'The Artist' Leads Vancouver Film Critics' Awards With Four Nominations

TORONTO – Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist, which stars Jean Dujardin, is the clear favorite among Vancouver movie scribes after it snagged four nominations for the upcoming Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards.

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The silent film set in the 1930s will contend in the best international film race against Alexander Payne’s The Descendants and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

Dujardin will compete in the best actor competition against Shame’s Michael Fassbender and Take Shelter’s Michael Shannon.

Vancouver film critics also nominated Hazanavicius for best director, where he’s up against Malick for The Tree of Life 
and Martin Scorsese for Hugo.

And Hazanavicius received another nomination in the best screenplay category against Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash for The Descendants, and Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin for Moneyball.

The nominees in the best actress race are Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene, Meryl Streep for Iron Lady and Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn.

Williams was also shortlisted in the Canadian categories where the Vancouver critics nominated her for her star turn in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz.

Also in the Canadian competition, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore will compete for best Canadian film against Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Small Town Murder Songs and Ken Scott’s Starbuck, from Quebec.

And Gass-Donnelly, Scott and Vallée will also go up against David Cronenberg of A Dangerous Method for the best Canadian director award.

The Vancouver film critics’ 12th annual film awards will be handed out on January 9 in Vancouver.