuilding a life in America, “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody,
Five years ago, the Venice jury surprised the film world by giving the Golden Lion to “Joker,” which went on to win a best actor Oscar for Phoenix. Last year the top award went to “Poor Things” and the year before, the documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”
The Luigi De Laurentiis award for a debut film went to Sarah Friedland’s “Familiar Touch,” about an octogenarian’s transition to life in assisted living as she grapples with her age, her memory and her relationship to her caregivers. Friedland also won the director prize in the horizons section and her star, Kathleen Chalfant, won the actress prize.
Though always a player in the international festival scene, Venice has cemented its reputation as a major launching pad for awards campaigns over the past 12 years. Since 2014, they’ve hosted four best picture winners (“Birdman,” “Spotlight,” “The Shape of Water” and “Nomadland”) and 19 nominees. And buzz is already swirling about possible best actress nominations for Kidman and Jolie, actor for Craig and supporting actress for Gaga, as the fall film season kicks into full gear.
The festival this year marked a return to form with true A-listers back on the Lido to celebrate films both in and out of competition after last year’s strike addled outing. In addition to the names above, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Sigourney Weaver were all lending their star power to the event.
And many rose to the occasion with their fashion. Gaga’s Christian Dior gown paired with a vintage lace Philip Treacy headpiece made for a major red-carpet moment. As was Kidman’s body hugging Schiaparelli, Blanchett’s Armani Privé with strands of pearls cascading down her back, and Jolie with her fur stole. Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig also played the power couple, with her in a glittery blue Versace gown and him in a cream Loewe suit. The “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast did also did a spin on the movie’s aesthetic with their wares.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More