Gothams Breakdown, AFI Fest Wrap-Up, 'The Testament of Ann Lee' & 'Hedda'

0:06Welcome to Screen Talk, IndieWire's weekly podcast, bringing you up to speed on the latest goings on in Hollywood. I'm Anne Thompson. I'm Ryan Lutonzio. And this week we will assess the impact of AFI Fest as well as the Gotham Award nominations on the Oscar race. If any, this is my bugaboo every year. The Gothams mean nothing. No, we will revisit the Testament of Anne Lee from Mona Fastfold, which Searchlight acquired out of Venice. well and so i obviously wasn't at afi fest but uh i've been many a time uh you you were there it's unfortunately located in the hollywood and highland center which is not the most accessible place to have a film festival it just gets very congested and the traffic sucks and it's just a pain in the ass but once you get there it's all concentrated in this one area around the chinese And so there's plenty of action.

1:03I mean, it's like every publicist on the planet was there for Q &As and so forth. Well, the main, the one film to pop there that supposedly was part of the Oscar conversation and was a world premiere AFI that they had only a few this year. They are kind of on the caboose of the fall festivals, at least the major ones. And their function is more, I would argue, to bring the best of the fall fests that are in a rarefied world that are not accessible to cinephiles in L.A. to those general audiences. But so one of the world premieres was the Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue, which candidly, I have not seen this yet.

1:44But I still haven't. I've managed to avoid screenings one after the other. Well, so this is Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman forming a Neil Diamond tribute band. And I personally don't have a relationship to the music of Neil Diamond. So, yeah, I have been stymied from seeing this one. But there were some early prognostications among certain peers of ours that Kate Hudson is destined to be a best actress contender. And I have to wonder if some of that is due to certain talent management, I don't know, spreading the word around Hollywood. Jason Weinberg. Yeah, exactly. He's the man who was behind Demi Moore.

2:21A lot of her success was due to him. He is a very talented, very indefatigable force. He's respected in that world. You know, he's good at his job. He sold, he really sold me a bill of goods at the New York Film Festival, one of the parties there. And I am quite eager to see the movie now because of the way he described it and the degree to which the emotional arc of her character is such that she could really be a factor. She's due for a comeback. God knows. Kate Hudson. She's one of those actresses who can be capable and did well at the beginning of her career, but has somehow ended up on the B tier.

3:08Am I wrong? No, you're right. I mean, she's got a lot of guilty pleasure kind of films, but really there's been nothing of the sort of gravitas that Almost Famous promised since Almost Famous. And that was almost 27 years ago, something like that. Yeah, which is really crazy. But the reviews were not good for this movie. So it has a 57 on Metacritic. That's bad. That's in Springsteen range. I looked up Springsteen just now. And that is is also in the 50s, which is not good. It is really not good. Crash survived the 50s and won Best Picture. But that is because everybody was trying not to vote for Brokeback Mountain.

3:52That was political. Anomaly. Yeah, that was an anomaly. I don't think anyone thinks Crash is a legitimate Best Picture winner, really. but um the the the this is not good this isn't this is going to be hard it'll be a one actress and one in the movie that would have to be about her it would have to be all about her i feel somewhat unprepared to to comment on it but sight unseen i would say that um she's destined for a best actress in a musical or comedy uh nomination at the globe seeing as it is a this is a musical and a comedy. So one of the things that's really interesting that Warner Brothers did was to take one battle after another and put it in the comedy category.

4:40And I thought that was very smart. And there are a whole lot of movies in the comedy category, like Begonia, right? Because A, it gives you a shot at something there in a less competitive category. And B, it gives Sinners room to play. because Sinners is coming back. Sinners is being re-released in IMAX and all the bells and whistles. They're going to make a, you know, I have an event that I'm going to. I'm going to go back and see it again in IMAX because I really want to. I want to reassess Sinners in the world of this moment, you know, because people aren't talking about it in the Oscar race, but I've always felt like it was a pretty big player in the Oscar race.

5:22What do you think? Yeah, so you're going to do a rare re-watch. You don't always do that. I rewatched Jay Kelly. We talked about that last week. That's true. You did do that. I did. And when I'm not sure, when I need, well, that movie came out. Sorry, I'm so congested. That movie came out a while ago. So we need to, we need to see, also just look at it. I mean, when we saw Sinners, we saw Sinners as a movie that was an original. It was Ryan Coogler. It was Michael B. Jordan, all of the above. And we were amazed and pleased and astonished, but we weren't really looking at it then through Oscar prism.

5:58That's what I need to do now. See, see where, where is its strengths? What is it really going to like, people are saying Delroy Linda or, or, you know, at least Steinfeld even. Right. What could happen there? And we have to sort of look at it and see, see what's real. Yeah. Obviously I haven't looked at it with those goggles because I saw it in March, but it always stood at the top to me. like immediately I felt confidence that it was going to be an Oscar movie, especially because as we know, there is a lot more room for genre movies to play in now at the Oscars. But Sinners isn't just a genre movie, the vampire aspect of it is but one component in something that is deeper and richer.

6:41And it's also the music and the history of the music and the way that he handles the music that is so powerful and important here. So I would, I would, I really can't wait to see it again, just out of, you know, sheer pleasure. I mean, it'll be fun to, to look at it. It'll be a delight. So I actually, that's not true, Ryan. I do see a lot of movies twice in the, when it comes to Oscar time, you know, because I haven't, sometimes I haven't, It's been a long time since I've seen something and I want to revisit it again. Usually it's the movie that's going to be more entertaining that I'm willing to watch as opposed to something that will make me suffer.

7:22I admit that. You're not going to watch Hamnet again? I'm thinking about that. It was interesting. I bet I do watch Hamnet again. I bet I do. That's different. That's not, you know, that's the pain of Hamnet. There's something liberating about it. Something beautiful. Thartic. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, there's another movie that you saw at AFI Festa that I saw way back in Venice and actually interviewed the director of, which is? The Testament of Anne Lee. Now, this is interesting. I have been letting this sit, right? I've been letting this movie sort of sit in my head. I have not written a review of this movie, as you have.

8:08I didn't write the review. You wrote, you wrote, you did an interview with her. With Mona. I love Mona and I admire Mona and I still admire Mona. I came out of the movie and looked at some guy in the elevator and I just did one. I often do this. I, I pull people, you know, I want to know what they thought of the movie. And I asked this guy what he thought. And he looked at me and said, well, you've never seen anything like it. And I said, that's true. That is true. That is what I admire. I admire her audacity, her craft, her ability to make beautiful images. There's some stunning, stunning images in this.

8:49The music is amazing. The performance by Amanda Seyfried is amazing. So is the son of... Lewis Pullman. Lewis Pullman is a good actor. I've seen him in a number of things lately, and he's a very, very good actor. He's lovely. He plays her brother. It's almost unbelievable, this story. I mean, it's true. It's based on the real person who founded the Shakers. I have a Shaker chair in my house. They are known for their furniture. Their furniture was on display. I don't know how to say this. It's a movie that is difficult to watch. It is a little bit like Hamnet in the sense that it immerses you in the period and in the time and the smells and you know you're really in the world but also that you're in the trials and the toils of that period as well it's a difficult world yeah it's a difficult world there's a there's a series of images there that have to do with uh and Lee you know having four back-to-back babies and then having them die which is just brutal, brutal.

9:59But it explains why she ended up founding a, I don't want to use the word cult, but it is. It's cult-like. It is. Yes. She got all these people to follow her. She got all these men and women to agree to be celibate in the pursuit of the Lord, in the pursuit of God. And so there are all these numbers at the end, which is pretty stunning, where she shows you how many followers there were, mostly all over New England, and how many there are now. Three. Vermont, Ryan. Three. Yeah. There was another, there were two, and then there was another one added recently. For whatever reason, I don't know the particulars of that.

10:39The movie says two on the screen, for whatever reason. Yeah. There is since a third one. Ryan, you tell us what you think of this movie. I admire this movie deeply. Congratulations on your ascension, Ryan. Indoctrination, thank you. Ryan is now a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. Congratulations, long overdue. Here's to more cachet, but also more professional burden. As far as the Testament of Anne Lee goes, and I was a really big fan of Mona Fastfold's The World to Come in 2020. Me too, I interviewed her then. Really, unfortunately, was a casualty of what was happening with COVID era releases.

11:19It was a bleaker street release and came out at a terrible time in a couple of theaters in February 2021, I think, of all periods. But anyway, if you don't believe that this woman, Anne Lee, that Amanda Seyfried plays, is the utopia-creating goddess that I think that this movie lionizes her to be, then you are not really going to be down with this movie. I don't know that what she created is a cult, but it's certainly a religious sect. which in modern parlance, we understand that to be a cult, really. I think about regarding this movie, I don't know. I'm going to presume that Mona Fastfold can't help but identify with this woman in some way as a creator and purveyor of sets that are based on kindness and probably a no assholes kind of rule, similar to Greta Gerwig.

12:15uh and lee is someone who who clearly when when they came from england to the colonies fostered racial and gender equality we see all of that and so i think that her project she identifies with this woman a little bit and in that sense i think maybe gets lost in the forest of it a little bit and forgets the emotion that there's an emotion lacking i don't know that you feel especially emotionally connected to the images on the screen as beautiful as they are good i think that's a good assessment of what happens here, which is that you're watching something and you're believing it. It's utterly compelling and authentic, but it's also repetitive with a lot of the rituals, the dancing and the music.

12:59And it's also sometimes beautiful, but sometimes really disturbing and off-putting. And I, as I said, I admire it tremendously without loving it. And it's coming out Christmas Day from Searchlight as a last, not a last minute pickup, but it did sit without a buyer for over a month. And I did hear there were some other interested parties and probably some disagreement on the figure or something, but where now that you've seen the movie. I don't have a sense of what its Oscar reach is at this point, but what do you think in that context? I find it interesting that Searchlight picked it up. I admire them for having the cojones to take this on because it's not an easy movie to market or sell.

13:55or they must think that Amanda Seyfried has a shot at Best Actress. And I don't think she does. I think you're right. I don't think you like her. You don't like this woman. You need to like her. You need to care about her. You need to really want to, even at the end, even even as as things go south in various ways at the end I wasn't um weeping or or or wailing I should have been emotionally moved yeah the movie tells you to like her you know you are supposed to but I don't I don't know that you necessarily do some people are really enraptured with this character and this woman and the history of her that I've spoken to but I I wasn't necessarily one of them, even though I actually am very curious to see it again.

14:53And I have because I haven't seen it since Venice. And it was did you have it projected on film or did you see what were you at like a 70 millimeter? I think it was a standard issue screening. I kind of want to see it that way because I don't know. I'm not really a celluloid fetishist. So I saw it in 35 or 70. I don't know. One of one of the millimeters. and it was a little dark. So I wouldn't mind seeing it as a 4K presentation. But anyway, that's where we are with Anne Lee. It is a great looking movie. It is incredibly well made. It is beautifully made. And Brady Corbet, her husband, obviously worked with her.

15:35They're married, right, Ryan? They are married and they have a child. So he actually was a co-writer and producer on this. They switch roles all the time. And she produced, I mean, she directed. So anyway, it's well worth checking out. You've never seen a movie like this. It's extraordinary in many ways. The other movie you did see also at AFI was Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire. He agreed to direct this movie with like nine weeks prep. Unbelievable, right? Only Gus Van Sant could have pulled this off. It's a true story. And it stars one of the Skarsgårds. It's really a season for the Skarsgård, brother and father so it's Bill Sarsgaard the one you know from the it movies and uh or the crow if you unfortunately saw the crow which I had to anyway sorry yeah so it's it's a bit it's he's a little bit of on the nose casting because you think of him as as a villain what you can't help it you shouldn't do that when you see an actor but but there's an element of that in him anyway that you just don't like him.

16:42I didn't feel any sympathy for this guy. He's holding a gun to the head of a presumably venal bank executive who's at a mortgage company that has ruined him, the guy with the gun. It's a true story. And I thought it was really well done. I thought it was excellent and I really uh enjoyed it and I'll be curious to see uh if they can get anybody to go see it when it opens in January which is uh what it's scheduled to do that's it's one of the first films to be released by the new Roque uh distributor which Megan Colligan is running right now I agree with you I like this movie but I actually think Bill Skarsgård was miscast first of all he's a I didn't really know this true story and apparently Gus Van Sant didn't wasn't as familiar with it either when he took on the project he is a director who frequently is hired to direct other people's scripts and he doesn't make a fuss about that and i i you know he did the capote versus swan series kind of stepping into the ryan murphy shoes world um last year and i always enjoy him but i think that bill skarsgård wasn't the best person for this mostly partially because he seems kind of young for what this guy is going through and also he's very attractive and this is this is a general issue with true crime shows that the people that play these guys are often a lot that they don't they often are a lot better looking than the real person they showed what the real people looked like yeah it was funny it was funny the guy who plays i i i'm sorry ryan do you have any i i i meant to look this up before we the guy who played the um the victim the guy who has the gun um it's daiquiri montgomery he's a fantastic actor he did a great job with that yeah he's somebody he was good he's somebody he's somebody out of strangers things which i don't watch either so between the two of us if we don't watch that we have no frame of reference here.

18:48There you go. There you go. He was really, he was actually really good. And it's a horrifying thing to witness what, you know, and the, and the part of what's going, oh yeah. And there's a great backstory. The, the Cassian Elwes, the producer, who's sort of an well-known independent producer in, in indie film circles. Cassian was telling me this story at the party about how they were going to cast Seth Rogen as the DJ. He was sort of commenting on everything, a little bit do the right thing style in the movie. And he couldn't do it. And he happened to have a meeting with Coleman Domingo. And Coleman Domingo says, well, you know, what are you working on?

19:30You got any parts? And he did. So that ended up being Coleman Domingo. It's hard to imagine anyone better playing that role. He was very good. Is there anything else that stood out to you at AFI? The only thing I can tell you is that there is a bit of awards push. There's an awards push going on at AFI. And in this case, as our friend, our colleague Marcus Jones wrote about this in IndieWire, the underdogs got a bit of a chance to get some purchase. So this was where Song Song Blue and Nuremberg, which has a great role for Russell Crowe, he's fantastic in it, but it's not gaining any real purchase.

20:21Christy, the Sidney Sweeney boxing movie, also a true story, not getting any purchase for her. But, you know, they got a chance to play with audiences and get some attention. The movie that's coming out way ahead is Frankenstein. it's playing and it's getting you know sort of moving up at metacritic while these other movies are moving down it's actually doing well springsteen uh opened up the um you know deliver me from nowhere opened up the festival as we talked about but it opened in theaters right and it opened soft at nine million dollars yeah and i expected it to play better what did you think it was going to do well adding springsteen to the title as they did clearly didn't really help uh i yeah i i did not expect this to do very well i don't know i don't in the venn diagram of people that are really into jeremy allen white and that are into bruce springsteen i don't know where the connective part of that diagram is but poor jeremy allen white was basically left out of the equation.

21:32They relied on Springsteen to promote this movie, to play concerts, to, he was everywhere. He was everywhere. And he basically made people forget, I think, that this was a fiction film with actors in it and a story being told. And I don't think it helped the movie in the end. They could go listen to Springsteen records or go, you know, put up a Springsteen concert and enjoy it. They didn't have to go to a fiction film about how he the other option, of course, is that nobody likes the album Nebraska and no one cares about it. Yeah. Well, and those people. I love that that record. Yeah. No, I'm just sorry.

22:16I didn't mean to interrupt. But those people you're talking about, they're not really going to the movies anyway. So maybe they'll watch it at home later. but that's a good point i think it will be well watched on on uh on streaming so um ryan the gothams were uh this week uh and i i always eric and i are you and i whoever we we always say say the same thing what are the do they have a real impact are they do they mean anything um it's basically a group of critics in new york you know different committees voting on different um categories. And, and then, you know, you come up with a list that doesn't have, you know, Marty Supreme on it.

22:58You know, how does that, that one was ineligible. And that was ineligible. And so is, is, is this thing on? Cause neither of them, neither was ready in time for the deadline. That's why they were in New York film festival too. Right. So, so what do you think of, of the, of the honorees? Well, there's a lot of controversy on film Twitter, again, a rarefied space that really doesn't have any impact on anything either. And it's like 12 people screaming out a window into a courtyard. But people are upset about movies. I don't know why. Again, the things that upset people, I don't fully understand.

23:33I think that the idea is that the Gothams are supposed to be honoring only independent film, but we saw that change a few years ago when when Barbie was was given awards, but you've got one battle after another, which is a, you know, that is a big studio, big studio nine figure cost movie up against things like Lurker from Mubi or if I've had, if I had like say Kick You or Familiar Touch from Music Box Films. I'm glad that got in. That's a great movie. Yeah, me too. I actually, I was on the jury for the Montclair Film Festival and we deliberated last weekend and Kathleen Chalfant was also in the jury.

24:12I had a really nice time talking to her. I love her. She's amazing. I want her to be in the best actress race. It's not going to happen. Maybe at the end, deep spirits. I want her to be my mother, but that's a different story. So anyway, there is a very eclectic mix in a wide range of budgets and the films that are up for best feature. You know, I, this week, this week, also, I was very briefly in Savannah for the Savannah Film Festival, and I was with Mary Bronstein and Ava Victor. Mary Bronstein's the director of, if I had, like I say, kick you, Ava Victor, writer, director of, and star of Sorry Baby.

24:47I was with them around the time they found out, and they were very excited. So I think it means a lot to the individuals honored, but I don't know what the impact is in the grand scheme, especially because some of these movies that I just listed they're not going to be at the oscars we're not east of all is not going to be at the oscars urchin we already know i was happy to see that get attention east of wall is a great movie i agree i'm not and and we shouldn't attention for the films and gets people to watch them that's a good thing yeah i'm not and i'm not defining a movie's quality on its oscar worthiness i would never do that i don't do that no but no uh alexander skarsgar got in for pillion there's some love for Hedda a movie we're going to talk about in a minute uh Josh O 'Connor for the mastermind like it's really the indie spirit of what the Gothams are is retained here but there is space made now for these bigger movies what was your takeaway well I always had I had a problem when they made that change and I understood that they did make it for various financial reasons really They needed to survive.

25:52And that's why they opened it up the way that they did. But I think they ruined their brand, if you like, the way that you're discussing. I don't think one, I love one battle after another, but it doesn't need any help. It's already the front runner for the Oscars all by itself now. And I guess the critics felt strongly enough that it needed to be recognized as the best movie of the year that they went ahead and anointed it. But I think at least the indie spirits have a budget cap. I think there's something to be said for that. They do. And that's been blown open at the Gothams. I just, I don't want it to see, I don't, I know this is what I'm about to say pertains to a group that you're part of, but I don't want to see the Gothams go the way of the critics choice where the nominations are about being predictive of the Oscars, where then what you get is just more contribution to a consensus.

26:46And there is a little bit of that, what we're seeing here with one battle after another, which is also a movie that's going to be number one on everybody's top 10 list. So can't we just have a little bit of diversity, which these 10 features, since the Gotham expanded to 10 features did afford. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you. Okay. I think that's uh time to talk about Hedda so Hedda is a movie that had so little buzz so little discussion around it and then it went out into theaters and died yeah for a week and now it's on Amazon Prime video though so you can watch it at home you can watch it on Amazon Prime which was the whole idea obviously from from the beginning and uh it just bothers me because it's such a beautiful movie.

27:36It's a beautifully mounted movie. Nina DaCosta did a great job of updating Ibsen, right? It's an old story, well told, and it's still the same story. It's just that she changed the gender of the lover. And that's the part played by Nina Haas. And Nina Haas just makes one of the great entrances of all time and dominates the second half of the movie. It's it's the she's the character we're all waiting to see, you know, with great anticipation. It just works. It works really well. And Tessa Thompson, I didn't know she was such so good at being a Brit. She has a British mother and she's fantastic and gorgeous in this.

28:16I love Hedda and I hope everybody, you know, it's got great, great costumes and great production design. All set in one party. One party is the setting in the 50s in England and it works. one very debauchless party the other thing that works is that uh there there are other changes such as if you're familiar with the play there's some changes to the ending and certain set pieces but the spirit of it is is retained and obviously this is set in the 50s the other thing about it is that the casting of Testa Thompson and some of the other characters it's not just colorblind casting for the sake of it nor is it didactic but I uh Nia DaCosta and I think this is the best movie she's ever done, is interested in looking at how a Black woman who is oppressed, who is trying to conform and fit into society, what rebellion and what trying to exercise or find what her power is would look like.

29:09And that does come in manipulating people like Nina Haas and people like Imogen Poots and all these other people that weave in and out of her party. This is a really fun, I would use the word, it's kind of frothy, but it's kind of like a vamping lesbian spin on Ibsen. And it's really a shame that it seems like Amazon MGM studios doesn't know how to market any of their films. I don't know anyone who even knew this movie was coming out. No, that's what I was saying at the beginning. It's really disturbing and that it did so poorly at the box office. But I highly we both do. We highly recommend that you see Hedda on Amazon Prime, which is maybe what they had in mind to begin with.

29:52And Tessa Thompson, she's got a big fan base, big queer fan base. They could have gone after queer audiences with this movie. And I really think it would have done well with them. It played really well at the New Fest, which is an LGBTQ festival in New York. I don't know anyone who doesn't like this movie. So we are both emphatically recommending that you stream it on Prime Video this weekend if you are tired and tuckered out from scary movies for Halloween. And Nia DaCosta, by the way, is on our rival IndieWire podcast toolkit. So even go ahead and if you want to hear more about this and I wrote about Nina Haas so there's stuff to learn if you want to find it on IndieWire.

30:34Okay, on that note, I will talk to you next week, Anne. See you later, Ryan.