A24, the corporate behind movies like Room, Moonlight, Girl Hen, All the things In all places All at As soon as and Previous Lives, is as daring and daring a distributor as any within the film enterprise at present. Not often has that been extra evident than it’s in a pair of movies that they delivered to the 2024 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant (to say nothing of the movie that they acquired throughout the fest, an almost four-hour VistaVision epic supposed for projection in 70mm).
Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s Queer and Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn’s Babygirl each got here to Toronto after having their world premieres on the Venice Movie Pageant. Each movies star bona fide Hollywood A-listers — Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, respectively — in extremely risqué roles that discover sexual inhibitions, or lack thereof, and energy dynamics. (The Venice jury awarded Kidman the fest’s greatest actress prize, and Craig was rumored to be in critical competition for its greatest actor prize.)
They every acquired prolonged Venice standing ovations (of 9 minutes and 7 minutes, respectively) and have every been embraced by critics on each side of the pond (with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 78 % and 94 %, respectively). Nevertheless, I think that each will face an uphill climb with awards voters. Queer feels very lengthy at 135 minutes, which can have contributed to a substantial variety of walkouts in any respect of its screenings; and each movies have a whole lot of specific nudity and intercourse scenes, which can be powerful for voters of a sure age.
However — however — the performances at their middle have engendered appreciable respect and admiration even from individuals who aren’t loopy concerning the films wherein they’re featured, which is why I feel that the actors department of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences might properly nominate them. It lately nominated a number of different robust performances in polarizing pics, equivalent to Glenn Shut’s in 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy, Andra Day’s in 2020’s The US vs. Billie Vacation and Ana de Armas’ in 2022’s Blonde.
Queer, which A24 acquired shortly earlier than Venice, is an adaptation by Justin Kuritzkes (who additionally wrote Guadagnino’s different extremely sexual 2024 movie, Challengers) from the late counter-cultural icon William S. Burroughs’ 1985 semi-autobiographical novel of the identical novel (which was written many years earlier). In it, Craig performs Burroughs’ alter-ego, Invoice Lee, an overtly homosexual American expat in Forties Mexico Metropolis who appears to do nothing however attempt to feed his limitless urge for food for booze, medicine and intercourse with different males.
In a movie that evolves (or devolves?) from life like to trippy (it’s a relative of Worry and Loathing in Las Vegas, each the 1971 e book and the 1998 movie), Craig leaves all of it on the market, actually and figuratively. It’s a complete transformation not like something we’ve ever seen him do earlier than, no less than onscreen (he’s a beautiful stage actor too). Rolling Stone known as it “the function of a lifetime” and “a milestone in his profession,” whereas The Hollywood Reporter’s overview described Craig’s efforts as “a transfixing efficiency.”
As for Kidman in Babygirl — which A24 financed from the beginning, having beforehand labored with Reijn on her 2022 English-language directorial debut Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies — she performs Romy, the spouse, mom of teenagers and company CEO whose sexual wants will not be being met at dwelling, which leads her to embark on an affair with a a lot youthful intern at her workplace.
The movie — which, oddly sufficient, can be launched on Christmas Day — performs in some methods like an erotic thriller within the vein of classics of yesteryear like Deadly Attraction and Fundamental Intuition. However in different methods it’s notably trendy and well timed, becoming a member of Tár and Truthful Play as standouts of the #MeToo period.
Kidman, for her half, is excellent, as demonstrated not solely by the Venice award (which she sadly wasn’t capable of settle for in-person as a result of her mom died the day she was chosen for it), but additionally by the wave of critiques celebrating her efficiency (together with THR’s, which highlights her “fearlessness” and describes her as being “in spectacular type”).