The 2024 Oscar Live-Action Shorts Are Full of Doom, Gloom, and Wes Anderson
If you’re planning to watch this year’s batch of Oscar-nominated live-action short films, make sure you’ve got a box of tissues nearby. (In one case, you might also want a phone to call your nearest local representative.) This category can serve as a proving ground for budding filmmakers, but it can also become a bit of a frenzy to try and pack as much Meaning™ as possible into 40 minutes or less. This year’s entries to straight for the heart and the jugular; Wes Anderson’s 40-minute Technicolor adaptation of “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” feels almost out of place in a program that otherwise feels intent on sending us all straight to our therapists’ offices.
Some of these shorts—like the Samantha Bee-produced abortion tale “Red, White, and Blue” and Canadian director Vincent René-Lortie’s “Invincible”—examine the deeply personal effects of structural injustice. Meanwhile, the David Oyewolo vehicle “The After” and the Danish downer “Knight of Fortune” steep us in the specific grief of men who’ve lost their wives, although only one of them does so effectively. And then, there’s Anderson’s take on Roald Dahl, which will likely please his devotees but might underwhelm everyone else.