"Drive My Car," "Passing" and "The Souvenir Part II" garner two honors apiece
The Power of the Dog came up the big winner at the 42nd annual London Critics' Circle Film Awards, winning four major honors at the group's virtual awards ceremony from The May Fair Hotel on Sunday (2/6) night. Jane Campion’s acclaimed Western was crowned the Film of the Year, while Campion herself was named Director of the Year. The film’s stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee won Actor and Supporting Actor of the Year, respectively for their performances as secretive, psychologically dueling rivals on a 1920s Montana ranch. It is Campion’s second film to take the Circle’s top honor, 28 years after The Piano triumphed in 1994.
Three other films took a pair of awards each. Drive My Car, Japanese auteur Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s meditative drama on grief, companionship and Chekhov, won Foreign Language Film of the Year, while Hamaguchi and co-writer Takamasa Oe took the Screenwriter of the Year prize.
Joanna Hogg’s cinematic self-portrait The Souvenir Part II was named British/Irish Film of the Year–two years after its predecessor took the same honor–while it was one of three films, along with Memoria and The French Dispatch, for which Tilda Swinton received the British/Irish Actress of the Year award.
Actor-turned-director Rebecca Hall’s delicately nuanced racial drama Passing also garnered two wins. Hall took the Breakthrough British/Irish Filmmaker award. And Ruth Negga was named Best Supporting Actress of the Year for her performance as a white-passing Black woman in 1920s New York City.
Actress of the Year went to Olivia Colman for her layered turn as a conflicted mother reflecting on her past in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter; it’s Colman’s third award from the Circle, having previously won for Tyrannosaur and The Favorite. Another previous winner, Andrew Garfield, won the British/Irish Actor of the Year award for his varied performances in tick, tick… Boom!, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Mainstream. And 11-year-old Woody Norman rounded out the acting winners with the Young British/Irish Performer prize for his remarkable turn opposite Joaquin Phoenix in C’mon C’mon.
Documentary of the Year went to musician and filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson for his archival musical immersion Summer of Soul, while this year’s multi-disciplinary Technical Achievement Award went to the visual effects team of Denis Villeneuve’s dazzling sci-fi epic Dune. Mitch Kalisa’s Play It Safe, a powerful reflection on performance and prejudice, won the British/Irish Short Film award.
For the second year in a row, the event took place virtually on the London Critics’ Circle YouTube channel, this time with critics presenting awards remotely from the ceremony’s usual home at The May Fair Hotel. An in-person event to celebrate this year’s winners is being planned for later in 2022.
Here’s a full rundown of winners:
FILM OF THE YEAR
The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
Drive My Car (Modern)
DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
Summer of Soul …or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised (Searchlight)
The Attenborough Award
BRITISH/IRISH FILM OF THE YEAR
The Souvenir Part II (Picturehouse)
DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe – Drive My Car (Modern)
ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Ruth Negga – Passing (Netflix)
SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
BRITISH/IRISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Tilda Swinton – for her body of work in 2021, including Memoria (Sovereign), The Souvenir Part II (Picturehouse) and The French Dispatch (Searchlight)
BRITISH/IRISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Andrew Garfield – for his body of work in 2021, including tick, tick… Boom! (Netflix), The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight), Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony) and Mainstream (Universal)
The Philip French Award
BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH/IRISH FILMMAKER
Rebecca Hall – Passing (Netflix)
YOUNG BRITISH/IRISH PERFORMER
Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon (Entertainment)
BRITISH/IRISH SHORT FILM
Play It Safe
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Dune – Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer, visual effects (Warners)
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More