The real question will be, could she have beaten Emma Stone if she’d been positioned as a lead? I’m tempted to say yes, but Stone should thank her lucky stars she didn’t have to deal with the optics of snatching this long-overdue trophy from Davis for some of her very best work. In the end, while Ali is highly deserving, he could prevail in part due to the lack of a strong rival. Dev Patel took the BAFTA in this category, but I’m not sure that will be enough. Jeff Bridges fits the more conventional profile of a winner here - it’s a showy performance with a gangbusters final scene - but he’s won before. Oscar tends to go for flash and a big finish, but Ali does subtle work and exits offscreen after Moonlight’s first act. I think this will go to Mahershala Ali, though he’s vulnerable to an upset. Emma will take it, and you can take that to the bank.
Every time a young ingenue leads the field, bored pundits posit that a veteran actress can take her down, but Annette Bening didn’t defeat Natalie Portman in 2010, Emmanuelle Riva couldn’t beat Jennifer Lawrence in 2012, and last year, Charlotte Rampling had no luck against Brie Larson. You know it’s locked up for Emma Stone when people start wondering whether Isabelle Huppert can beat her. This will be a nail-biter down to to the last second since Washington’s momentum has come so late in the game, but I’d give him the slim edge over Affleck. Since 2003, every SAG winner in this category has gone on to take the Oscar. Also, the fact that Jenkins is the heavy favorite to win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar clears the decks here for voters to reward Damien Chazelle.Ĭasey Affleck won nearly every critics’ laurel this season, but he lost the Screen Actors Guild trophy to Denzel Washington, and that’s significant. That split tends to favor directors who’ve made the most technically demanding film, and voters will deem that to be La La Land, which made a strong showing in the tech categories. In recent years, the Academy has proved more amenable to a split where one film wins Best Picture and another wins Best Director, so conceivably, Barry Jenkins has a shot to prevail here even if La La Land is a lock for Best Picture. Don’t let the Film Twitter backlash and all those contrarian hot takes fool you: For most Academy members, La La Land is the least polarizing of the Best Picture nominees, and it will prove to be the consensus pick.
Still, though Moonlight has gotten a lot of love, this is La La Land’s to lose. Back in the nominations phase, I heard plenty of Academy members throwing votes to Manchester by the Sea, too, but we’ve now narrowed things down to two films that are grabbing the lion’s share of votes. This race, in its late going, is all about La La Land and Moonlight.