Will Women Come Out on Top at Cannes?
“Screen Talk: went live at the American Pavilion in Cannes this year and drew a lively crowd. Anne Thompson raved about one of the big-epic Hollywood titles playing out of competition, George Miller’s prequel “Furiosa” (Warner Bros.), starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role, which opens May 14, while both Thompson and cohost Ryan Lattanzio panned Kevin Costner’s old-fashioned three-hour Western “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One” (Warner Bros.).
They both agree that this vanity project makes mad genius Francis Coppola’s self-funded $120 million “Megalopolis” look brilliant by comparison. Even if the Competition title is “unhinged,” at least he’s treading new ground, unlike Costner, who has spent some $100 million so far for the first two chapters of a planned four (the second part releases August 16). Coppola still awaits a North American buyer.
Both hosts admire Jacques Audiard’s Competition title “Emilia Perez,” a Spanish-language musical shot in Mexico starring two Best Actress contenders: American Spanish-speaker Zoe Saldana and Best Actress contender Karla Sofía Gascón, a gifted trans actress from Spain. (The film was picked up by Netflix after a bidding war since we recorded the podcast.)
Jury chief Greta Gerwig has an opportunity to honor several female filmmakers this year. Andrea Arnold has settled for the jury prize three times. Kitchen sink drama “Bird,” an emotional family story starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, is her strongest entry to date. (See our constantly updated Cannes awards prospects here.)
MUBI should have a hit with Coralie Fargeat’s witty and disgusting feminist body horror comedy “The Substance,” which could follow on the heels of Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” which won the Palme d’Or in 2021. And Demi Moore is a Best Actress contender as an aging actress trying to subvert time.
Another Palme d’Or contender is Mohammad Rasoulof’s three-hour family drama “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” The dissident Iranian filmmaker fled Iran and came to Cannes after receiving a seven-year prison sentence. The film was picked up by Neon, which has released the last four Palme d’Or winners.
“Screen Talk” also dissected some films we don’t think will play in North America, including Ali Abbas’s all-too-familiar “The Apprentice,” about the unholy alliance between Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), as well as the Romanian gay coming-of-age drama “Three Kilometers to the End of the World.”
Among the multiple older auteurs in Cannes, Lattanzio preferred David Cronenberg’s ghoulish “The Shrouds” to Paul Schrader’s “strange” “Oh Canada,” starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Jacob Elordi. Thompson recommends two documentaries, sales title “Lula,” Oliver Stone’s humane portrait of Brazilian leftist leader Lula da Silva, and Ron Howard’s “Jim Henson Idea Man” (Disney+), which is a strong Emmy contender.
There’s more to parse from Cannes next week, including this year’s award-winners and Oscar prospects.
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Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous episodes here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk.
