At its 97th Awards, the Academy walked a tightrope — boosting indie cinema by choosing ‘Anora’, sidestepping controversy, and letting Adrien Brody steal the show
There’s a moment at the Oscars almost every year when a single film rakes in multiple wins and steamrolls its way into the annals of history, and the consciousness of cinefans around the world. Over the last decade, this phenomenon has played out in varied ways. At the 2015 Oscars, Birdman, Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ingenious and bleak backstage comedy, apparently filmed in one take, collected a string of major awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, in a dramatic late-season upset.
Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, which was considered the frontrunner after sweeping earlier awards, could not cross the final hurdle, managing only a single major win — Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette. Meanwhile, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel matched Birdman in total Oscars, but its four wins were scattered across technical categories, leaving Iñárritu’s audacious, industry-skewering satire — centred on an ageing movie star on a mission to reinvent himself — as the undeniable champion of the night.
Dedicating his win to Mexicans in the US and those in his homeland, Iñárritu said they deserved “dignity and respect.” Other winners, too, used their moments on stage to advocate for gender equality, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ rights, setting a precedent for years to come. Birdman’s triumph marked the climax of an unpredictable awards season, where an early favourite had been dethroned at the final stretch. It also showcased the Academy’s growing appreciation for technically sound and inward-looking films, paving the way for later winners like The Shape of Water, Parasite, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Watching the 97th Academy Awards on Monday morning, one got the sense that in America, the more things have changed, the more they have remained the same. Or perhaps they have become only worse, with Donald Trump back in power to ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA).
The ceremony made me think about the 2015 Oscars, when Iñárritu’s words seemed to be in acknowledgement of the then President Barack Obama’s plan to save millions from deportation through executive action, which was blocked. A decade later, the same story has surfaced on a different scale. This year, however, it was an actor — Adrien Brody of Brady Corbett’s postwar epic The Brutalist — who chose to speak his mind even though there were clear instructions to the artists to remain apolitical in their speeches.
The American Dream
In her acceptance speech, Zoe Saldaña, who became the first American of Dominican descent to win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress, Emilia Perez), made it a point to talk about her family’s history as immigrants to the United States. “My grandmother came to this country in 1961 — I am a proud child of immigrant parents. With dreams and dignity and hard-working hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last. I hope. The fact that I’m getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish — my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted, this is for my grandmother,” said an emotional Saldaña.
Also read: Oscars 2025: Zoe Saldaña wins best supporting actress for Emilia Pérez
Hollywood’s liberal-leaning activism has long been a staple of awards season. By giving five Oscars to Sean Baker’s indie drama, Anora (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing), the Academy executed a calculated, balancing act, sidestepping the controversy surrounding Emilia Perez and immigrant drama, The Brutalist, while also making a statement in favour of independent films, following American Fiction’s Best Screenplay (which went to Peter Straughan, the screenwriter of Conclave, this year) turn in 2024. But Anora’s win was also subtly political, and subversive.
The Academy steered clear of the charged optics of awarding either of the two contentious nominees. The Brutalist, accused of using AI to tweak Hungarian dialogue, had sparked ethical debates about authorship, while Emilia Perez had faced backlash over its depiction of transgender and Mexican communities and the old ‘Islamophobe’ tweets of its Best Actress nominee, Karla Sofia Gascon. In avoiding both, the Oscars maintained a semblance of neutrality and also championed independent cinema.
Anora, a rags-to-riches, Cinderella-esque story with a twist, made on a budget of $6 million, a sum way too tiny by Hollywood standards, also aligned with the Academy’s increasing thrust on small-budget, character-driven films at a time when Hollywood is recalibrating its relationship with franchise-backed spectacles. Twenty-five-year-old Mikey Madison, who plays the sex worker in Anora, took home the coveted Best Actress Award.
This caused heartburn to both Fernanda Torres of legendary Brazilian director Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here (the story of a Congressman surviving dictatorship in the 1970s, which became the first Brazilian film to get the Best International Feature), and 62-year-old diva, Demi Moore, who had virtually retired from Hollywood in 1996 at the age of 34, but made a comeback in French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s terrific satirical, fairytalish body-horror drama, The Substance, which dwells into the male gaze, and explores what it means to live in the age of social media.
With Trump once again taking a hardline stance on immigration — closing the US-Mexico border and reviving his rhetoric of exclusion — Adrien Brody’s role as a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor in The Brutalist — which won him the Best Actor Award — carries a haunting reflection of America’s contemporary contradictions.
The film traces the journey of a Jewish architect (in Roman Polanski’s 2002 film, The Pianist, too, he played a Jewish artist trying to survive during WWII) who arrives in the United States with hope, seeking the promise of reinvention — an ideal deeply embedded in the idea of America. However, as we see his struggles unfold, it becomes clear that the so-called American Dream is not equally accessible to all. His fate turns on the intervention of a wealthy benefactor, exposing the systemic barriers that determine who succeeds and who is left behind.
Adrien Brody steals the night
Anora, not as big a contender as others in the race, swept the awards: as host Conan O’Brien wryly noted, the Academy had, in essence, honoured a film about someone standing up to a Russian, a decision laden with meaning given the broader political climate. It could also be seen as an ironic counterpoint to Trump’s by-now public overtures to re-establish links with Russia, which became evident during his tense Oval Office exchange with Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But the night clearly belonged to Brody, who provided the most compelling moment at the Awards. In his five-minute-long speech, he spoke about the fragility of being an actor (‘someday, it could all go away’) that resonated at a time when the industry is still grappling with post-pandemic losses and the consequences of last year’s SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) strikes.
More significantly, Brody’s speech took on political urgency. By explicitly invoking the lingering traumas of war, anti-Semitism, racism, and systemic oppression, he framed his win as part of a cultural moment. “I believe if the past can teach us anything it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked,” Brody said in the speech that was unscripted, emotional, and engaged with the world beyond Hollywood’s gilded stage.
Also read: Oscars 2025: I’m Still Here becomes first Brazilian film to win best international feature
His character in The Brutalist is a beneficiary of America that has long positioned itself as a refuge for the persecuted — a nation built by immigrants, shaped by those fleeing war, dictatorship, and devastation. Trump’s recent declaration that the US-Mexico border is “CLOSED” shows America keen to define belonging through exclusion rather than opportunity. The version of America artists believe in extends a hand; Trump’s version builds walls.
Invariably, the Academy’s chosen darling every year reflects the mood of the industry. Nomadland (2020), a meditative portrait of economic precarity and solitude, resonated in a pandemic-stricken world, winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) took a different route, going for maximalist storytelling and multiversal madness; it was no wonder it dominated the Awards with seven wins, including Best Picture.
It was the ultimate underdog story, proving that genre-bending films and heartfelt storytelling could triumph over traditional Oscar fare. In contrast, Oppenheimer (2023) reaffirmed the Academy’s love for grand, historical epics, its seven-Oscar sweep placing it in the lineage of classic award season juggernauts like Schindler’s List and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
The last decade has proven that while some films are anointed as biggies from the start, others rise unexpectedly, which makes it difficult to surmise what the Academy will take a shine to, year after year after year. Not all strong contenders follow a predictable trajectory. La La Land (2016) seemed poised to sweep, winning six Oscars before losing Best Picture in one of the most shocking moments in Oscar history. 1917 (2019) picked up key wins but was ultimately outshined by Parasite.
Anora might not have been intended as a geopolitical allegory, but in the current scenario, it plays like one. The metaphor, as Peter Bradshaw writes in The Guardian, is ripe for interpretation: Is Anora the disillusioned American (read MAGA) voter placing misguided faith in a charismatic but ultimately spineless leader? Is her billionaire husband a stand-in for a compromised West, controlled by more powerful Russian forces? You can watch Anora when it lands on OTT (Jio Hotstar, March 17) and decide for yourself. As for the Oscars, for all its pomp and show, and talks around snubs and playing favourites, it remains perhaps the only global stage where humanity and compassion occasionally break through.
