Just six years ago, Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman took to the stage to introduce the Director Of The Year category at the Golden Globe Awards.
“And here are the all-male nominees,” she brilliantly remarked, criticising the lack of female representation as the audience gasped.
Cut to 2024 and two of the six nominees in the Golden Globes Director Of The Year category are female: Greta Gerwig for her history-making, billion-dollar film Barbie and Celine Song, a first-time filmmaker at the helm of the stirring, critically acclaimed movie Past Lives.
Ultimately, Christopher Nolan took out the gong for his epic Oppenheimer. Still, it’s progress and we really wish Portman was presenting again this year, especially given Jo Koy is the host—his not-so-funny jokes drawing stony silences from the usually jovial A-list crowd.
Portman was nominated today for Best Actress in the Musical/Comedy category for her role as actress Elizabeth Berry in the Best Picture-nominated film May December. (The accolade went to Emma Stone’s wonderful performance in Poor Things.) While the 42-year-old may not have taken home the golden statue, she won our hearts on the red carpet in a floral sequinned Dior gown—a pattern reminiscent of Monet oil painting. It’s empire waist harked back to May December’s Cannes premiere, a rainy evening in May earlier this year, where the star stepped out in a similar a floor-length vintage silhouette by the French house.
May December received a total of four nominations this Golden Globes season, and explores the complicated and compelling true story of a school teacher named Gracie (played by Julianne Moore) who falls in loves with and marries one of her young students (Charles Melton). Portman’s character, an actress, is sent to the family home to research Gracie whom she is playing in an upcoming film. It really is director Todd Haynes, of Carol fame, at his best and Portman and Moore together on screen are dynamite. It was shot in just 23 days!
“It’s incredible to get to be a part of a film like this which has two such complex, really human characters that are full of all of those delicious conflicts that we are all full of,” Portman told GRAZIA in Cannes in May. You simply must see it.
MAY DECEMBER WILL HIT AUSTRALIAN CINEMAS ON FEBRUARY 1, 2024.
