"The Lost Daughter" nets 6 nods; "The Souvenir Part II" next with 5
The U.K.’s leading film critics have unveiled the nominations for the 42nd annual London Critics’ Circle Film Awards, with three films from female filmmakers coming out on top. Leading the field is director Jane Campion’s psychological western The Power of the Dog, which scored nine nominations. Next, with six and five nominations respectively, are first-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lost Daughter and British auteur Joanna Hogg’s cine-memoir The Souvenir Part II.
More than 180 critics across print, online and broadcast media voted for this year’s nominations, which were announced by British actors Joanna Vanderham and Gwilym Lee this afternoon at London’s May Fair Hotel. The May Fair will also host the Circle’s awards ceremony, where the winners will be announced on February 6, 2022.
After winning the Circle’s Film of the Year award 28 years ago for The Piano, Campion is up for Film, Director and Screenwriter of the Year, while her film’s stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons are all nominated. Hogg is another returning winner, having taken the British/Irish Film of the Year prize for the first part of The Souvenir two years ago.
Joining them and The Lost Daughter in a wide-ranging Film of the Year field are Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s complex character study Drive My Car, Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical drama Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s musical reinterpretation West Side Story, which scored four nominations apiece, as well as Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune, Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age tale Licorice Pizza, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s meditative Memoria and Julia Ducournau’s body-horror explosion Titane.
Actors with multiple nominations include Cumberbatch, Ruth Negga, Joanna Scanlan, Andrew Garfield and The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley — all cited in both the general and British/Irish acting races. Japanese writer-director Hamaguchi, meanwhile, is the year’s most-nominated individual, contending for Film, Director, Screenwriter and Foreign Language Film of the Year.
“Even though cinemas were closed for half of this year, our members were always watching films,” says Rich Cline, chair of the Critics’ Circle Film Section. “On the nominations ballots, voters named 204 feature films, with 51 of them making it onto the shortlists. Because our members see so many movies, our nominations tend to look a bit different from other groups, finding a diverse selection of worthy talent in studio blockbusters as well as low-budget indies.”
Last year’s virtual Critics’ Circle Film Awards ceremony was also dominated by female filmmakers, with Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland and Rose Glass’ Saint Maud taking three awards apiece, including Film of the Year and British/Irish Film of the Year respectively.
The full list of nominees for the 42nd London Critics’ Circle Film Awards:
FILM OF THE YEAR
- Belfast
- Drive My Car
- Dune
- Licorice Pizza
- The Lost Daughter
- Memoria
- The Power of the Dog
- The Souvenir Part II
- Titane
- West Side Story
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
- Drive My Car
- The Hand of God
- Petite Maman
- Titane
- The Worst Person in the World
DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
- Flee
- Gunda
- The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
- Summer of Soul
- The Velvet Underground
The Attenborough Award
BRITISH/IRISH FILM OF THE YEAR
- After Love
- Belfast
- The Green Knight
- Limbo
- The Souvenir Part II
DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
- Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
- Ryûsuke Hamaguchi – Drive My Car
- Joanna Hogg – The Souvenir Part II
- Céline Sciamma – Petite Maman
- Denis Villeneuve – Dune
SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR
- Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
- Wes Anderson – The French Dispatch
- Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
- Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
- Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe – Drive My Car
ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
- Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter
- Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers
- Renate Reinsve – The Worst Person in the World
- Joanna Scanlan – After Love
- Kristen Stewart – Spencer
ACTOR OF THE YEAR
- Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog
- Adam Driver – Annette
- Andrew Garfield – Tick, Tick… Boom!
- Oscar Isaac – The Card Counter
- Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah
SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
- Jessie Buckley – The Lost Daughter
- Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
- Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog
- Rita Moreno – West Side Story
- Ruth Negga – Passing
SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR
- Richard Ayoade – The Souvenir Part II
- Ciarán Hinds – Belfast
- Jesse Plemons – The Power of the Dog
- Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog
- Jeffrey Wright – The French Dispatch
BRITISH/IRISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR (for body of work)
- Jessie Buckley – The Lost Daughter
- Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter/Mothering Sunday/Ron’s Gone Wrong/The Mitchells vs The Machines/The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
- Ruth Negga – Passing/Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché
- Joanna Scanlan – After Love
- Tilda Swinton – Memoria/The Souvenir Part II/The French Dispatch
BRITISH/IRISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR (for body of work)
- Riz Ahmed – Encounter
- Adeel Akhtar – Ali & Ava/The Nest/The Electrical Life of Louis Wain/Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
- Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog/
- The Electrical Life of Louis Wain/The Courier
- Andrew Garfield – Tick, Tick… Boom!/The Eyes of Tammy Faye/Mainstream
- Stephen Graham – Boiling Point/Venom: Let There Be Carnage
The Philip French Award
BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH/IRISH FILMMAKER
- Prano Bailey-Bond – Censor
- Rebecca Hall – Passing
- Aleem Khan – After Love
- Marley Morrison – Sweetheart
- Ben Sharrock – Limbo
YOUNG BRITISH/IRISH PERFORMER
- Max Harwood – Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
- Jude Hill – Belfast
- Emilia Jones – Coda
- Daniel Lamont – Nowhere Special
- Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon
BRITISH/IRISH SHORT FILM
- Diseased and Disorderly – dir. Andrew Kotting
- Expensive Shit – dir. Adura Onashile
- Know the Grass – dir. Sophie Littman
- Play It Safe – dir. Mitch Kalisa
- Precious Hair & Beauty – dir. John Ogunmuyiwa
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
- Cruella – Jenny Beavan, costumes
- Dune – Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer, visual effects
- Flee – Kenneth Ladekjær, animation
- The French Dispatch – Adam Stockhausen, production design
- The Green Knight – Andrew Droz Palermo, cinematography
- The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão – Hélène Louvart, cinematography
- Martin Eden – Fabrizio Federico and Aline Hervé, film editing
- No Time to Die – Olivier Schneider, stunts
- The Power of the Dog – Jonny Greenwood, music
- West Side Story – Justin Peck, choreography
NOMINATIONS BY FILM:
9 nominations: The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
6: The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
5: The Souvenir Part II (Picturehouse)
4:
After Love (BFI)
Belfast (Universal)
Drive My Car (Modern)
The French Dispatch (Searchlight)
West Side Story (20th Century)
3:
Dune (Warners)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (StudioCanal)
Passing (Netflix)
2:
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Amazon)
Flee (Curzon)
The Green Knight (Entertainment)
Licorice Pizza (Universal)
Limbo (Mubi)
Memoria (Sovereign)
Petite Maman (Mubi)
Tick, Tick… Boom! (Netflix)
Titane (Altitude)
The Worst Person in the World (Mubi)
1:
Ali & Ava (Altitude)
Annette (Mubi)
Boiling Point (Vertigo)
The Card Counter (Universal)
Censor (Vertigo)
C’mon C’mon (Entertainment)
Coda (Apple)
The Courier (Lionsgate)
Cruella (Disney)
Encounter (Amazon)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Searchlight)
Gunda (Altitude)
The Hand of God (Netflix)
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão (New Wave)
Mainstream (Universal)
Martin Eden (New Wave)
The Mitchells vs The Machines (Netflix)
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (Dogwoof)
Mothering Sunday (Lionsgate)
The Nest (Picturehouse)
No Time to Die (Universal)
Nowhere Special (Curzon)
Parallel Mothers (Pathe)
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche (Modern)
Ron’s Gone Wrong (20th Century)
Spencer (STX)
Summer of Soul (Searchlight)
Sweetheart (Peccadillo)
The Velvet Underground (Apple)
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony)
Review: Writer-Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Wood’s “Heretic”
"Heretic" opens with an unusual table setter: Two young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are discussing condoms and why some are labeled as large even though they're all pretty much a standard size. "What else do we believe because of marketing?" one asks the other.
That line will echo through the movie, a stimulating discussion of religion that emerges from a horror movie wrapper. Despite a second-half slide and feeling unbalanced, this is the rare movie that combines lots of squirting blood and elevated discussion of the ancient Egyptian god Horus.
Our two church members — played fiercely by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East — are wandering around trying to covert souls when they knock on the door of a sweet-looking cottage. Its owner, Mr. Reed, offers a hearty "Good afternoon!" He welcomes them in, brings them drinks and promises a blueberry pie. He's also interested in learning more about the church. So far, so good.
Mr. Reed is, of course, if you've seen the poster, the baddie and he's played by Hugh Grant, who doesn't go the snarling, dead-eyed Hannibal Lecter route in "Heretic." Grant is the slightly bumbling, bashful and self-mocking character we fell in love with in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but with a smear of menace. He gradually reveals that he actually knows quite a bit about the Mormon religion — and all religions.
"It's good to be religious," he says jauntily and promises his wife will join them soon, a requirement for the church. Homey touches in his home include a framed "Bless This Mess" needlepoint on a wall, but there are also oddities, like his lights are on a timer and there's metal in the walls and ceilings.
Writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Wood — who also... Read More