The Oscar Grouch: Will This Awards Season Have a Sense of Humor?

It’s a familiar refrain, year-in and year-out, the the Academy Awards (and the rest of awards season) don’t give sufficient respect to comedy. It’s pretty self-evident, if you look at the lists of Best Picture nominees throughout the years. It’s not just that comedy is underrepresented, it’s that when comedies are represented, it’s only a certain type of comedy. Oscar likes auteur-driven, arch comedy, often with a period-piece sheen. To make it in awards season, contemporary comedies need to be heavily stylized (Birdman) or heavily emotional (Silver Linings Playbook). You can quibble about what counts as “broad,” but the last comedies nominated for Best Picture that could be truly called broad comedies were Juno in 2007 and Little Miss Sunshine in 2006.

Now, we could spend long paragraphs debating whether or not it’s right that awards voters don’t properly respect the effort and skill that goes into making a truly great comedy. How movies like Groundhog Day and Waiting for Guffman and  The Heat are just as worthy of awards (if not more so) than their dramatic counterparts. Or — and especially this year, when broad comedies didn’t do so hot, creatively or commercially — we could just accept that awards voters have their particular tastes that don’t run to the broadly comedic and use that as a starting point as we attempt to crystal-ball this Oscar season. What comedies will manage to break through that ephemeral boundary of taste to become legitimate contenders?

A great place to start when it comes to awards-season comedies is the Golden Globes. For all their faults and foibles, the Globes are the only major awards organization to split their major categories between dramas and musicals/comedies. This often leads to easily-mocked designations as last year’s The Martian as a comedy, but generally, it allows a good handful of accomplished comedic films and performances to sneak into an award show. Yes, it’s also a place for Lesser Meryl Streep performances to get a handout, but you take the good with the bad (and also how dare you complain about getting more Meryl Streep).

The Musical/Comedy categories at the Globes are also a little bit easier to predict ahead of time because the field of likely nominees is a lot shallower. Which means that even from our early-November perch, we can get a pretty good idea of the handful of films and performances that will be there at the Globes. And once you’re in “the conversation” — which, if you’re at the Globes, you are — you never know what could work out. So let’s take a look at what the Globes will most likely* be picking from:

*It should be noted that the Hollywood Foreign Press has yet to make its drama/comedy designations yet, so there are still some films whose status is up in the air. I am personally keeping an eye on two Weinstein Company films: The Founder, starring Michael Keaton, and Gold, starring Matthew McConaughey, both of which look like they could blow either way (just from the trailers, The Founder seems more comedic while Gold looks more farcical). For now, we’ll leave these two out, but if they are declared comedies, they could definitely affect the Best Actor race.

Best Picture – Musical/Comedy

The overall Oscar frontrunner at the moment is La La Land, which will most certainly compete as a musical at the Globes, where it will waltz its way up to the podium, very possibly for all three musical/comedy awards. Mark it down in pen: La La Land is happening. So what will join it on the Globes ballot? The most likely is 20th Century Women, the Mike Mills-directed movie about Annette Bening as a single mom raising a teenager in the late 1970s. Mills previously directed Benginners, which was a big winner for Christopher Plummer; in 20th Century Women, he does an even better job with a stellar ensemble (including Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, and Elle Fanning).

After that, you can make some educated guesses. Warren Beatty is such a Golden Globes-y kind of guy — a three-time winner, last nominated for 1998’s Bulworth, though he took the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2006 — and his Rules Don’t Apply looks like the kind of old-Hollywood farce that, if the critics respond, could be an easy slot-in here.

After that, I’d say flip a coin between the following three films that opened earlier this year: The Lobster (weirdo dark comedy about dystopian mating rituals from a Greek director), Love & Friendship (Jane Austen adaptation from the arch sensibilities of Whit Stillman), or Florence Foster Jenkins (the Streep entry). All three have the kind of costume-y, arch sheen that the Globes like in a nominee, full of glitzy stars to fill up those front tables.

Outside shots: The Comedian, starring Robert De Niro as an aging insult comic, looks to be the perfect late-breaking Globes entry, but maybe more for De Niro himself, though it is directed by Taylor Hackford, who’s gotten Best Picture nods from the Globes twice before (for An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray). Director John Carney’s Sing Street was a wildly-charming crowd-pleaser that would elicit whoops of joy if it does get a nod. The Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar! feels like it opened three years ago; the Cannes sensation Toni Erdmann will be relegated to Foreign Film; Deadpool made gobs of money but the Globes have never gone for superheroes much.

Predicted nominees: La La Land, 20th Century Women, Rules Don’t Apply, The Lobster, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Actor – Musical/Comedy

The only certainty in this category is Ryan Gosling, who would be picking up his fifth Golden Globe nomination (the other four: comedies Crazy. Stupid. Love. and Lars and the Real Girl; dramas Blue Valentine and The Ides of March). The next-most likely is actually Colin Farrell for The Lobster, seeing as Farrell is enough of an HFPA fave to have won this category in 2008 for In Bruges.

The next tier is where the veterans reside: Warren Beatty would be an easy call for Rules Don’t Apply if he is indeed the lead in that film. (If not, Alden Ehrenreich would be a possibility, though not as strong.) And Robert De Niro as an aging comedian is practically awards-voter catnip.

As for that last slot, it’s a true toss-up. Some feel like Ryan Reynolds can nab it for Deadpool, but I’m dubious, and not just because I think that movie is garbage. I’m not sure if anyone remembers The Nice Guys was a movie this year, but with Gosling tied up in La La Land, why not nominate his Nice Guys co-star Russell Crowe? One actor who’s being heavily campaigned is Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic, so don’t be surprised if that doesn’t pay off.

And don’t forget: the “Musical” part of Musical/Comedy means that sometimes dramas about musicians sneak in on a technicality (think Jamie Foxx in Ray or Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn), in which case Don Cheadle as Miles Davis in Miles Ahead or Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker in Born to Be Blue are both on the table.

Predicted nominees: Ryan Gosling (La La Land), Colin Farrell (The Lobster), Robert De Niro (The Comedian), Warren Beatty (Rules Don’t Apply), Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)

Best Actress – Musical/Comedy

Whereas there’s a good bit of grasping for contenders in Best Actor, Best Actress feels like there is a formidable top 5 who will be difficult to crack. At the top of that list are big-time Oscar contenders Emma Stone (La La Land), Annette Bening (20th Century Women), and Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins). There isn’t a version of the the universe where those three performances don’t end up Globe-nominated.

Also looking pretty good for recognition are: Kate Beckinsale, who is a barn-burner and a scream in Love & Friendship; and Sally Field, whose performance in Hello, My Name Is Doris will likely get the kind of ladies-of-a-certain-age-still-got-it slot that Lily Tomlin nailed down last year for Grandma.

It’s going to be very tough to break into this quintet. Maybe Susan Sarandon manages to win voters over to her side for her own lady-of-a-certain-age-still-has-it movie The Meddler. Maybe Hailee Steinfeld rides an unexpectedly hearty wave of box-office for Edge of Seventeen and gets a late-breaking surge. Maybe the HFPA will go for the ingenue with Lily Collins for Rules Don’t Apply.

… Or maybe they’ll welcome an old favorite back into the fold? Picture it: a six-time Golden Globe nominee steps away from the game, only to return to the role that earned two of those nominations, and gets rewarded with the third: Renee Zellweger for Bridges Jones’s Baby, come on down!

Predicted nominees: Emma Stone (La La Land), Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins), Annette Bening (20th Century Women), Kate Beckinsale (Love & Friendship), Sally Field (Hello, My Name Is Doris)