Silver Linings Playbook Wins Audience Award in Toronto

From the Hollywood Reporter:

David O. Russell‘s dramedy Silver Linings Playbook, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, earned the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. While the fest’s award ceremony is currently taking place, festival artistic director Cameron Bailey tweeted his congratulations to the film for winning the award.

Never underestimate the power of a crowdpleaser. With this award, right now, it looks like Best Picture is between Warner Bros.’ Argo and The Weinstein Co.’s Silver Linings Playbook, with more movies still to be seen (most notably, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miserables). How does the People’s Choice line up with other Oscar Best Pic winners?

• 2011 Where Do We Go Now? (2011)
• 2010 The King’s Speech (2010)
• 2009 Precious (2009)
• 2008 Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
• 2007 Eastern Promises (2007)
• 2006 Bella (2006)
• 2005 Tsotsi (2005)
• 2004 Hotel Rwanda (2004)
• 2003 Zatôichi (2003)
• 2002 Whale Rider (2002)
• 2001 Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
• 2000 Wo hu cang long (2000)
• 1999 American Beauty (1999)

Both King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire starting winning in Toronto and then won the major awards after that. The main difference between the two was that The King’s Speech had a formidable challenger, Slumdog did not. But beware the sappy crowdpleaser.  And in Silver Linings, you probably have that.

If 2012 is going to shape up like 2010 it’s going to get awfully heated with the Weinstein Co that will have two films that represent two schools of thought heading into the race. It could be The Master taking all of the critics awards, and I mean, all of the critics awards like The Social Network (to date, no film has ever won that many critics awards and not gone on to win the Oscar) and Silver Linings Playbook, as the crowdpleaser in the room, winning the PGA, DGA, SAG and Oscar.

It will be like 2010 in other ways, too, as this is already one of the best years for not just film overall but especially, and most importantly, American film, which has seen a marked decline lately.  That is going to make the choices even harder across the board, just like it was in 2010, with Inception and Black Swan and The Fighter.  All of these great films at bat and the one that is most unlike the others could take home the gold.