Winning predictions for the 2018 Golden Globe Awards
THE Golden Globes are coming next week. Leigh Paatsch reveals who he believes will take out the top gongs and why.
THE Golden Globes are coming, and there are plenty of Australians in with a chance against Hollywood’s finest.
National Film Critic Leigh Paatsch now reveals who he believes will take out the top gongs and why.
Best Motion Picture, Drama
Dunkirk
The Post
The Shape of Water
Call Me by Your Name
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And the winner is ...
The Post.
A weird situation happening here. Game-changing masterpiece Dunkirk is clearly the best of the bunch. However, the peculiar Globes voting structure (where recent strategic petitioning of the 80 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is the driving force) all but counts it out. It’s therefore a two-horse race between The Shape of Water and The Post, with the latter’s megawatt star power of Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep the deciding factor.
Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
The Disaster Artist
Get Out
The Greatest Showman
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
And the winner is ...
Lady Bird.
The whole comedy-musical thing unique to the Globes often makes for messy fields, and 2018 is no exception. Get Out should be winning, but as a horror movie released almost a year ago, it will lose vital votes to Lady Bird in a close-run race. For the record, Lady Bird (sure to hit big when it releases here mid-Feb) is an irresistibly sublime coming-of-age picture: funny, warm and very sussed about learning life’s lessons the right way (i.e. your own way).
Best Director — Motion Picture
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Ridley Scott, All the Money in the World
Steven Spielberg, The Post
And the winner is ...
Christopher Nolan.
Nolan is a true original in an era where that counts for so little. However, the filmmaker’s ambitious vision for Dunkirk — and the imagination and innovation with which it was realised — puts Nolan without a true peer in this field. The only chance of a blow-out comes from Mexican legend del Toro (like Nolan, yet to win an Oscar or Globe across a brilliant career).
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Tom Hanks, The Post
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
And the winner is ...
Gary Oldman.
Oldman’s transformative depiction of iconic British PM Winston Churchill is the most widely-nominated performance (male or female) of this awards season. A first-class display of craft deserving everything coming its way. However, Oldman could still lose here due to his many anti-Globes rants in the past (where he has called the ceremony “bent” and “meaningless”.)
Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Meryl Streep, The Post
Michelle Williams, All the Money in the World
And the winner is ...
Frances McDormand.
It has been more than 20 years since McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar for Fargo, and her new work as a grieving mother clearing her eccentric path towards justice for her late daughter is arguably superior to that previous high watermark of her career. All that can stop McDormand are those donuts on her Globes record (five previous nominations for no wins).
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Steve Carell, Battle of the Sexes
Ansel Elgort, Baby Driver
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Hugh Jackman, The Greatest Showman
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
And the winner is ...
James Franco.
The mercurial (and oft-misunderstood) Franco turned a big corner with his latest work, where he both directed and starred. Franco’s eerily accurate portrayal of Tommy Wiseau — an enigmatic figure renowned for making The Room, one of the worst movies of all-time — was much more difficult to pull off than many assumed. This will be a triumph for sheer skill.
Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Judi Dench, Victoria & Abdul
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Emma Stone, Battle of the Sexes
Helen Mirren, The Leisure Seeker
And the winner is ...
Saorise Ronan.
Though still only 23 years old, the Irish-born Saoirse (pronounced ser-sher)
Ronan has been a prestige nominations magnet for the past decade for
brilliant work in films such as Atonement and Brooklyn. A significant win is
yet to happen, but that will surely change at the Globes. Her nuanced, near-
perfect portrayal of an artsy teen coming into her own is a stunning effort.
Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
And the winner is ...
Willem Dafoe.
Dafoe is one of the warmest faves of the night in what looks to be a very hot field. The veteran character actor pushes close to a career best in a key role as a gruff, yet sympathetic manager of a fleapit motel. Sure to be a popular win, as only one other movie has ever put Dafoe in awards contention (the long-forgotten 2000 indie curio Shadow of a Vampire.)
Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Hong Chau, Downsizing
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
And the winner is ...
Laurie Metcalf.
Laurie who? Australian TV viewers with longish memories will remember her as Jackie, the title character’s younger sister on the hit 90s sitcom Roseanne. In a very even field, Metcalf gets the nod by virtue of the pure believability of her performance as the hardworking, single-minded mother of a teenage girl gradually getting to grips with what the world is all about.
Originally published as Winning predictions for the 2018 Golden Globe Awards