Lantern to screen foreign-made Oscar hopefuls

Above : “Drive My Car” is favored to win the 2022 Best International Feature Oscar. (Photo/Janus Films)

Of the five Academy Award nominees for Best International Feature, two will be playing as of Friday at the Magic Lantern Theatre .

One is the Japanese film “Drive My Car.” The other is the Norwegian film “The Worst Person in the World” (which is already playing at AMC River Park Square).

The other three can be seen through various streaming services. I saw the Bhutanese film “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” courtesy of Amazon Prime. The Danish film “Flee” is available on Hulu, and Italy’s “The Hand of God” is on Netflix.

Of the five, the race seems to be – according to those making predictions – between the two playing at the Lantern: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” and Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World.”

Anne Thompson of Indiewire favors “Drive My Car,” which she points out “won Best Film from the trifecta of New York, Los Angeles, and National film critics groups.”

But, she adds, Renate Reinsve won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, making Joachim Trier’s relationship drama “The Worst Person in the World” “a strong candidate for Norway, which also landed an Original Screenplay nomination.”

David Crow of The Den of Geek wrote, “With ‘Drive My Car’ being the only foreign language film in the Best Picture race, it’s obvious who’s winning in this ‘kids table’ category for foreign films. Still, there is a charming wistfulness to ‘The Worst Person in the World,’ which captures the flakiness and self-loathing that comes with being a young person in the early 21st century.”

And the website awardsace.com lists “Drive My Car” as the “frontrunner,” with “The Worst Person in the World,” “The Hand of God” and “Flee” “following right behind.”

More predictions are likely to come before the March 27 Oscar broadcast. Plenty of time to see each of the films and make your own guesses.