Following Charles Melton’s win at the Gotham Awards earlier this week, the May December team is not resting. There was a BAFTA screening of the film yesterday in New York with director Todd Haynes, Julianne Moore, Melton, and Natalie Portman.
The schedule of special screenings and Q&As is insanely tight this year due to the strike delays, the day before, BAFTA also hosted a screening for All of Us Strangers with director Andrew Haigh and stars Andrew Scott and Jamie Bell (Paul Mescal wasn’t there, presumably because he’s due in Malta next week to resume filming Gladiator 2).
We haven’t talked a lot about All of Us Strangers yet—it doesn’t open until the end of December in North America, and the end of January in the UK—but like Past Lives and May December, it’s a smaller film loaded with talent vying with the numerous high-profile prestige dramas this year for a spot at the Oscars. In a weird twist, it’s very possible Strangers ends up with a Best Picture nomination while May December misses that but gets at least one acting nomination, for Melton. This feels like a year where the big films will all get like, ten nominations (or more), but the smaller films will split votes amongst themselves for whatever leftover spots the high-profile stuff doesn’t devour.
That’s why the ensembles of these smaller films are working so hard. Every appearance, every handshake, every headline counts. It’s about getting your film, your name, to stick in the minds of voters, especially if your film isn’t one of the nine-figure blockbuster dramas out this year. May December has been riding high on the charm of Charles Melton recently. I wonder when All of Us Strangers will unleash Paul Mescal?
