"Amour" represents the biggest surprise in the Best Picture Category. The Michael Haneke directed film received five nominations for the Academy Awards including top honors for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director and Best screenplay; the film was not expected to garner any of these nods.
The film became the eighth foreign film to receive the Best Picture nomination; the last foreign film to receive the honor was "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" from China. "Amour" also marked the first Austrian film to be nominated in the category. The film has received Best Picture awards from three critics' circles including the Los Angele Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics and the London Film Critics. Additionally, Haneke's film won the European Film Award.
Up to this point the award that the film has locked to win is the Foreign Film category; "Amour" has won that honor at the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Critics' Choice award ceremonies. Additionally no film nominated for both foreign film and best picture has ever lost the Best Foreign film.
However "Amour" has no other award guaranteed. Although Emmanuelle Riva recently won the BAFTA and became a strong candidate for the Best Actress, she still has to go up against Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook). The latter two actresses have dominated the awards season.
The Best Director race is one of the awards that is also up in the air. With Ben Affleck not being nominated and having swept all the top awards, Michael Haneke must face Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). Haneke must fight an uphill battle as no foreign film director has ever won the Oscar.
The original Screenplay is also a wide open race. "Amour's" script will compete against favorites "Zero Dark Thirty," "Django Unchained," "Moonrise Kingdom," and "Flight." In this category "Amour" stands a good chance because it is the only film nominated which has a best director nomination. In the past 7 years, the original screenplay has gone to a film that is nominated for best film and best director. Additionally, the last time a foreign film screenplay won the Oscar was in 2002 for "Talk to Her; in that year, Pedro Almodovar was also nominated for best director.
"Amour" may seem like a good choice for the Academy Award but has a tough battle to overcome since it has no editing nomination and is a foreign film.
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