Toronto baits the Oscar hook - New York Post

Lou Lumenick
Blog: Movies

AT THE TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL

TORONTO â€" Many actors over the decades have received Oscar nominations playing characters with disabilities â€" and some have even won. There was no shortage of fine performances in those roles at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Bill Murray makes a dandy Franklin D. Roosevelt in “Hyde Park on Hudson” (out Dec. 7), a frothy comedy-drama about the president’s affair with a fifth cousin (Laura Linney, who also generated Oscar buzz) during a visit by the King and Queen of England in 1939.

Murray’s wry but mostly serious performance frankly depicts the polio-sufferer’s limited mobility and could earn him an Oscar nod, his second after “Lost in Translation.’’

Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper star in “Silver Linings Playbook,” which yesterday won the Toronto Film Fest’s top prize.

Christopher Walken hits the right notes in “A Late Quartet,” with Philip Seymour Hoffman (left) and Catherine Keener.

Toronto’s Oscar touts were also taken with John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone’’) as a writer with a more severe form of polio who hires a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) in “The Sessions” (Oct. 19). The film, already considered a top contender for Best Picture honors, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January under the title “The Surrogate.’’

Marion Cotillard, who won an Oscar as Edith Piaf in “Ma Vie en Rose,’’ is being talked up for her riveting work in the French drama “Rust and Bone” (Nov. 23). She plays a trainer of orca whales who, after losing both legs in an accident, straps on prosthetic limbs and becomes romantically involved with a bare-fisted boxer.

Oscar winner Christopher Walken (“The Deer Hunter”) could well be nominated for his moving, cast-against-type work as a cellist with Parkinson’s disease in “A Late Quartet”’ (Nov. 2), who tries to persuade the other ensemble members â€" Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Mark Ivanir â€" to stick together despite escalating personal clashes played out on the Upper West Side.

Bradley Cooper (“The Hangover”) impressed many Toronto viewers as a just-released mental patient with bipolar disorder in the quirky comedy-drama “Silver Linings Playbook’’ (Nov. 21). Personally, I think Jennifer Lawrence, who plays his oversexed, widowed girlfriend, is more worthy of awards attention.

“Silver Linings’’ received a huge awards boost when it won Toronto’s top prize â€" the audience award â€" yesterday. Of the 34 films that have previously captured this award, 10 have been nominated for Oscar’s Best Picture â€" and four have won, most recently “Slumdog Millionaire’’ and “The King’s Speech.’’

Alcoholic roles are also Oscar bait, and Joaquin Phoenix has a doozy in “The Master.” Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, which opened in New York on Friday, sparked predictions of nominations for Best Picture, as well as for Hoffman as the guru of a Scientology-like cult, and Amy Adams as his wife.

Toronto’s Oscar market was also bullish on the Best Picture prospects of “Argo”(Oct. 12), as well as a Best Director nod for Ben Affleck. He also stars as a CIA agent who tries to smuggle American embassy employees out of 1980 Iran â€" by trying to pass them off as the Canadian crew of a non-existent science-fiction epic.

One of my favorite pictures this year was “At Any Price,” a classically themed drama starring Dennis Quaid â€" in his best performance since 2002’s “Far From Heaven’’â€" as an Iowa farmer who makes some tragic choices for himself and his alienated son (Zac Efron). The release date has yet to be announced.

You prefer a tragic heroine? A new take on “Anna Karenina” (Nov. 16), which sets most of Tolstoy’s story within the confines of a theater, drew a mixed reception, but Keira Knightley (“Pride and Prejudice”) could end up with her second Best Actress nomination. Jude Law shines in the normally thankless role of Anna’s cuckolded husband.

lou.lumenick@nypost.com