The Cannes Film Festival sought to elevate its glamour quotient even more than usual this year. Celebrities to hit the red carpet included Kristen Stewart, Julia Roberts, Ryan Gosling, Charlize Theron, George Clooney, Blake Lively, Kate Moss, Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick.
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According to Heat Street‘s spy on the Croisette, festival organizers even flew in Jessica Chastain for the opening night premiere of Woody Allen’s film Cafe Society, even though the flame-haired actress does not feature in that movie or indeed any other that was screening at Cannes this year.
I love you #CannesFilmFestival #openingnight #Cannes2016 @armani @Piaget pic.twitter.com/7tzzJgV7wI
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) May 11, 2016
Yet for all the attention garnered by Ronan Farrow’s ambush of his father’s film or Bella Hadid’s ridiculously revealing red Alexandre Vauthier gown.
Or the hysterical reaction to Blake Lively’s Instagram “Oakland booty” song reference, the show wound up being stolen by a 79-year-old man whose sense of style can only be described as ‘scruffy socialist chic.’
Veteran filmmaker Ken Loach won his second Palme d’Or (Best Picture) at the festival for his new film I, Daniel Blake. Loach makes critically successful, commercially underwhelming left-wing movies about causes that are close to his heart but which are not necessarily at the forefront on the minds of mainstream audiences.
I, Daniel Blake is about a middle-age widower in the north of England whose benefits are stopped after he stops working due to illness. Loach criticized the “dangerous project of austerity” as he accepted the Palme D’Or from Mel Gibson.
Cannes generated plenty of headlines this year—from Shia LaBouef finally making a good movie (Andrea Arnold’s Red Honey) to Kristen Stewart being both booed and cheered for her film Personal Shopper to Julia Roberts violating Cannes style convention by walking barefoot for her film Money Monster and Katy Perry’s performance at AMFAR’s Gala only commencing at 1 AM.
Yet Ken Loach ends up being the Cannes man of the hour. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there somewhere—but don’t count on many people choosing to hear it from the winner of the Palme d’Or.
