LOS ANGELES — In “The Power of the Dog,” a swaggering man of the West — authoritative, domineering, seemingly invincible — comes face-to-face with a most unexpected adversary, someone who looks harmless but turns out to be anything but. There’s a certain irony, then, that after looking like a clear-cut favorite for much of this past awards season, Jane Campion’s brooding psychological drama finally fell victim to its own powerful underdog Sunday night. Despite entering the Oscar race with a formidable 12 nominations, more than any other contender, “The Power of the Dog” ultimately won just one Oscar — for Campion’s direction, the one everyone knew it couldn’t lose. It lost the best picture Oscar to “CODA,” Siân Heder’s scrappy, jugular-piercing crowd-pleaser about a hearing teenager growing up within a Deaf family.
At what point exactly did “CODA” go in for the kill? Some might say earlier this month, when Heder’s movie beat out “The Power of the Dog” and eight other nominees for the Producers Guild of America’s top prize — an honor that often aligns with the best picture Oscar and uses a similar preferential balloting system. Others might point to “CODA’s” ensemble award win from the Screen Actors Guild, an honor that has prefigured best picture upsets in the past, from “Crash” to “Shakespeare in Love” to “Parasite.” They might single out “CODA’s” adapted screenplay prize from the British Academy of Film and Television, which suggested stronger international support for the movie than expected. (“CODA” is a Gloucester, Mass.-set remake of a 2014 French film, “La Famille Bélier.”)
They might highlight still other factors from this season: a movie industry desperate for a feel-good winner in feel-bad times. A contest that somehow boiled down to the lesser of two evils, or streaming services, in which voters ultimately opted for the Apple+ release rather than allowing Netflix’s “Dog” to have its day. The toll of a so-called streaming revolution that ultimately benefited “CODA’s” televisual style and diminished the impact of “Dog’s” stunning compositions. (The irony of Netflix’s desperate lust for a best picture Oscar: It keeps pushing movies, like “The Power of the Dog” and “Roma,” that demand to be seen in movie theaters.) A decreased emphasis on the kinds of historical precedents and statistics that would ordinarily have kept “CODA,” with just three nominations (neither of them for the crucial directing and editing categories), from being a serious threat. A late-breaking surge of enthusiasm for “CODA,” which more than a few voters likely didn’t even watch until close at the end of a monotonous, drawn-out awards season in need of a good shakeup.
