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The 35th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards saluted an array of winners that will likely be more diverse in race and gender, more adventurous artistically and less predictable than the winners at Sunday\u2019s Academy Awards.<\/p>\n
In the process, Spirit Awards voters still managed to leave the impression that they\u2019d like to be the Oscars and will only settle for being a true alternative when the nominations leave them no other choice \u2014 right up until the final award of the afternoon, when they pulled an unexpected move and chose \u201cThe Farewell\u201d over Oscar nominee \u201cMarriage Story\u201d and three-time Spirit winner \u201cUncut Gems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming not long after Zhao Shuzhen, the 85-year-old star of \u201cThe Farewell,\u201d beat Jennifer Lopez in the Best Supporting Female category, the win put a wild spin on a show that until then had alternated between awarding Oscar nominees and saluting the Safdie brothers\u2019 \u201cUncut Gems,\u201d which won three awards.<\/p>\n
By giving its biggest award to a heartwarming comedy over an Oscar nominee and a bracing indie sensation, voters made an odd but undeniably independent choice. And it made indie distributor A24 the big winner of the night, with three awards for \u201cUncut Gems,\u201d two for \u201cThe Farewell\u201d and two for \u201cThe Lighthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only other film with multiple wins was \u201cMarriage Story,\u201d which won the previously announced Robert Altman Award and also took the screenplay prize.<\/p>\n
Also Read:<\/strong> Independent Spirit Awards 2020: The Complete List of Winners (Updating Live)<\/p>\n The win for \u201cThe Farewell\u201d ran against almost everything that had happened at the show up to that point \u2014 because until then, every Spirit Award that could have gone to an Oscar nominee, did. \u201cMarriage Story\u201d won Best Screenplay,\u00a0 Ren\u00e9e Zellweger won Best Female Lead for \u201cJudy,\u201d \u201cParasite\u201d won Best International Film, \u201cAmerican Factory\u201d won Best Documentary, \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d won Best Cinematography.<\/p>\n (One big question: If Jennifer Lopez had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, as most people thought she would be for \u201cHustlers,\u201d would Spirit Awards voters have felt compelled to vote for her rather than \u201cThe Farewell\u201d actress Zhao Shuzhen, who was the biggest surprise winner of the show? I\u2019m guessing they would have.)<\/p>\n This is par for the course in recent years. The Spirit Awards only matched the Oscar Best Picture winner once in its first 26 years, but since then the winners have matched five times in eight years. And the other three times, Spirit Awards voters picked the closest thing they could get to an Oscar winner: Best Picture nominees \u201cSilver Linings Playbook\u201d in 2012 and \u201cGet Out\u201d in 2017, and three-time Oscar nominee \u201cIf Beale Street Could Talk\u201d last year, when none of the Academy\u2019s best-pic nominees landed in their final five.<\/p>\n Also Read:<\/strong> Independent Spirit Awards 2020: Aubrey Plaza’s Best Jokes (Video)<\/p>\n But \u201cThe Farewell\u201d was something different, especially with Oscar nominee \u201cMarriage Story\u201d as one of the options in the top category.<\/p>\n And it shifted the focus of this Spirit Awards show from the one that tried to be an Oscar rehearsal to one that contained such thoroughly non-Oscary winners as Shuzhen for \u201cThe Farewell,\u201d Adam Sandler for Best Leading Male in \u201cUncut Gems\u201d and the Safdie brothers for Best Director, also for \u201cUncut Gems.\u201d<\/p>\n Those categories, along with Best Feature, actually allowed the winners to hijack the Spirit Awards and turn it into an event with its own personality \u2014 not just more diverse and inclusive than the Oscars, but wilder and weirder, too. Anybody who was there or who watched it will remember it not just as the awards show where \u201cThe Farewell\u201d scored an upset victory, but also the one where JLo didn\u2019t win and Adam Sandler did, and then gave one of the most uproarious speeches in the history of a show that has had its share of uproarious speeches.<\/p>\n In about two-and-a-half hours on Saturday afternoon, the Spirit Awards changed its own narrative a bit, to the point where we don\u2019t really know what its identity is. It was an awards show that gave big prizes to \u201cThe Farewell\u201d and \u201cUncut Gems,\u201d to \u201cBooksmart\u201d and \u201cThe Lighthouse,\u201d to \u201cGive Me Liberty\u201d and \u201cSee You Yesterday.\u201d It was, I guess you\u2019d have to say, independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n Read original story Independent Spirit Awards: JLo Lost, Adam Sandler Won and \u2018The Farewell\u2019 Shocked Everybody At TheWrap<\/p>\n<\/div>\n