The Third edit: Best comeback goes to the Golden Globes

Who doesn’t love a great comeback story? The Golden Globes certainly does. On Sunday night, Demi Moore’s return to the zeitgeist with The Substance was recognised with the Best Female Actor (Musical or Comedy) award — the first such honour for the actor in her 45-year-long career. Recalling the day when the script for the Coralie Fargeat film came across her desk in her acceptance speech, Moore said, “The universe told me, ‘you’re not done yet.’”

The universe might well have whispered these words to the Golden Globes which, after a rough few years, appears to have recovered some of its lost mojo. Never quite as prestigious as the Academy Awards or the Emmys — the other two major events at which Hollywood celebrates itself — the Globes ceremony was, nonetheless, the glamorous party that set the tone for the rest of awards season. Scandals, including allegations of corruption and racial bias within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA, the body that ran the Globes) and sexual assault accusations against a former HFPA president, led to a boycott by the industry’s biggest names in 2021 and broadcast cancellation in 2022. Steadily declining viewership only seemed to ensure the Awards’ consignment to irrelevance, and the ratings for the 2024 ceremony were among the worst in its eight-decade history.

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With the 82nd ceremony, the Golden Globes has scripted its own comeback. Hollywood seems to have thawed towards the event and the red carpet was as glamorous as could be hoped for. The awards themselves, for both film and television, were predictable and uncontroversial, even if some snubs, such as to Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light (nominated for Best Foreign Language Film), sting. This year’s ratings, unlike the chartbusting song from Wicked (winner of the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award), may not be “defying gravity”, but the Globes has done what it’s always done best: It’s got the party going.