In a year largely defined by isolation and displacement, ‘Nomadland’, the sad and melancholy film that has the themes in its story of a woman living after the recession of a decade ago, is the best film of 2020 designated by the National. Association of Film Critics.
“Nomadland” was a favorite because the critics’ group announced the recipients of its 55th annual award on Saturday. Chloé Zhao, who wrote and directed the film, won Best Director, while Joshua James won the Best Cinematography Award for his work on the drama. The film’s star, Frances McDormand, won Best Actress for her role as Fern, the homeless widow in her 60s traveling through the West in a van looking for work.
Zhao was a favorite among critics in the run-up to the Oscars. Last month, she was named best director by both the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the New York Film Critics Circle when each group announces their 2020 awards. LAFC selects Steve McQueen’s “Small Ax” for best picture, while NYFCC awards Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow”.
Elsewhere in the scene, Maria Bakalova won Best Supporting Actress for her breakthrough (and hits) in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” in which she plays the teenage daughter of the title character who accompanies Borat on his travels to the US. Bakalova was also honored by the group of critics in New York.
Isiah Whitlock Jr., from left, Norm Lewis, Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters and Jonathan Majors in “Da 5 Bloods.”
(Netflix)
The Best Actor Award was given to Delroy Lindo for his role in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” as a Vietnamese veterinarian who returns to the country with three other comrades to find the remains of their group leader – played by Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances – and retrieve gold they left behind during the war. Boseman was the runner-up for his role in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’. Previously, Lindo won the NYFCC Best Actor Award. And Paul Raci was awarded the Society’s Best Supporting Actor for his turn as a deafening counselor running a Midwestern sober home for deaf addicts in Darius Marder’s eloquent drama “Sound of Metal.”
Meanwhile, Eliza Hittman’s adulthood drama ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’, which tells the story of a teenage girl’s quest to get an abortion outside her hometown where she needs her parents’ permission, deserves the best screenplay award.
Last year, Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” a black comedy thriller, was about the family of griffins who devise a complicated plan to place themselves in the home of a wealthy family. The film wins the Oscar for Best Picture.
The national association, which has 60 members across the country, convened virtually Saturday to determine winners according to its usual weighted voting system. Any movie released in the United States in 2020 could be eligible – in a year in which release strategies shifted due to the ever-raging COVID-19 pandemic – including movies that have been released on the big screen or on streaming platforms.
The list of 2020 winners:
Best picture: “Nomadland”
Director: Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland”
Screenplay: Eliza Hittman, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”
Cinematography: Joshua James, “Nomadland”
Actress: Frances McDormand, “Nomadland”
Actor: Delroy Lindo, “Of 5 Bloods”
Supporting actress: Maria Bakalova, “Borat subsequent film”
Supporting actor: Paul Raci, “Sound of Metal”
Non-fiction film: “Time”
Foreign language film: “Collective”
Movie Heritage Award: The society honors the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded by Cyrus I. Harvey and Bryant N. Halliday. The small theater with single screens has been a haven for arthouse theater since 1953; Women Make Movies, the non-profit media art organization in New York that supports female filmmakers and distributes their work; and the film commentary that is currently being interrupted, the influential American film magazine that was founded in 1962.