What the Golden Globes got right

For a few years now, the Golden Globes have been steadily overshadowing its more popular sibling, The Academy Awards, not necessarily in scale, but just in the spiffy manner the show unfolds. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have been absolutely fantastic co-hosts for a couple of years now, and their opening monologue, second year running, achieved “epic” status. More importantly, it’s the awards itself that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA, which picks the winners) have been getting right. This year too, the HFPA seems to have chosen the right candidates barring a couple, and the Golden Globes’ wins in the Film categories give us a fair idea of what to expect on Oscar night. But what the Globes really got right was each of the Television categories.

The biggest joy was to see Fargo being handsomely rewarded in the Mini-Series/TV Movie categories. The show was pitted against True Detective, which attained huge traction last year due to lead actor Matthew McConaughey’s then-impending Oscar win, but Fargo was the better show and rightfully awarded the top prize in the category. Billy Bob Thornton’s win as Best Actor in a Mini-Series/TV Movie was the other high point of the evening, pitted as he was against some strong contenders (probably the toughest category of the evening) – True Detective’s Woody Harrelson and McConaughey, The Normal Heart’s Mark Ruffalo, and Fargo co-star Martin Freeman. Freeman probably came closest to winning the award, but Thornton’s icy cool gangster is among the most memorable TV performances of recent times. 

The one disappointment for the Fargo team would have been that Allison Tolman lost out on the Best Actress in a Mini-Series/TV Movie trophy, but Maggie Gyllenhaal was absolutely splendid as the intense protagonist of The Honourable Woman. Matt Bomer was pretty much an obvious choice for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Normal Heart, and Best Supporting Actress winner Joanne Froggatt has always been a pleasure to watch as the kind-hearted Mrs Bates on Downton Abbey. As far as the Mini-Series/TV Movie/Supporting Actors categories were concerned, the Golden Globes’ score read 5/5.

Of the remaining six television categories, Transparent was pretty much the best candidate for Best Comedy or Musical TV Series (compared to the over-rated Girls and Orange is the New Black). The Amazon production’s delightfully witty yet heartbreaking show about a family grappling with the realisation that the patriarch (Jeffrey Tambor, who rightfully won Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical) is transgender. I must admit I haven’t yet gotten around to watching Jane The Virgin, but Gina Rodrigues has been getting all-round good reviews, so her win as Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical came as no surprise either. Moving to the Drama category, House of Cards’ Kevin Spacey was edged out last year by Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, understandably, but there was no one stopping him from winning the Best Actor in a Drama TV Series this time around.

Which brings us to the two most contentious wins at the Golden Globes this year. Sure, The Affair was one of the best new shows of the year and had a largely solid season, but the finale was too much of a letdown for it to be the right candidate for the Best Drama TV Series award. Contenders Downton Abbey and House of Cards may not have been strong oppositions, but the latest season of The Good Wife has been pretty much on-the-ball, and Game of Thrones has been growing in popularity every year. Even Ruth Wilson’s win for the same show is a tad puzzling, given that last year’s winner, Robin Wright (House of Cards), and Emmy winner Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) continue to be in fine form in their respective shows’ most recent seasons. Wilson is a talented actor and set for bigger and better things in future, but the win seems slightly premature. That makes it 4 out of 6 for the remaining TV categories. 

It’s difficult to ascertain how much of the Film categories the HFPA got right since many of the films haven’t yet released in India, (and have been made available through celestial means only recently), but few films in recent times have had the kind of emotional impact Boyhood did, and hence the Best Drama Film and Best Director (Richard Linklater) wins come as no surprise. Patricia Arquette won Best Supporting Actress for her fantastic performance in the same film and JK Simmons, who won Best Supporting Actor, was absolutely splendid in Whiplash. The winners of these four categories (Film, Director, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress), I would like to believe, will win on Oscar night too.

The Best Actor and Best Actress race at The Academy Awards would be fought, mainly, between winners of the Comedy/Musical and Drama categories at the Golden Globes. The Best Actor Oscar currently seems to be a tussle between The Theory of Everything’s Eddie Redmayne (Best Actor, Drama at the Golden Globes) and Birdman’s Michael Keaton (Best Actor, Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes). The Best Actress award at the Oscars has more contenders: Still Alice’s Julianne Moore (Best Actress, Drama at the Golden Globes), Big Eyes’ Amy Adams (Best Actress, Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes) and Cake’s Jennifer Aniston, who went empty-handed at the Globes. Best Film, Comedy/Musical winner The Grand Budapest Hotel should look forward to a few nominations at the Oscars as well. Opinion on Foreign Language and Animation categories will be reserved, as not all of them have been watched yet.

All in all, Golden Globes 2015 would be most memorable for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s biting humour, an almost-ideal list of TV winners, and for throwing up some strong contenders for the upcoming Academy Awards. 

Aniruddha Guha is a film critic and writer. He tweets at @AniGuha