Venice Film Festival: Parade of 90s stars at the Venice Film Festival

There are stars who have great chemistry when they meet. And there are those who are best avoided as much as possible. Brad Pitt is faced with both options at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The 60-year-old presented his new film “Wolfs” with his long-time friend George Clooney. At the same time, the festival did everything it could to ensure that he did not meet his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.

Pitt, Clooney and Jolie are just some of the Hollywood stars who have been famous since the 1990s and are showing their new films in Venice this year. Nicole Kidman, Winona Ryder, Jude Law and Adrien Brody are also making sure that the film festival feels like a revival of the 90s and early 2000s. Halfway through the festival, some of them are already being talked about as Oscar candidates. There are also some early contenders for festival awards.

Adrien Brody on course for an Oscar?

For example, Adrien Brody. The historical drama “The Brutalist” premiered in Venice. Brody plays a role in it that will likely be groundbreaking for his career. More than 20 years after winning an Oscar for “The Pianist,” he once again deals with the consequences of the Holocaust in “The Brutalist.”

He plays a talented Jewish architect from Hungary who wants to start a new life in the USA after surviving the Holocaust. This man named László Tóth keeps coming very close to the “American Dream”. While he slowly regains his reputation as an architect, he also has to struggle with his past and an opium addiction. And with an unpredictable, rich businessman who he becomes dependent on.

Brody brings a harrowing depth to the character in this impressive, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth film by Brady Corbet. Critics agree: it is his best role in years. An award at the festival is conceivable.

“Shame!” – Erotic drama with fearless Nicole Kidman

But the most talked about was probably Nicole Kidman, who gives a fearless performance in the erotic drama “Babygirl”. The 57-year-old embodies a woman who lives out long-suppressed sexual desires. “Babygirl” tells the story of desire from a new, female perspective. And of what can happen in a family and relationship if people don’t talk openly to each other.

The audience sees Kidman kneeling on the floor drinking milk from a bowl. They watch her getting Botox, hyaluronic acid or some other facial rejuvenating injection. And they see her having sex again and again. Right at the beginning of the film, her character secretly masturbates on the floor of her room to a porn film after faking an orgasm during sex with her partner.

The film by Dutch director Halina Reijn divided the audience. Many were enthusiastic. And some less so: an angry viewer shouted “Shame!” after one of the screenings in the cinema. An award with the Golden Lion under the chairmanship of the jury by Isabelle Huppert is conceivable. In “The Piano Teacher” she once played a woman who, like Kidman’s character, has sadomasochistic tendencies.

And Angelina cries

Angelina Jolie is sure to be nominated for an Oscar with her new film. In the competition film “Maria” she plays the opera singer Maria Callas in the last days of her life. Jolie portrays Callas as a depressed, drug-dependent world star who cannot even take off her mask at home.

The 49-year-old trained to sing for months, and in the film, Callas’ singing was specially mixed with hers. After the premiere, the audience cheered the American, who had not been seen in a major film role for a long time. Jolie was very moved and could not hold back her tears.

The competition films of the first few days were otherwise varied, some of them even had a political tone. For example, “The Order”: In this gripping thriller, Jude Law plays an FBI agent who fights against a neo-Nazi gang in the USA. And then came the dream team of the festival with “Wolfs”.

Brad Pitt raises his eyebrow

Brad Pitt and George Clooney play two criminal crime scene cleaners in Jon Watts’ action comedy, who are forced to work together against their will. The film has the slightly silly humor that we know from other films the two Hollywood stars have made together (“Ocean’s Eleven”). A special look from Pitt, a hesitation and a raised eyebrow are enough to make the audience laugh. The two protagonists have to make a young man who is supposedly dead disappear, but who suddenly wakes up again.

“What’s going on, are we back in the 90s?” he asks the aging body disposers at one point. He is asking a question that hangs over the entire festival.

Leonie Benesch does not put down her fan

In general, the celebrity density is particularly high this year. This means that some fans even spend the night on the red carpet. Equipped with mini fans and colorful umbrellas, they hope to take selfies with their idols. The stars are happy to oblige. After a Hollywood strike that is still in everyone’s bones, they seem to enjoy the focus on themselves and their films.

It is also particularly hot. This is what has caused Leonie Benesch – one of the few German actresses who came to Venice this year – to worry about getting tendonitis because she can’t put her fan down this time.