Feature: 65th Golden Globes

The Results

Sunday January 11th 2009, marked a truly glittering start to the new cinematic year with the star-studded Golden Globe Awards ceremony. And, wouldn’t you know it, us Brits did pretty darn well.

The true winner of the night was Danny Boyle’s sumptuous comedy-drama Slumdog Millionaire, which took home Best Motion Picture (Drama) – beating out big-hitters The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and Revolutionary Road in the process – Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Soundtrack.

Kate Winslet
Image © HFPA and Golden Globe Awards

Kate Winslet also picked up more than one Globe, taking home Best Actress (Drama) for her role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road and also Best Supporting Actress for her scene-stealing turn in Stephen Daldry’s Nazi drama The Reader. And although Winslet’s weepy acceptance speeches weren’t really a masterclass in British gravitas (although her forgetting fellow nominee Angelina Jolie’s name was a particular highlight) she certainly deserved both awards.

Colin Farrell
Image © HFPA and Golden Globe Awards

Home-grown talent also shone through in the Best Actor (Musical/Comedy) category, which was won by Irish star Colin Farrell for his exceptional performance in mobster comedy In Bruges.

Sally Hawkins
Image © HFPA and Golden Globe Awards

The biggest surprise of the night, however, was the naming of Sally Hawkins as Best Actress (Musical/Comedy) for her role as the upbeat Poppy in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. She looked utterly shocked to have beaten fellow nominees including Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading), Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), Emma Thompson (Last Chance Harvey) – and the fact that her table was so far away from the stage indicated that she wasn’t the only one to have thought her chances of victory fairly low. But we couldn’t be happier about her win, and nor could we be more chuffed for Woody Allen, who gained a much-deserved boost when his Vicky Cristina Barcelona was awarded Best Film (Musical/Comedy)

Elsewhere, things were less surprising. Heath Ledger’s posthumous win of Best Supporting Actor for his career-defining role as The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was a fitting, and expected, tribute to the late actor. The adorable Wall-E took home the Best Animated Feature, of course, and Ari Folman’s experimental animated documentary Waltz With Bashir picked up Best Foreign Feature Film.

All in all a cracking start to 2009 – and, if the Golden Globes are indeed a precursor to the Oscars, we could see a British Invasion of the Academy Awards in February…

by Nikki Baughan

© HFPA and Golden Globe Awards
Feature © Visual Imagination 2009. Not for reproduction

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