It’s been 56 years since Sophia Loren, an undisputed icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, received her second Oscar nomination – for 1964’s Marriage Italian Style (Matrimonio all’italiana). Now the Italian actress has been tipped as a contender for the 2021 awards season, thanks to her new film The Life Ahead, directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.
The drama had a limited release on 6 November, before arriving on Netflix on 13 November. Adapted from the novel The Life Before Us by Romain Gary, it features a screenplay written by Ponti and Ugo Chiti. The film stars Sophia Loren as Madame Rosa, an elderly woman who takes in a 12-year-old Senegalese street orphan after he attempts to rob her. The story follows the pair as they form a close bond, with Madame Rosa revealing that she’s both a Holocaust survivor and a former sex worker – who now seeks to help the children of other sex workers.
Loren won an Oscar for her role in the film Two Women (La Ciociara) in 1962 – becoming the first actor to win an Academy Award for a foreign-language film – with another nomination following in 1965. If she is nominated for The Life Ahead at 2021’s Oscars, 56 years on, she will break Henry Fonda’s current 41-year record for the longest gap between nominations. At 86, Loren would become the oldest nominee for best actress in Oscar history – a record currently held by Emmanuelle Riva, who received a nomination aged 85. And if she wins the category, Loren will become the oldest best actor winner ever, trumping the current record held by Fonda, who won for On Golden Pond when he was 76.
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The star has already been widely praised for her portrayal of Madame Rosa, dubbed one of the most ‘challenging and immaculate performances of her illustrious career’ by Variety , while Empire herald her ‘grace and majesty’. So could the actress be set to make history come awards season? Watch this space.
