Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird has won the National Society of Film Critics’ award for Best Film of 2017. The A24 release is now that much closer to winning the Best Picture Oscar. The older fence-sitters who’ve been saying to themselves “but it’s just a teenage coming-of-age story!” will now be thinking twice.
Get Out and Phantom Thread were the first and second runners-up with Jordan Peele‘s film having lost by only two votes, according to Variety‘s Kris Tapley. Given that a healthy percentage of the NSFC members are Get Out wokers, coolios and p.c. disciples, I’m hugely relieved that this divine mathematical intervention has occured.
The wokers did, however, manage a majority vote when it came to the NSFC’s Best Actor award. Will L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss argue with a straight face that Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya truly deserves this honor? Maybe he will, but if so his fingers, trust me, will be crossed. I’ve been sensing from Kaluuya’s modest remarks over the last couple of weeks that he, too, feels it’s a bit much.
Kaluuya delivered three behaviors in Get Out — cool and collected, slightly scared and super-scared with his mouth open and tears running down his cheeks. Okay, okay…maybe I’m wrong. Maybe DK’s performance was more quake-shaking than what Timothee Chalamet, Gary Oldman, Daniel Day Lewis, Tom Hanks and James Franco delivered. If I’m mistaken please forgive me. It takes me longer to come to these things.
The Shape of Water‘s Sally Hawkins won the HSFC award for Best Actress. The Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe and Lady Bird‘s Laurie Metcalf received the Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards.