This isn't going to be easy.

At oh, say, 11:17 p.m. this Sunday, the 79th Annual Academy Awards will be in its closing moments. Helen Mirren will be beaming. Jack Nicholson will be hitting on a seat-filler. Peter O'Toole, if he's managed to shuffle down the red carpet, will be totally wasted.

And we'll be about to hear the decision in the most hotly contested best-picture race in at least a decade - though whoever is slated to open that final envelope this year can hardly consider it an honor. No matter which title is read, a sizable fraction of the room (and of the moviegoing public) will be stunned, since no one seems to be in any kind of agreement about the five films nominated.

I can tell you exactly what's wrong with each of them. "The Queen" is so aggressively small in scale that honoring it feels too easy. "The Departed" falls apart in the last half hour and could simultaneously stand to be a half hour shorter. "Babel" is all ambition, no follow-through. "Letters From Iwo Jima" is Clint Eastwood coasting with his heavy new directorial shtick, and "Little Miss Sunshine" is the typical dysfunctional-family-goes-on-a-road-trip movie with an identity crisis.

But that is the easy part. The hard part is finding what it is in any of these movies that the Academy will feel compelled enough to honor over the rest (not to mention trying to imagine what compelled the Academy to pick these five in the first place).

I just can't believe in "The Departed," even if the polls say otherwise. Yes, it's probably Marty's year, but so what? The film's early-fall raves were very much a product of mixed expectations and the fact that it was released at the height of 2006's cinematic drought. It's a terrific thriller with a marquee cast and filmmaker behind it, but it's more a prestige release in theory than in execution. What we're essentially talking about here is very well-endowed popcorn movie, a thriller as sexily well-made and exciting as it is frivolous. This is not "important" filmmaking, at least not in the way Academy thinks of it, and that's something even the best studio campaigns can't mask.

This same objection applies to "Little Miss Sunshine," but beyond that obvious point, does anyone really think this movie is good enough to go all the way? It's possible the Academy will simply throw up its hands in the process of differentiating between this pool of strong but mostly unworthy movies and go with the easy choice. But as impressive as the loyalists for the film really have been, this has to be it. "Little Miss Sunshine" is no one's idea of best picture, and if it wins, it will go down as one of the greatest missteps in Academy history.

At the happier other end of this spectrum, "The Queen" is the quintessence of a traditional best picture, but the modesty that endeared it to critics last fall is exactly what will work to its disadvantage here. Since Helen Mirren is the film's undisputed centerpiece, in many people's minds rewarding her is rewarding the movie, too. "The Queen" has the aura of an 11th-hour dark horse, and it's the best-reviewed movie nominated, but it just doesn't feel like a winner.

The most conventional Best Picture choice here - "Letters From Iwo Jima," with its quietly groundbreaking story of World War II - wasn't even supposed to be nominated, and buzz-wise it's tracking by far as the weakest of the nominees.

This leaves us with "Babel," a film that people alternatively love and love to hate, and also the only movie nominated that really makes sense as a winner. It's the only one that has it all: name stars, high-concept filmmaking, loud drama, a fleeting sense of political relevance. It's a hip but also traditional choice, extremely appealing in every sense but one: It's considered by too many to be fairly bad.

But then, neither, mind you, was "Crash." I understand the belief the Academy won't repeat a win for a movie so closely styled after that film, but remember that the outcome of last year's contest was a shock, not the product of the media-anointed preference among voters. And surely I need not remind you that historically the Academy is all about repetition, and the idea of honoring two films similar in concept is hardly something it has been squeamish about in the past.

Among this fuzzy collection of very different movies, the only way the Academy can get itself out this predicament is with the movie that seems too obvious to win. It's not going to be a friendly sight, but "Babel" will be named best picture of 2006.

VERDICT

NOMINEES
"Babel"
"The Departed"
"Letters from Iwo Jima"
"Little Miss Sunshine"
"The Queen"

Will Win: Babel
Should Win: Letters from Iwo Jima