Usually, the Oscars end the same way: we sit for hours waiting for the Best Picture to be announced, hoping that there won’t be another fiasco like the La La Land/Moonlight thing. Or like when they awarded Green Book with Best Picture despite so many people openly hating it. But tonight, the Oscars went with the most anti-climactic closing.
Instead of ending with Best Picture, this awards ceremony closed things off with Best Actor In A Leading Role. It was a questionable move, but there were hopes that at least Chadwick Boseman would win the award, and we’d get another poignant speech from his wife, Simone Ledward Boseman. It would’ve been a moving way to close and the perfect way to honor the late Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom actor. But instead, the Academy handed the award to Anthony Hopkins for The Father, who wasn’t even able to accept the award. And that was it. It’s a move that makes absolutely no sense in any regard, but we’re all talking about it, so the Academy perhaps achieved what it wanted.
It was great to see another film helmed by a filmmaker of color win Best Picture, but Nomadland director Chloé Zhao was robbed of that satisfying closing moment of the ceremony that visitors wait for after sitting through hours of a tedious awards show. Let’s hope this was a one-time thing and we’ll get the traditional closing for future ceremonies.