Seven Oscar nominations for Steven Spielberg’s re-imagining of West Side Story, the show that changed the face of musical theatre in the late 1950s and became a record-breaking movie in 1962. And two for tick, tick… Boom! whose star, Andrew Garfield, is one of the favourites for the Best Actor gong.
That was the news on the musicals front from the opening shot for Hollywood’s red carpet night on 27 March 2022.
Mixed news for West Side Story which now cannot match the original’s ten-Oscar haul, the most won by any movie musical, and may end up with just one, Ariana DeBose, the odds-on favourite for Best Supporting Actress. She plays Maria’s best friend Anita, the role which won it for Rita Moreno 60 years ago.
Good that Spielberg himself, ignored for Best Director by BAFTA last week, makes the Oscars list in that category.
Good too that it has made an unusually long Best Picture list. As ten films have been selected, West Side Story’s inclusion comes as no surprise but the betting indicates odds-on favourite Power of the Dog and Belfast have better chances.
The bad news: no Oscar recognition for Rachel Zegler (Maria) and Mike Faist (Riff) who are up for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor at the BAFTAs.
West Side Story’s other four nominations come for Sound, Cinematography, Costume Design and Production Design but the bookies reckon only one Oscar will come its way. That’s DeBose who is close to being past the post and her path was considerably cleared by the shock omission of Irish actress Caitriona Balfe, who plays the mother of the ‘Branagh’ character in Belfast.
Balfe is rated DeBose’s biggest danger at the BAFTAs. Instead the Academy has recognised Judi Dench in the much smaller role of the granny in the same Kenneth Branagh film. Dench won the same award in 1999 for her eight-minute portrayal of the first Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love.
Spielberg is rated at 10/1 for Best Director where Jane Campion, of The Piano fame, is the mega-hot 1/6 favourite to win her second Oscar for Power of the Dog, the Western which has gathered the most nominations, 12. Also ahead of West Side Story with ten is the big sci-fi hit Dune while Belfast joins WSS on seven.
Andrew Garfield, American but brought up in Epsom, Surrey, is 6/1 third favourite behind Will Smith (King Richard) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Power of the Dog) for Best Actor. His film, tick, tick… BOOM!, is also up for Film Editing honours.
Garfield plays Jon in the semi-autobiographical Jonathan Larson Netflix musical, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton and Disney Encanto fame. If Miranda wins an Academy Award for Encanto (nominated for Best Original Score, Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song), the Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award winner will reach EGOT status and become the seventeenth person to do so.
At long last there is Academy Award recognition for Jessie Buckley, currently Sally Bowles in the much-lauded revival of Cabaret in the West End.
She’s the 25/1 outsider on the Supporting Actress list for The Lost Daughter which just goes to show how good the other four candidates, DeBose, Dench, Kirsten Dunst (Dune) and Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard) must be.
Jeremy Chapman
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