The Telluride Film Festival has officially started, and the first big peeks were Chloe Zhao’s much anticipated HAMNET and Scott Cooper’s DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. We’ll have more tomorrow, when official reviews will be out, but the verdict for HAMNET is: a bona fide Best Picture contender (as Joseph and I predicted from the get-go), a contender for what many will call the best film of the year, a contender for the TIFF People’s Choice award (you heard it here first), and the start of an unwavering Best Actress campaign for Jessie Buckley (one that, I believe at least, will lead her to the eventual win).
For Cooper’s film, that reception seems to be generally positive, if not flawless. The biggest takeaway is Jeremy Allen White’s full-bodied performance of The Boss. Many compliment the film’s overall ambition to tell a quieter story revolving around Springsteen’s internal struggles while making his classic , while still noting that it doesn’t fully achieve everything it’s going for. Other cast members, like Jeremy Strong and Stephen Graham, are being mentioned, but this is the Allen White show, and for now, we’d say his nom is the film’s best shot. We’ll know more tomorrow.