Outsider sweeps the board

There was a strong international spread across this year’s Oscars, with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ stealing the show. But there was a low tally for Americans – and no Irish winners

ANYONE ATTEMPTING TO predict the film that would sweep the board at this year's Oscars would not have needed the options available to contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the TV quiz that provides the narrative frame for Danny Boyle's tough but ultimately exhilarating Slumdog Millionaire.

There was no need for anyone to phone a friend or ask the audience, and the outcome was far from 50:50. The final answer, as the 81st Academy Awards ceremony came to a close in Hollywood on Sunday night, was that Slumdog Millionairecollected eight Oscars. It was a popular, well-deserved winner at an event where quality was rewarded time and again.

The film's Oscar triumph provided a fairytale ending for a relatively low-budget production with a rags-to-riches story that mirrored its own tale of a Mumbai street boy heading for the jackpot on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Early last summer, Slumdog Millionairewas without a distributor in the US, and it seemed to lack the credentials that lead to Oscar success. Not only does it have no "name" actors, but most of the cast had never appeared in another movie. About a fifth of the dialogue is in Hindi and sub-titled in English. And it's set in India, but then, so was Gandhi, which also won eight Oscars, including best picture, at the 1983 ceremony.

None of this year's Irish nominees went the distance at the ceremony. Ireland's best hope of an Oscar seemed to rest with Steph Green's short film, New Boy, based on a Roddy Doyle story, but the statuette went to the German entry, Toyland.

Irish producer Redmond Morris was nominated for the best picture award with The Reader, but this movie failed to halt the Slumdog momentum. Martin McDonagh's screenplay for In Brugeslost out to Dustin Lance Black's incisive work on Milkin the best original screenplay category. Production designer Nathan Crowley received his second Oscar nomination for The Dark Knight, but the prize went to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

By far the longest and most expensive of the best picture nominees this year, Benjamin Button, based on an F Scott Fitzgerald short story and starring Brad Pitt as a man who reverses in age from his 80s, led the field with 13 nominations but had to be content with just three Oscars, all in technical categories.

Those three awards contributed to half the unusually low tally for Americans on a night when the statuettes were spread across a strong international representation, with non-US winners accounting for 18 awards in the 24 competitive categories.

ONE OF THEfew surprises was that Mickey Rourke did not take the best actor award for his comeback performance in The Wrestler. The Oscar went to a much stronger performance for Sean Penn's portrayal in Milkof openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, who was murdered in 1978.

Penn, who also won the best actor prize for Mystic Riverfive years ago, graciously acknowledged Rourke in his acceptance speech, saying "He is my brother."

Echoing the passionately expressed earlier comments by Milkscreenwriter Dustin Lance Black, Penn addressed the contemporary relevance of the movie's themes when he said: "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban on gay marriage to reflect on their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

The other upset of the night came in the foreign language film category where the front-runners were Laurent Cantet's Cannes winner The Classand Ari Folman's Israeli animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir. The unexpected victor was the Japanese entry, Yojiro Takita's Departures, in which an out-of-work cellist finds a new job at a mortuary.

The most emotional moment of the night came when the best supporting actor Oscar was awarded to Heath Ledger, who died a year ago last month at the age of 29, for his no-holds-barred performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. There was a sustained standing ovation when Ledger's father, mother and sister took to the stage and accepted the award with dignified, moving speeches. The only other actor to have ever been voted a posthumous Oscar was Peter Finch for Networkin 1977.

Kate Winslet, on her sixth nomination at the age of 33, took the best actress award for her intense portrayal of a former Nazi collaborator put on trial in The Reader. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't made a version of this speech before," she said. "I was probably eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror and this was a shampoo bottle. Well, it's not a shampoo bottle now."

Another hot favourite, Penélope Cruz, was voted best supporting actress for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. "Has anybody ever fainted here?" she asked as she took to the podium. "I could be the first one." The prize for best animated feature film unsurprisingly went to Wall-E.

The only note of controversy surrounding this year's ceremony was that Peter Gabriel, who was in the audience, had refused to sing his nominated song from Wall-Ebecause he had been allocated just 65 seconds. John Legend sang it instead.

The Oscar for best original song went to the rousing Jai Hofrom Slumdog Millionaire, which also collected awards for best director (Danny Boyle) and best adapted screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), along with best original score, cinematography, film editing and sound.

When James Marsh received the best documentary feature award for Man on Wire, he was joined on stage by the film's subject, Philippe Petit, who in 1974 walked back and forwards across a steel cable stretched between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. On awards night, Petit was less adventurous, balancing the Oscar on his chin for a few seconds.

AMONG THE MANYfilms that entered this year's ceremony with multiple nominations and went home empty-handed were Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, Changeling, Frozen River, Wantedand Iron Man.

Veteran comedian Jerry Lewis received the only honorary Oscar during the show, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Lewis, who will be 83 next month, was never nominated for an Oscar during a career that has spanned over half a century. “This award touches my heart and the very depth of my soul,” Lewis said in his brief acceptance speech.

Hugh Jackman made his debut as presenter of the overlong Oscar ceremony, which had been revamped significantly under a new team led by Dreamgirlsdirector Bill Condon, but with mixed results. Clips from the nominated films were kept to a minimum and within slickly edited packages, sparing audiences their repetitive inclusion as in former years.

Abandoning the tradition whereby the acting awards were presented by winners from the previous year, the show gathered a quintet of former winners in each category to pay tribute to this year’s nominees. That array of guest presenters included Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Shirley MacLaine, Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Anjelica Huston, Goldie Hawn and Eva Marie Saint.

However, the annual memorial montage to mark the passing of creative talents who died since the previous ceremony was pointlessly flashy in presentation and made distracting use of different angles that sometimes rendered the names of the deceased as illegible.

The effective use of lighting and sets succeeded in bringing an intimate nightclub-style setting to the cavernous Kodak theatre. The show had the feel of a Broadway production when Jackman launched into an irreverent parody of Oscar opening numbers, which started unpromisingly but got funnier, and again when Jackman, Beyoncé Knowles and High School Musicalstars Zach Efron and Vanessa Hudgens led the dancers in an elaborate homage to movie musicals, which was devised by Baz Luhrmann.

Jackman’s performance as host was smooth and witty, although far short of Billy Crystal’s repartee when he presented the show, and Jackman was off stage for most of the ceremony.

The best lines went to two double acts – James Franco and Seth Rogen back in character as the stoned slackers from Pineapple Express, and Tina Fey and Steve Martin’s entertaining verbal jousting as they presented the two screenplay awards. Also, Ben Stiller poked wicked fun at Joaquin Phoenix’s new image as an aimlessly remote, heavily bearded retired actor.

However, the night belonged to Slumdog Millionaire, and joy was unconfined when Steven Spielberg opened the envelope and announced that it taken the final award, best picture, and the stage filled with the movie's key production team and its wonderfully spirited young actors.