The outrage against Karla Sofia Gascon’s tweets may have cost her whatever votes she still had for Best Actress, but whether it costs “Emilia Pérez” votes in any other category is still uncertain. There are some who dream that the Brazilian voters who steamrolled “I’m Still Here” and Fernanda Torres to Oscar nominations could actually knock off “Emilia Pérez” in Best International Feature and that maybe it could actually cancel itself out in Best Song so Diane Warren can finally win something.
Yet the truth is, “Emilia Pérez” can actually afford to lose both Best International Feature and Best Song, and it still wouldn’t fully finish it off for Best Picture. Only two categories can make or break “Emilia Pérez’s” Best Picture hopes, whether or not any of their voters remotely care about Gascon or all of the movie’s other issues – Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing.
For months, the assumption was that as long as “Emilia Pérez” was secure to win Best Supporting Actress, Best International Feature, and Best Song, it was only a hair away from wrapping up Best Picture. However, the reality is that Best International Feature and Best Song are not categories that are truly essential for “Emilia Pérez” in the big picture. Even if it’s hard to fathom that a movie could lose Best International Feature and still win Best Picture – especially after “Parasite” needed to win both – a loss there wouldn’t be a death blow.
The only thing that would actually put an end to “Emilia Pérez” is if it didn’t have a single win above the line before Best Picture. Assuming that Jacques Audiard’s “Spanish is a language of the poor and migrants” comments haven’t been so forgotten thanks to Gascon that he is allowed to upset Brady Corbet for Best Director or “Conclave” for Best Adapted Screenplay anyway, Saldana remains the movie’s one and only shot for a major Oscar prior to Best Picture.
For all of the uproar over Gascon, she was never going to win Best Actress over Demi Moore, Mikey Madison, or Torres well before her Tweets were discovered. If those campaigning against “Emilia Pérez” wanted to really make a difference, they would have instead tried to move votes against Saldana – or at least for Ariana Grande. But until there’s real proof the backlash against Gascon affects the rest of “Emilia Pérez” and not just her, there’s little reason to believe any of this has changed votes against Saldana or for Grande.
The Best Supporting Actress race is the same as it has been for a while, in a holding pattern until Grande proves Saldana isn’t going to sweep the major precursors. If she manages to defeat Saldana at the Critics Choice – who cast their votes long before any of this happened – and then uses “Wicked’s” popularity at SAG to win there as well, then Best Supporting Actress will actually be neck-and-neck on Oscar night. But if Saldana or anyone but Grande wins Critics Choice on February 7th, that may well end any semblance of a race.
Still, even if “Emilia Pérez” holds onto that one win everyone assumed it had in the bag for months, losing the other two in Best International Feature and Best Song would be deemed fatal. Nevertheless, there is another category it can win that would easily cancel all that out.
On the surface, it would seem ridiculous that “Emilia Pérez” could fall far enough to lose Best International Feature and Best Song but still rise up to win Best Film Editing anyway. However, the Best Film Editing category has been such a wide-open and chaotic mess this season that there’s no way of knowing where voters will end up. After all, this is a season where “Dune: Part Two” was talked about as a potential Best Film Editing favorite and yet didn’t get nominated, while “The Brutalist” got in after missing key precursors and “Challengers” missed despite having the most critics group Editing wins by far. And lest everyone forget, this the same Academy that ignored controversy from a music-centered film before and awarded “Bohemian Rhapsody” the Oscar for its hyperkinetic and much-mocked editing in 2018.
This year’s Best Film Editing field already has high stakes, as all four Best Picture frontrunners in “Anora,” “Conclave,” “The Brutalist” and “Emilia Pérez” are facing off against each other and “Wicked’s.” There’s a very real chance that whoever wins this category will also win Best Picture, and if “Emilia Pérez’s” ultra-flashy style bowls the Academy over like “Bohemian Rhapsody” did, it has as much of a shot as anyone. And in that scenario, winning Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing only may be as good of a Best Picture-winning package as any, regardless of upset losses elsewhere.
Even without multiple wins above or below the line, winning just one above-the-line Oscar and Best Film Editing has been enough to win Best Picture before, after “Argo” and “Crash” both pulled it off. What’s more, that is the exact path both “Anora” and “Conclave” hope for themselves, as Best Film Editing may be their best, if not only, chance to win anything besides a Screenplay Oscar. If winning Best Film Editing could lock up Best Picture for “Conclave” or “Anora” despite having only one other win, it can, in theory, be enough for “Emilia Pérez” too.
At the very least, beating both “Anora” and “Conclave” for Best Film Editing could knock them both out of Best Picture since it doesn’t seem likely either of them could do what “Spotlight” did and win Best Picture and a Screenplay Oscar only. If those two are eliminated then and there, then “Emilia Pérez’s” only competition left would be “The Brutalist” – and as it stands, it probably isn’t winning Best Picture unless it wins both Best Director and Best Actor, the latter of which is already in heavy danger thanks to Timothee Chalamet.
Winning Best Film Editing and one above-the-line Oscar didn’t propel “The Social Network,” “Gravity,” “Whiplash,” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” to Best Picture. But in those years, “The King’s Speech” had three other above-the-line wins, and “12 Years a Slave,” “Birdman” and “Green Book” had two. In a scenario where “Anora” and “Conclave” are stuck with Screenplay Oscars only and “The Brutalist” has Best Director above the line only, “Emilia Pérez” having Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing – even if nothing else – would give it the best Best Picture package by default. Then again, “Wicked’s” could always pull a Best Film Editing upset instead and leave everything in total disarray by the final envelope.
Despite this season’s high standard of chaos, it might seem too far-fetched to imagine “Emilia Pérez” can survive losing two of its three assured wins, pick up another one it wasn’t favored for from the start, and win Best Picture anyway. But if this movie has proved anything, it’s that the normal standards of the Best Picture frontrunner are not allowed to apply to it, no matter what backlash, controversy, and low audience score it faces.
So even if the Brazilians form a bloc with enough foreign voters to give “I’m Still Here” an upset International win, if Warren is finally given an Oscar out of pure mercy, and if Gascon’s Tweets are finally the kind of “Emilia Pérez” outrage industry voters can’t sweep under the rug, there’s only two ways any of that would actually matter. In truth, the only voters that can finally put an end to “Emilia Pérez” or save it are those voting for Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing – and if everyone is too mad at Gascon to be mad about the rest of “Emilia Pérez” anymore, can any of it really stick to Saldana or the film’s whiplash editing style?
Of course, if “Emilia Pérez” loses both the PGA and DGA on February 8th, the BAFTAs on February 16th, and then the SAG Ensemble on February 23rd, that may finish it well before Oscar night. But if it wins just one of those, and then if Oscar night starts with a Saldana victory, even upset losses in Best International Feature and/or Best Song wouldn’t make anyone breathe any easier until Best Film Editing is announced. Then, and only then, might we learn at last how much the industry is determined to protect, award, and push “Emilia Pérez” at all costs or consequences – or learn that their protection of it might finally have limits after all.
What will be the fate of “Emilia Pérez” following the last couple of days of controversy? Which of its 13 Oscar nominations do you still see it winning or none at all? Please let us know on on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
