Premature Adulation

After writing up Mother and Child as a surefire Oscar contender, Jeff Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere has decided to take five giant steps back and distance himself from the movie – I believe he did this because he made bold proclamations about the film’s Oscar potential. Saying the word “Oscar” about a movie is like yelling (“you yell barracuda, everybody says huh? What? You yell shark and we’ve got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July.”) You can do it if you want to but your words will either make you a mini-star in this weird little universe of Oscar watching or it will be a mild embarrassment. I myself have suffered a few of those. Either way, here is the retraction – which covers him in the event that the film is ignored come Oscar time (even Annette Bening??):

I wrote last night’s riff about Rodrigo Garcia‘s Mother and Child without having seen the final 30 minutes. So I went to see it again today at a 12:30 pm Cumberland press screening and was rather surprised to discover that the last 30 minutes are the weakest part of the film. The plot lurches a couple of times and tone becomes a little too emphatic. The first 95 or so minutes use gradual and subtle shadings; the last 30 minutes use more and more primary colors. I’m not saying it falls apart, but the last act does diminish Mother and Child somewhat.

However, Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema points us to a Screen Daily review that praises the film, and Ms. Bening:

Bening gives one of her very best performances as a potentially despicable woman who has carried her bitterness around for so long that it poisons her every interaction. Watts matches Bening’s fire, making Elizabeth a manipulative, powerful woman whose motivations are left intriguingly vague.

My advice to Wells on this matches one of his commenters, take the hit. If the Academy ignores it you can just complain about their bad taste. And who cares what other people think about movies. I certainly don’t. Groupthink should be reserved for voting on film awards, not personal preference.