Hmm...Mister Tee wrote
You can look at Atonement in one of two ways:
1) We got to December thinking Atonement could have been the best picture winner -- I mean, No Country or Old Men and There Will Be Blood were WAY too out-there to win major Oscars. But then it failed to win NBR (which seemed in its wheelhouse), and not only missed DGA/PGA nods, it somehow got left out at WGA (in favor of Zodiac, which got no attention anywhere else). It did score with the Globes and BAFTA, but that might have been a Brit thing. It looked like the film could be the first movie in forever to win Globe Drama and not get a best picture Oscar nomination. Extreme Focus fail.
2) But, somehow, on nominations day, it rallied for 7 nominations, including best picture/supporting actress/screenplay, and on Oscar night it won a prize. In that context, does missing best director look so bad? Does it matter missing at precursors if you get the Oscar nods?
Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I fall into camp 1, even though I don't think I predicted Atonement for Picture or Director. Atonement wasn't marketed as a smoldering film. I think it was seen as a cold one. And that's VERY bad.
But really, what was it up against? No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, two front-runners that were indeed far out there. Michael Clayton and Juno, two solid also-rans with their strong supporters but depending on who you asked, a tonic for voters too bummed out by the big dogs. And then what? I think we can agree there were three other films in the running: Atonement, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Into the Wild. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly had surprising muscle behind it with Kathleen Kennedy as a producer, strong showings at the Director's and Producer's Guilds, and a Golden Globe win for Julian Schnabel (admittedly, one nobody saw). But it was still a foreign-language film and a VERY French one at that. Into the Wild was a very powerful movie that came back from a weak start in the race and a small box office with DGA, WGA, and SAG nominations. But it was still a Sean Penn movie and it felt like one. It was unabashedly anti-establishment and liberal. Admittedly, it was a dreadful year to be a Republican. But I've seen several actors-turned-directors in the Oscar race and Sean Penn's presence felt strangely muted. People like George Clooney worked the circuit very well. I never got that from Sean Penn. Whatever Atonement had going against it, it wasn't a foreign film and it wasn't directed by Sean Penn. That really should've been enough.