eileen atkins – This Had Oscar Buzz

This week, we’re looking back at a film that arrived too early in 2004′s Oscar season and received too mild of a response to eventually make Oscar’s lineup. From the classic William Makepeace Thackeray classic novel, Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair arrived corseted into Labor Day weekend and quickly disappeared from theatres and the conversation at large despite the presence of Reese Witherspoon at its center.

But Witherspoon and Nair’s take on the heroine Becky Sharp was also what many critics took issue with – in making a more “likeable” protagonist, many thought Vanity Fair had lost much of what defined it. This episode, we look back at the 2004 Oscar race and the ceremony that embarrassingly lined up below-the-line nominees onstage for their categories. We also discuss Witherspoon’s pre-Oscar trajectory, Nair’s filmography, baby bumps and Eileen Atkins’ rump.

Costume drama fans, soak it up because this is one of the rare times we can discuss one that hasn’t gotten a Costume Design nomination.

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This Had Oscar Buzz has always been a long day’s journey into Evening! In 2007, the film strangely opened in the summer and quickly became the poster child for the “Oscar bait” moniker. Starring a massive female ensemble including [inhales sharply] Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins and Meryl Streep, the film is an unfortunately vague journey through one dying woman’s regretful memories of a fateful wedding weekend on the coast.

Joining us for this episode is Vanity Fair’s chief critic Richard Lawson to help unpack the many, many things that make Evening such a disappointment and a dreary, sex-negative enterprise. We also discuss our accidental obsession with Claire Danes (here discussed in her fifth episode), how the film borrowed heavily from our relationship with The Hours, and the 2007 era of Focus Features. Get ready to howl like Close and chase some moths!

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Tag: eileen atkins

059 – Vanity Fair

042 – Evening (with Richard Lawson)