What is an “Oscar film”? In recent years, the traditionally starch-shirted Academy Awards voters have – on occasion – proved unexpectedly open-minded when it comes to deciding Best Picture winners. Parasite couldn’t be further from traditional “Oscar-bait”. Likewise The Shape of Water, and this year’s frontrunner Everything Everywhere All at Once. But while the Academy has expanded the perimeters of what Oscar films are, it still has an ossified prejudice when it comes to what Oscar films aren’t. And one thing they resoundingly aren’t is Avatar: The Way of Water.
The Way of Water, the long-gestated follow-up to James Cameron’s Avatar, follows ex-human Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), as he relocates his Na’vi family to another area of planet Pandora, to live with the briny coastal tribe. It is one of 10 films nominated for Best Picture this year, and is more or less a dead cert to lose. (A sign of changing times: the original Avatar was actually the Best Picture frontrunner back in 2010, before being edged out by The Hurt Locker.) Top Gun: Maverick, the only other popular blockbuster to make the 2023 nominees list, has far more of a chance – 20/1 odds as opposed to a pie-in-the-sky 150/1. But despite this predictable shunning, The Way of Water is a great film, a tremendous feat of classical filmmaking craft and space-age spectacle.
