Rebel Wilson, we salute you. As Bafta host, the Australian actress transformed what is usually a rather dry ceremony into some kind of comedy roast. No one was safe, as she tore through topics including the war (“welcome to the 75th, and final, Baftas”), her own much discussed weight loss (“I did not lose weight for a guy, I did it to get more acting roles”), the return to an IRL ceremony (“actors... you can stop doing those wellness podcasts”) and partygate (“the afterparty is at 10 Downing Street”).
She made the movie stars in attendance squirm, from describing Sir Kenneth Branagh as “the only director not afraid to give Armie Hammer a job” and rocking up next to Benedict Cumberbatch with a deranged looking cake of his face. Even those who were absent were in the firing line: Wilson joked that Leonardo DiCaprio “does like them young” and said Best Actor winner Will Smith’s best performance was “being OK with all his wife’s boyfriends”. Perhaps her best received joke of the night, though, was after introducing American and British sign language interpreters for CODA star Emilia Jones’s performance of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now (which was goosebump-worthy, by the way). Raising a middle finger she said, “In all sign languages, this is the gesture for Putin”.
If we feared it would be a night of luvvies making earnest statements about the Ukraine conflict, it was not so. Many wore badges and ribbons with blue and yellow colours, but the most political statement of the night came from Andy Serkis, who got a cheer for a slightly convoluted joke about Priti Patel directing a film called “All refugees are welcome, but some are more welcome than others”.
Despite the return to normal proceedings, the star turnout was lower than normal. Lots of absent winners meant that, instead of speeches, we had celebs sheepishly saying “I’ll make sure this gets to them.” But Emma Watson made a headline-grabbing moment by seeming to make a dig at JK Rowling, who is under fire again for her comments about trans women. After Wilson introduced her by saying “she’s proud to call herself a feminist, but we all know she’s a witch”, Watson declared “I’m here for all the witches,” with a sly grin.
All the things we’ve been missing were here: camera pans to actors looking awkward, tearful acceptance speeches, Benedict Cumberbatch being faux-humble about losing. And there was a sense that barriers genuinely are falling in the world of film. Both CODA star Troy Kotsur and Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi delivered their speeches through interpreters, and Rising Star winner Lashana Lynch paid tribute to her “working class foundation, that has taught me about failure”. That Netflix got the final word with The Power of the Dog’s Best Picture win also felt significant, with its producers giving thanks to the streaming platform for releasing the film in the cinema “even though you didn’t have to”.
Loveliest of all, though, was a genuine surprise winner: Joanna Scanlan, AKA Terri Coverley from The Thick of It, picked up Best Actress for her performance as a widow who discovers her husband’s secret life. With a moving, graceful speech, it was clear she couldn’t believe it. Thanking her parents, she said, “when I told them I was giving up a really good job with a pension, they said... ‘go for it’.” She won’t win an Oscar – she’s not even nominated – but her unexpected gong will mean many more people now watch this small British film, and that’s a massive victory too.
