Why Vice Won’t Win Best Picture

The Best Picture race has never been less certain. I said that in 2018 and 2016 too. In 2017, I felt pretty confident then picked the wrong winner with absolute conviction. There hasn't been a certain winner going into the ceremony since The Artist won for 2011. This year, literally all 8 nominees feel like they have a chance to win, so I'm going to do a series on why they won't (and how they could). These will drop as each nominee runs out of precursor awards to learn anything from.

Next up, the angriest PowerPoint presentation disguised as a movie since another Vice President warned us about global warming.

Most Similar Best Picture Winner: Million Dollar Baby*

Obviously, the best comparison would be Adam McKay’s last film, The Big Short, but that lost. I’m really regretting not calling this section “Most Similar Best Picture Contender”. Million Dollar Baby makes some sense too. It showed up late in the season. Many critics groups didn’t even get a chance to see it before casting their votes, so it was missing from a lot of year-end superlatives lists. The movie didn’t play that well for BAFTA across the Atlantic. The film was closely credited to its director, often being spoken about with no separation between him and the film. The same can all be said about Vice. It barely got to theaters and voting bodies in time. BAFTA didn’t love it. And people describe it as “Adam McKay’s Vice” so often that you’d think he was taking notes from Tyler Perry.

*Yeah. I’m using it again. It’s hard to find unlikely Best Picture winners.

Path to Victory:

Keep in mind, I’m not posting these in order of what I think is least to most likely to win. It’s all a matter of how the schedule and nominations break. Vice is very low on my overall board, but it has a very real window for victory. There’s a “last man standing” argument for it. Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born could cancel each other out. To a lesser [and reductive] sense, the same could happen to Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman. The Netflix connection and being a foreign language film could sink Roma with too many voting factions. The whisper campaign against Green Book could finally take hold. Just plain gender bias could doom The Favourite. That would leave Vice edging out the field.

Or, you could give the simple argument that Hollywood is political, and they could see a vote for Vice as a middle finger to the current and Bush administrations.

Vice is one of the few Best Picture nominees with Oscar nominations for directing, acting, writing, and editing. While having 3 of those 4 is the magic number for Best Picture cutoff, 39 of the last 50 winners have had all four. And Vice has been all over the awards season with 5 “Big 8” precursor nominations*.

*Golden Globe - Best Drama or Comedy Film (1), BAFTA - Best Film (2), Producers Guild - Best Feature (3), SAG - Best Ensemble (4), Directors Guild - Best Director (5), Writers Guild - Best Original or Adapted Screenplay (6), Editors Guild - Best Drama or Comedy Film Editing (7), American Society of Cinematographers - Best Cinematography (8).

Why That Won’t Work:

The overall love just isn’t there for Vice. The last 20 [at least] Best Picture winners have had at least 6 Big 8 nominations. Vice falls slightly under that, with the lack of a SAG Ensemble nomination standing out as the biggest surprise. It isn’t like SAG opted to award the individual performers either. Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Sam Rockwell all lost at the SAG Awards. In fact, unless something surprising happens at the WGA Awards, Vice will have lost every major precursor award it was nominated for. I really do think winning at least one is vital. It shows that some group is willing to single the film out.

Finally, no film is as damaged by the preferential ballot used for Best Picture voting. Vice is a divisive film. If someone doesn't choose it as the best of the 8 nominees, then they are likely to choose at as the worst. In a year with such a divided Best Picture field, that makes it virtually impossible for Vice to win.