Baftas 2017: La La Land wins modestly in a night of variety

13^th February 2017

Sam Gray

Sam Gray

13 February 2017

With its explicit leaning towards favouring British films, the Baftas have never been considered a dry-run for the Oscars. Nevertheless, there was some surprise when La La Land – widely tipped as an Oscars frontrunner – only came away with five awards last night at the Royal Albert Hall ceremony. True, winning Best Film, Director, Actress, Music and Cinematography was not to be sniffed at, but the ceremony still offered up numerous surprises. Many films thought to be unlikely awards contenders – Jackie, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge – were given one award each. And while many expected Casey Affleck to take home Best Actor, few predicted that Kenneth Lonergan would beat Damien Chazelle for his moving blue-collar drama Manchester By the Sea.

Some surprises, however, were less welcome. While Dev Patel deserved recognition for his work in Lion, there is something disappointing about Moonlight being denied its most viable award, for Mahershala Ali’s sensitive supporting role – which therefore shut the film out of awards conversation entirely.

Yet the evening maintained a generally upbeat tone. Ken Loach won the outstanding British film award for I, Daniel Blake, and used his speech to argue “that the most vulnerable and poorest people are treated by this government with a contempt and a callous brutality that is disgraceful…it is a brutality that extends to keeping out refugee children we promised to help.”

There were multiple digs at Donald Trump, both explicit and implicit, and references to last year’s controversy over diversity. Viola Davis, as expected, won the Best Supporting Actress award for Fences, though later expressed some trepidation over the ongoing issue of diversity: “I believe what still is a deficiency is that we have one year a plethora of American-American movies and then the next year nothing.”

The evening concluded with a fellowship issued to Mel Brooks, who said of the UK: “I don’t think of England as a foreign country, I think of it as a vast Brooklyn, which just speaks better.”

Here are the winners in full:

Best Film

Arrival
I, Daniel Blake
La La Land
Manchester By The Sea
Moonlight

Best Director

Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By the Sea
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals

Best Actor

Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Casey Affleck, Manchester By the Sea
Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals

Best Actress

Amy Adams, Arrival
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land

Best Supporting Actor

Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Dev Patel, Lion
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals

Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis, Fences
Hayley Squires, I, Daniel Blake
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Michelle Williams, Manchester By the Sea
Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Outstanding British Film

American Honey
Denial
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
I, Daniel Blake
Notes on Blindness
Under the Shadow

Best Cinematography

Arrival
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Lion
Nocturnal Animals

Best Costume Design

Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

Best Makeup and Hair

Doctor Strange
Florence Foster Jenkins
Hacksaw Ridge
Nocturnal Animals
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Documentary

13th
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week
The Eagle Huntress
Notes on Blindness
Weiner

Best Original Music

Arrival
Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Nocturnal Animals

Best British Short Film

Consumed
Home
Mouth of Hell
The Party
Standby

Best British Short Animation

The Alan Dimension
A Love Story
Tough

Best Editing

Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Manchester By the Sea
Nocturnal Animals

Best Sound

Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land

Best Special Visual Effects

Arrival
Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Jungle Book
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

EE Rising Star (voted for by the public)

Anya Taylor-Joy
Laia Costa
Lucas Hedges
Ruth Negga
Tom Holland

Best Animated Film

Finding Dory
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
Zootropolis

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

The Girl With All the Gifts: Mike Carey (writer), Camille Gatin (producer)
The Hard Stop: George Amponsah (writer/director/producer), Dionne Walker (writer/producer)
Notes on Blindness: Peter Middleton (writer/director/producer), James Spinney (writer/director), Jo-Jo Ellison (producer)
The Pass: John Donnelly (writer), Ben A Williams (director)
Under the Shadow: Babak Anvari (writer/director), Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Lucan Toh (producers)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hidden Figures
Lion
Nocturnal Animals

Best Original Screenplay

Hell or High Water
I, Daniel Blake
La La Land
Manchester By the Sea
Moonlight

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema

Curzon

Best Film Not in the English Language

Dheepan
Julieta
Mustang
Son of Saul
Toni Erdmann

Best Production Design

Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Nocturnal Animals

Fellowship Recipient

Mel Brooks

Sam Gray