The Golden Globes: Hollywood’s Drunk Wedding

The Golden Globes, with its cliquish banquet seating and copious vodka, is like a raucous wedding party at which the two families hail from slightly different social strata. There is the movie clan—old money, better clothes—that arrives with its paterfamilias (played last night by Robert Redford), its wacky aunt (Emma Thompson), its cool little sister who just graduated (Jennifer Lawrence), and its ne’er-do-well cousin (Matthew McConaughey, or, if you please, Robert Downey, Jr.). Then there are the TV people—déclassé, maybe, but looser—with their overdressed great-uncle (Jon Voight, in a white scarf), their grizzled father of the bride (Bryan Cranston), their fratty best man (Andy Samberg), and the mic-hogging second cousin no one quite remembers inviting (Jacqueline Bisset).

Presiding over the nuptials were two fun-loving bridesmaids, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the latter of whom caught the bouquet when she won best actress in a television comedy, for “Parks & Recreation.” Fey and Poehler were back by popular demand, their goodwill still working as Lysol for Ricky Gervais, and their opening remarks were filled with well-observed zingers. (Fey on “Gravity”: “It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.”)

The weirdest moment of the night came early (preceded only by a nervous Jennifer Lawrence winning for “American Hustle”), and it set the bar high. Neither play-off music nor a seven-second delay could contain Jacqueline Bisset’s surreal acceptance speech, for “Dancing on the Edge,” which began with an epic perambulation to the stage from wherever they keep the miniseries people. After a Marina Abramović–like stare-off with the audience, she collected herself—“Scottish background to the front!”—just as the orchestra was at full swell. “I say, like my mother—what did she say? She used to say, ‘Go to Hell and don’t come back,’ ” Bisset remarked as the music was transitioning into a jazz riff. But it was no use: Jacqueline Bisset wasn’t going anywhere.

What else happened? Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie got the wrong speech in the teleprompter and were saved by a stagehand bearing ripped-out binder pages. Philomena Lee, who will forever be referred to as “the real Philomena Lee,” came on with Steve Coogan, and presumably spent the rest of the evening doing vodka shots with June Squibb. Amy Adams, wearing a revealing red dress inspired by her “American Hustle” character, gave a winning speech in which she thanked David O. Russell for “letting the world know that a princess can punch” and her daughter for “teaching me to accept joy”—notable that it wasn’t the other way around. Emma Thompson, doing a crack impression of Patsy Stone from “Absolutely Fabulous,” showed up with a martini in one hand and her high heels in the other. Andy Samberg, winning for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (which also took best comedy series), used air quotes to thank “everyone on my team,” instantly burnishing that phrase in the annals of award-speech cliché.

Paolo Sorrentino, the director of “The Great Beauty,” collecting the prize for best foreign-language film, thanked Italy—“a crazy country but beautiful.” Amy Poehler kissed Bono, who won the Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award for Writing a Song About Nelson Mandela, Who Was a Personal Friend. Diane Keaton, in “Annie Hall” attire, accepted the lifetime-achievement award for Woody Allen (who was at the opening night of the Broadway musical “Beautiful”), and concluded her speech with a why-the-hell-not rendition of “Make New Friends.” (La dee da!) The director Alfonso Cuarón, winning for “Gravity,” thanked Sandra Bullock for not quitting when he offered to give her an earpiece and she thought he was saying, “I’m going to give you herpes”—confirming your suspicion that the set of “Gravity” was full of hilarious misunderstandings.

The end of the night was reserved for the big guns: Leonardo DiCaprio, who won for “The Wolf of Wall Street”; Cate Blanchett, who won for “Blue Jasmine” and told us, “I went to the Magic Castle this morning and thought that was weird”; and Steve McQueen, whose film “12 Years a Slave” won for best drama. If one theme dominated the night, besides matrimonial revelry, it was straight actors winning awards for playing gay men, transgender women, and/or AIDS victims, a trope as old as “Philadelphia.” Matthew McConaughey, who managed to keep his shirt on during his speech, thanked his wife for urging him to “ ‘go git it, my man, my king.’ ‘Yes, ma’am!’ ” Michael Douglas, who won for “Behind the Candelabra,” worried that Steven Soderbergh found him “mincing” when he first floated the idea of playing Liberace. And Jared Leto assured us that the “tiny Brazilian bubble butt was all mine” in “Dallas Buyers Club.” Guys, grow up—or you won’t be invited to the christening.

Photograph by Paul Drinkwater/NBC.