Just kidding, I don’t go to the Oscars (but, since moving to LA, I can claim some friends who do). Never fear, dear reader, even without actually going to the Oscars, I can still have strong opinions about the films nominated. Specifically, this year, the 2, count ‘em 2, films by women directors – An Education and The Hurt Locker – which are nominated for Best Picture. (The Hurt Locker is also nominated for Best Director. Which, for those keeping track, a woman has never won. I’m just saying.)

Now, there is lots of talk about What it Means for a woman to be a film director. Apparently, if you’re Nancy Meyers, it means making movies where Meryl Streep does a lot of this.

Whereas if you’re Nora Ephron, it means making movies where Meryl Streep does a lot of this.

But, use of Meryl aside, is there some definitive quality to lady-directed films, particularly when, as with the two films this year, those films are written by men?

Manohla Dargis, who has done way more research into this than me, follows the money in the New York Times, and follows the relationships, more colloquially on Jezebel, and she answers the “female director sensibility” question by saying that:

“Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary. That’s all we need to say about that.”

But is it, Manohla? Is it? When there is a MediaUnbound blargh out there?

I understand the reticence to attribute a gendered lens to art-making – but I think the quality The Hurt Locker and An Education have most in common is not their girliness, or even their womanliness, but their rejection of the standard movie version of – yes you again, Nancy Meyers – What Women (and People) Want. To talk about this entails a lot of talking about endings, so if you haven’t seen these movies – and seriously, you should – maybe stop reading right . . about . . now.

Okay, so The Hurt Locker is an action movie, almost exclusively about men and, as best as I can tell, it vividly captures the experience of going through daily life when your mortality is in constant question and your morality is none too sure. In scenes like this . . .

. . . you’re on the edge of your seat because the characters are on the edge of their seat, and then you follow them back to their camp and watch them have to deal with what living like this does to them. In the final 10 minutes of the movie, the main character, William James (no not that William James) finally finishes his tour and gets to go home. To his beautiful wife, his cute baby, to peace and domesticity and all the things that movies tell us people – and especially women – like. And you know what? He freaking hates it. He’s back on the next plane to Iraq. He loves his family, yeah, but he loves his job more.

Now, An Education.

The plot couldn’t be more different, right? British schoolgirls in 1962 wearing little bow ties, having romances with dashing Peter Sarsgaard, nothing at all like Explosive Ordance Disposal. Except for, it kind of is. Because, again, at the film’s end, the main character doesn’t pick love, or family, or the mushy Bride Wars crap that even smart movies like to show as women’s major concern. She picks herself, her schooling, and, we’re left to believe, having finished An Education can now embark on A Career.

One of my biggest beefs with movies written/directed/staring/about men is that male characters have lives and women characters have men. This can be summed up no more perfectly than in this exchange in the annoying-yet-charming-just-like-its-pointless-parantheses (500)Days of Summer. (Cute dance sequence, though).

Main boy, Tom, meets up with main girl, Summer, after not seeing her for, oh let’s say a couple hundred days.

Summer: You’re not working at the greeting card company anymore.

Tom: No, I’m working as an architect. You’re married.

And boom! That’s it. End of scene. That’s all they need to know about each other. He has a career life (and of course he also has a love life – it’s a romantic comedy) and she has just a love life. She’s not working for the company either, she quit before he did, but she doesn’t need to find a job because . . .she’s got a man, apparently.

See how differently this goes with a small adjustment:

Summer: You’re not working at the greeting card company anymore.

Tom: No, I’m working as an architect. Where do you work now?

Summer: Oh, you know, I got a job cutting bangs.

Tom: Cool. And you’re married. Because one can do both.

If there’s any trait that having a female director encourages, maybe it’s this: the realization that life’s work can be really important, worth sacrificing over, and ultimately deeply meaningful. I would guess that women who have worked hard enough to end up directing films of this caliber know from important work. And I mean, hell, even Julie and Julia got that part right.