The nominations for the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards were announced, with Luca Guadagnino’s 1980’s-set gay love story Call Me By Your Name earning a leading six nominations.
Jordan Peele’s horror-comedy Get Out received five nominations, as did the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time. Call Me By Your Name and Get Out will compete in Best Feature, along with Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Sean Baker’s The Florida Project and Chloe Zhao’s The Rider. Good Time failed to get nominated, despite landing best director and three acting nominations.
As always, current Oscar favourites dominated the Spirit Awards, but fell behind in some major categories. For example, Call Me By Your Name did not land a screenplay nod, despite leading the nominations. The Florida Project received no acting nods for seven-year-old breakout Brooklynn Prince and this year’s supporting actor favourite, Willem Dafoe. Dafoe’s Oscar rival Sam Rockwell managed to make the Spirit nominations for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Lady Bird failed to land a directing nom for Greta Gerwig, despite multiple nods for her screenplay and actresses Saorise Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. Ronan and Metcalf are up against another onscreen mother-daughter team – Margot Robbie and Allison Janney for I, Tonya. Ronan and Robbie will compete in Best Female Lead, along with Three Billboards’ Frances McDormand, Beatriz at Dinner’s Salma Hayek, Oh Lucy’s Shinobu Terajima and Life and Nothing More’s Regina Williams.
The Big Sick, one of 2017’s highest-grossing indies, landed two nominations for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s screenplay and Supporting Female for Holly Hunter. Netflix’s Mudbound is set to receive the Robert Altman Award for its ensemble, while the film was overlooked in all categories.
The Spirit awards are known for putting a comic spin on the award season, as seen with previous hosts Sarah Silverman, Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg. James Franco, a two-time Spirit winner, will be back for his nominated turn as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist. The presence of Wiseau at the Spirit Awards should be a night of comedy in itself.
Get Out is the only movie nominated for the big four – Feature, Director, Screenplay and Acting for Daniel Kaluuya – which does show strength for Best Feature. The last two Spirit winners, Moonlight and Spotlight, may not have received acting nominations, but they did win the ensemble award. Although, we can’t rule out Call Me By Your Name Name, because Birdman won the Spirit award without a screenplay nom.
Comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney will host the next Independent Spirit Awards on March 3, 2018.
Leave a Reply