Mike Leigh's 'Tender Loving Care' Premieres at Telluride — SkimNews
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- "Tender Loving Care" premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday night, with Bleecker Street set to open it Dec. 4 after a fall festival run through Toronto and the New York Film Festival.
- Mike Leigh has earned seven Academy Award nominations without a win, including dual writing and directing nods in the same year for both "Secrets & Lies" and "Vera Drake."
- Mike Leigh, 83, said the film is most likely his last; myosotis, a muscle-wasting condition, kept him from attending his own Telluride premiere.
- Kate O'Flynn anchors the film as social worker Amy, returning to work with Leigh after he gave her her first job on "Happy-Go-Lucky" at age 21; the piece calls her an Emmy nominee for "Widow's Bay."
- The ensemble also features Alice Bailey Johnson as Amy's live-wire best friend Rosie, Marion Bailey as Amy's mother, and Paul Jesson as the ailing father — all flagged as potential awards contenders.
- The piece notes the Academy last nominated two lead actresses from the same film for "Thelma & Louise" in 1991, predicting Bleecker Street will likely split the campaign with O'Flynn in lead and Bailey in supporting.
Why it matters: Seven nominations and zero wins — including dual writing-and-directing nods for both "Secrets & Lies" and "Vera Drake" — make Leigh's Oscar record one of the Academy's most anomalous, and Bleecker Street now faces the delicate task of converting Telluride buzz into votes without letting the "final film" narrative substitute for the harder argument that the work itself is award-worthy.
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