Image credit: Davi Russo

I’ve just come out of a screening of Blue Valentine, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, and I am now completely gutted. I had heard from colleagues who saw it at Sundance that it was intense, but nothing really could have prepared me for this utterly devastating, completely believable marriage drama. It’s been a while since I saw an on-screen couple as convincing as Gosling and Williams, and if there’s any justice, they’ll both earn their second Oscar nominations for their raw, arresting performances. (Gosling scored a Best Actor nod for Half Nelson, while Williams was recognized in the supporting actress race for Brokeback Mountain.) The film, which I hear has been re-edited since Sundance, will definitely get hit from some quarters as being “too depressing” (there’s no semi-uplifting Precious-style ending here) but I hope that critics, moviegoers, and Oscar voters will deem truth a more important criterion than sunniness. If the seemingly impassioned response from the crowd at today’s Cannes screening is any indication, the new cut was a success.

Following the high-wattage first few days of this year’s festival (Robin Hood, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), the last 48 hours have seen several entries from acclaimed filmmakers, some with release dates already set and others looking for U.S. distribution. Here’s how a few of them might fare in the awards season.

Another Year Mike Leigh’s latest pensive London drama is arguably the best-received film of the first half of the festival (as evidenced by my colleague Owen Gleiberman’s take on it). If it were to find domestic distribution, I’d say Leigh vet Lesley Manville’s affecting lead turn as a wine-swigging medical secretary would have the best shot at a nod. The film increasingly belongs to her as it progresses, and her final shot is one to remember.

Biutiful I’ve just come out of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s haunting drama starring Javier Bardem—the one Josh Brolin told me about the other day—and although it mostly worked for me, I sensed a fairly tepid response from the media crowd at the end of the screening. It may not become a major Oscar player like González Iñárritu’s last film, Babel, but depending on his competition, Bardem could end up in contention for a Best Actor nomination, since he dominates the film.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody Allen’s droll infidelity drama boasts a knockout supporting comedic performance from British actress Lucy Punch, but I wonder if her professional escort character will strike some as too similar to Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite. And though the film has many fun moments, I’d say this will be one of the rare Allen screenplays that doesn’t have a shot at a nomination. I fear too many critics will deem it less than completely formed.

Inside Job and Countdown to Zero The festival’s two hottest documentaries explore the current economic crisis and the escalating nuclear arms situation, respectively. Both have been widely praised and both—along with Countdown director Lucy Walker’s Sundance-winning Wasteland—seem like decent doc shortlist contenders.

The Myth of the American Sleepover Rookie feature filmmaker David Robert Mitchell became the first U.S. director to be accepted to the Cannes International Critics’ Week since Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) managed that feat five years ago. Mitchell’s keenly observed film—about a group of Michigan teenagers exploring with issues of sexuality and identity—boasts strong performances by several of its young actors, particularly Claire Sloma and Marlon Morton, whom I expect Hollywood casting directors to pounce on very soon. Not all of the film’s plotlines are believable, but it’s the kind of movie that could pick up some Spirit Award or Gotham Award nods at the end of the year.

Image Credit: http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/100513/robin-hood-cannes_510.jpgLast year’s opening night Cannes movie, Up, ended up scoring a Best Picture nomination. But the Oscar gods haven’t been smiling on Robin Hood. Most of the prerelease reviews have been negative (including one from my EW colleague Owen Gleiberman, who calls the film a “dense, dark forest of high-minded murk”), director Ridley Scott’s recent knee surgery kept him from attending the festival, and wouldn’t you know it, the minute the movie’s post-party began last night here in France, it started to rain.

The film’s star, Russell Crowe, was still a trooper: He was the first cast member to arrive at the party, and when I left at 2 a.m., he was still there, alternating between whooping it up with his fellow “merry men” Scott Grimes and Kevin Durand and engaging in serious conversation with festival jury member Benicio Del Toro, who won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Traffic the same year Crowe picked his up for Gladiator. We shouldn’t expect a repeat of Gladiator‘s Best Picture and Best Actor wins, however. Some of my Oscar-blogging pals I bumped into at the party wondered if Robin Hood might have a shot at nods in the costume design and cinematography races. My feeling is that its best shots will be in the sound races, with all that nifty whooshing whenever someone shoots an arrow across the forest. But if the film is as much of a box-office flop as some people are predicting it to be, then all bets are off.