“To Leslie” is an indie drama film that garnered Andrea Riseborough’s first Oscar nomination for a leading Performance.
So let’s find out some trivia and facts about the film.
- To Leslie is a 2022 American drama film
- It is directed by Michael Morris
- It is his feature directorial debut
- From a screenplay by Ryan Binaco
- The film stars Andrea Riseborough as Leslie Rowland
- She is a single mother who turns to alcoholism after using up all the prize money she received after winning the lottery
- She soon finds the chance to turn her life around when a motel owner offers her a job
- Allison Janney, Marc Maron, Andre Royo, Owen Teague, and Stephen Root are featured in supporting roles
- To Leslie premiered at South by Southwest on March 12, 2022
- It was given a limited release on October 7, 2022 by Momentum Pictures
- The film received critical acclaim with Riseborough’s performance garnering widespread praise
- Riseborough garnered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress
- In July 2019, it was announced Andrea Riseborough had joined the cast of the film, with Michael Morris directing from a screenplay by Ryan Binaco
- In June 2020, Allison Janney and John Hawkes joined the cast of the film
- In December 2020, Marc Maron and Stephen Root joined the cast of the film, with Maron replacing Hawkes
- The film was shot in Los Angeles, over the course of 19 days
- As of November 2022, the film had earned $23,304 at the U.S. box office
- On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% rating
- Based on 59 critics’ reviews
- With an average rating of 7.6/10
- The website’s consensus reads, “To Leslie’s familiar framework is granted extra depth through a stellar Andrea Riseborough and a sensitive and nuanced approach to the cycle of addiction”
- Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100
- Based on 16 critics
- Indicating “universal acclaim”
- According to Variety, actress Mary McCormack, the wife of director Michael Morris, hired two publicity firms to help organize a “celeb-backed campaign” to get Riseborough nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress
- While theretofore not widely seen or regarded as a serious awards contender, the campaign successfully raised the film’s profile as dozens of celebrities publicly endorsed the film, praising it and Riseborough’s performance on social media and hosting screenings during voting for the Academy Award nominations in January 2023
- Riseborough was nominated for the award on January 24
- After her nomination was announced, there was media speculation that the tactics may have violated the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rules against directly lobbying voters
- Αcademy rules forbid individuals from giving “their personal signature, personal regards, or pleas to watch the film” when sending correspondence to voters
- The Academy occasionally rescinds nominations if it is found that the nominee personally lobbied voters, though there are no reports that Riseborough did so
- Consequently, Clayton Davis of Variety wrote that it was “highly unlikely” that her nomination would be affected
- On January 27, the Academy announced that they were “conducting a review of the campaign procedures around this year’s nominees, to ensure that no guidelines were violated, and to inform us whether changes to the guidelines may be needed in a new era of social media and digital communication”
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