Oh, what a night

Slumdog Millionaire won all the awards, but it was the presence of Hollywood's king and queen, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, that made the Baftas such a triumph.

• Sunday night was a resounding success for Bafta. That pre-Oscar positioning just gives it more serious clout every year and all followers of this ceremony will have appreciated the two most glittering trophies of all: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Right there. On the night. In person.
• Throughout the night Brad’s face was set in a cheerful, if faintly bemused expression, but Angelina assumed her now traditional awards-ceremony look of simmering, queenly tolerance, appropriate both for her nominated role (heroic mom in The Changeling), and for her obvious suppressed rage at the imminent ass-kicking from Kate Winslet. An awful lot of time and administrative energy must have been spent flying them over here: transporting the entire family and entourage is not cheap and Brangelina most certainly do not do Travelodge. So the very fact that they clearly did not particularly want to be there, but were there anyway, shows how very important Bafta has become. It is important in terms of the Oscars – undecided Oscar voters in the US will be watching them on TV clips, in that all-important awards ceremony context – but also, by extension, for the British film industry as a whole.
• The night obviously belonged to Slumdog Millionaire, which has now built up an extraordinary tidal wave of momentum. Danny Boyle won thousands more hearts and minds with his very charming and heartfelt speech. Its landslide victory, and the best actress victory for Kate Winslet, made this a tremendously good night for the British industry. And also awards for Steve McQueen’s Maze prison drama Hunger and Man On Wire, James Marsh’s remarkable documentary about Philippe Petit, the man who wire-walked between the towers of the World Trade Centre, showed that the highest possible calibre of British film was being honoured.
• But is Slumdog Millionaire really as good as all that? This has always struck me as an entertaining, likeable and brash modern fairy story shot with tremendous pizzazz – but not exactly profound on the question of globalisation, poverty, 21st-century India or anything else. Some of the more awestruck notices it has been getting have left me a little bemused, though I wish this picture nothing but success. Watching a movie come from nowhere to win big against the pampered main players and self-adoring A-listers is exciting and heartening, like an old-fashioned giant-killing upset in the FA Cup.
• Slumdog Millionaire is intriguing, though, because it is very difficult to pin down. Some audiences, promised a “feelgood” extravaganza, have been disconcerted to find themselves watching slum children deliberately blinded with acid and the main character tortured in a police station using methods that might make Dick Cheney wince. Other audiences, led to expect a harrowing look at contemporary India, have found themselves suspecting that India has been caricatured and the issues made light of, in a movie that often looks like it is targeted at a teen or young adult audience. But everyone is swept up in its energy and gusto, and the time is ripe to state that 18-year-old newcomer Dev Patel really does give a terrifically relaxed and persuasive performance. That said, I suspect that there is a touch of tulip fever being incubated in the Slumdog mania, which is now poised to sweep across the Atlantic to Los Angeles. On Sunday night I found myself thinking of The Crying Game, Neil Jordan’s 1992 movie with a twist, which at the time was the talk of le tout Hollywood, but now might leave the viewer wondering what the fuss was all about.
• As expected, the award for best supporting actor went, posthumously, to Heath Ledger – and the resulting speech on his behalf was restrained, and even subdued – very different from how the moment will play, I imagine, if this decision is repeated on Oscar night. This was a reminder, incidentally, how very, very massive The Dark Knight was and continues to be – particularly on the web. Arguably, a few more gongs for this film, with its British talent such as director Christopher Nolan, Michael Caine and the controversial, non-recovering rageaholic Christian Bale would perhaps have been more representative of its mighty status.
• Patriotic British film buffs will have pondered the best supporting actress award given, very justifiably, to Penelope Cruz for her role in Woody Allen’s Spanish-set Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Until recently, we had thought it was British money that was going to re-ignite Woody Allen’s genius. Instead, the “British” period gave us some of the most awful films of Allen’s career – and it is Spain, not Britain, that has inspired a mini-comeback. Woody Allen said he loved London for its cloud cover – but Spanish sunshine has done him the most good, and put a bit of Vitamin E back into his film-making.
• A thoroughly satisfactory night for Bafta then; not everyone can get prizes, but the British Academy can pat itself on the back for having done its bit to boost classy films and box-office players. Incidentally, students of political science might want to note the 21st-century spirit of transparency with which Bafta publishes its entire membership list – and therefore award-voting-electorate – on its website: I don’t think Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does anything similar.*