Timing is working out really well in Adam Driver’s favour right now for award season. He probably doesn’t much care about this (more on that in a minute) but Netflix would care. Marriage Story is Netflix and right now, his performance in Marriage Story has put him in favourable position for the Best Actor Oscar. Have you seen Marriage Story yet? People were all up in their feelings over Marriage Story last week when it started streaming on Netflix. It’s a devastatingly honest story about a divorce, about the pain of divorce – read Sarah’s review here. Sarah agrees that it’s worth the hype, and I too think it’s worth the hype, it deserves to be in contention. My only problem with the film is one scene, near the end, when Charlie cuts himself and he’s bleeding all over the place. This didn’t work for me, and while Adam did the best he could with it, that moment added nothing – at least for me – to the story, in fact it took me out of it. Probably that’s just me. This is a story that, for sure, given the divorce rate in Hollywood, people will be able to relate to, especially men. As Sarah noted in her review, Adam’s character is stronger off the page and on the screen. For sure he’ll be nominated. But can he win?
Through the summer, the presumed frontrunner was Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory. Then came Joker and Joaquin Phoenix and that massive box office. Right now, though, it feels like the momentum is alllll Adam. And he happens to also be starring in The Report, and he’s good in The Report, which nobody is talking about, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which everyone is talking about, especially now that the premiere just happened last night and it opens this week and will break all kinds of records so if he wasn’t top of mind for Marriage Story, he’s front and centre as Kylo Ren. Here he is last night with Joanne Tucker.
I don’t have great memories of Adam Driver on a red carpet. Because Adam Driver isn’t always the most engaging on a red carpet with the press. At his premieres at TIFF this year, he bombed past both press lines at the screenings for The Report and Marriage Story because, I don’t know, I guess he just wasn’t in the mood, even though his co-star in The Report, the indomitable Annette Bening, was stopping for every outlet. It’s not a good look, you know? When Annette Bening, one the greats, is out there doing her job and talking to people about the movie and her experience and Adam’s rushing down the carpet, walks right past her, and isn’t up for interviews. It was similar at the TIFF premiere of Marriage Story. We waited an hour for him to arrive. When he got there he blew past almost every reporter and stopped for one outlet, I think it was a French outlet, and then hustled inside. And it’s not like I’m asking you to feel bad for us that we waited around that long for nothing. We’re the media scum, right? F-ck the media. Sure. But it’s not that they don’t need the media. Imagine the scene on the red carpet if it were just empty? If no one showed up to the theatre and it’s dead quiet and there’s no buzz or electricity, no energy as you get to your movie premiere and it’s a ghost town because the loser pieces of sh-t members of the entertainment media decided to go somewhere else? Movie promoters don’t want that either.
So it’ll be interesting to see how Adam navigates the rest of the season during this campaign seeing as how he is now a frontrunner for that Oscar. Both he and Joaquin Phoenix have reputations for being media averse. You know who isn’t though? Antonio Banderas.
