Amour wows London Critics

The Austrian-French co-production Amour has picked up three of the top prizes at the London Film Critics Circle Awards.

The London Film Critics’ Best Film Amour missed out in the Best Foreign Language contest

It was voted the Best Film, the director Michael Haneke collected the Best Screenplay award and the veteran French actress Emmanuelle Riva was the critics’ choice for the Best Actress.

Ever since Amour and fellow-French-language film Rust and Bone were unleashed on audiences at Cannes, the pair have been vying against each other for honours; Amour won in Cannes, Rust and Bone won at the London Film Festival, Amour won again at last week’s Globes and perhaps perversely, while Amour was the Best Film of the London critics, they picked Rust and Bone as their Best Foreign Language Film.

After it’s success at the Golden Globes in Hollywood a week earlier, the London critics gave only one award to Les Miserables; Anne Hathaway was their Best Supporting Actress.

Both of the men’s acting awards went to The Master, with Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman winning the lead and supporting honours respectively.

Ang Lee was voted the Best Director for his handling of Yann Martel’s supposedly unfilmable novel, Life of Pi.

The London Film Critics Circle — which is made up of about 120 critics and film writers — also honours the best talent from within the British film industry; Berberian Sound Studio was named the Best British Film of last year, with its star Toby Jones collecting the Best British Actor prize. The Best British Actress was Andrea Riseborough, for her leading role in Shadow Dancer, the writers and stars of Sightseers, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, won the Breakthrough British Film-makers award and Tom Holland from The Impossible was the Best Young British Performer.

 

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