Can Will Smith’s latest role as a slave bring Oscars redemption?

This week a major film about a real escaped slave had its premiere. Emancipation is the story of Whipped Peter, who fled barbaric forced labour on a railroad in 1863 and went on a perilous 10-day journey through the Louisiana swamps before finding refuge at a Union encampment. Photographs of his back, a mesh of welts and strafe marks, shocked Americans and helped the abolitionist cause.

Reviews were largely ecstatic, praising its commitment to the brutal truth and the unflinching, moving performance of its leading actor. A shoo-in for awards glory, presumably?

No, because Emancipation is the comeback vehicle of Will Smith, who last year squandered decades of goodwill by slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife’s shaved head. (It is still unclear whether Rock was aware of Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia.)

An hour after the assault, Smith was back on stage, tearfully picking up his best actor award for his role in King Richard to a standing ovation. But the actor – and the Academy – had misjudged public opinion and, in the days after, both apologised profusely. The star was banned from all Oscars events for the next decade but allowed to keep his award, and there is nothing to prevent him being nominated for – or winning – another one in the interim. Although picking it up might be a problem. “In a normal world, his performance in Emancipation would be Oscars catnip,” said Steven Gaydos, the executive director of the trade magazine Variety. “And it feels like it might still be, in some way.”

Such stories tend to be a natural hit with awards voters: in 2014, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave – the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped and sold into slavery in 19th-century Louisiana – won eight Oscars including best picture. Two years later, Nate Parker’s directorial debut, The Birth of a Nation, about the man who led a slave rebellion in 1831 Virginia, was the big hit of Sundance and was set to sweep all before it at the Oscars until unsavoury details about Parker’s past surfaced and he became an early villain of the #MeToo movement.

Emancipation finished filming in January, two months before the slap, and although it cannot have been substantially retrofitted in the editing suite, the film does helpfully support Smith’s own explanation of his behaviour.

Speaking to the late-night TV host Trevor Noah this week, Smith again made reference to his childhood in trying to explain the “bottled rage” unleashed at Rock.

“It was a lot of things,” said

Smith. “It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. All of that just bubbled up in that moment.”

In Smith’s memoir, published last year, he writes of murderous thoughts towards his father and a persistent shame that he did not do more to protect his mother – a feeling many have credited to his overreaction to the slur against his wife.

Emancipation contains scenes in which his character puts himself on the line to prevent physical harm being inflicted on his wife and children. It also shows how Peter is sustained by an unswerving Christian faith, which is shared by Smith and to which he made reference during his best actor acceptance speech and in contrite videos since.

Emancipation director, Antoine Fuqua, has said that he felt the rigours of the film’s shoot would have contributed to Smith’s stress and pressure two months on.

In the movie, Peter endures considerable physical and emotional hardship. Battling extreme hunger, thirst and injury, Peter must evade a vicious manhunter and his pack of bloodhounds while also contending with alligators, swarms of bees, extreme weather, burning buildings and, finally, the explosive might of the Confederate army.

The decision by Apple, the studio behind the film, to press ahead with the release despite the climate of negative publicity, has not met with the blowback many would have anticipated earlier in the year.

The film’s apparent resonance with Smith’s own circumstances – and the positioning of actor and character as both survivors and victims – are elements of a carefully calibrated marketing campaign that appears to be paying off.

While speculation of any awards recognition for the film was deemed ludicrous six months ago, this week pundits from the awards site Gold Derby are tipping it for nominations in at least the cinematography category – and potentially more, including screenplay, supporting actor and director.

Smith’s fearful assertion to Noah that his actions could have jeopardised the recognition of his colleagues on the film may have struck a chord with many in the industry. “They’re handling it well,” said Gaydos. “Smith has re-emerged into the media and into awards season in a way no-one predicted a few months ago.

“I don’t think the real damage to his career is yet visible. And it’s likely his not getting an Oscar nomination for Emancipation might be part of that damage. But that’s a small price to pay.

“Nobody knows what might happen. He will never be magical and captivating in the same way,” Gaydos added. But “he’s converted Emancipation into an opportunity. And, considering what happened, everything has gone his way”.