Feb 22 2009
Oscars 2009: Best Original Screenplay
THE NOMINEES
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River – One of the reasons the Best Original Screenplay category is always one of my favorites at the Oscars is because small movies like Frozen River usually get squeezed in. Still, in my eyes, Frozen River is very comparable to another movie that I’ll discuss in “The Forgotten” section below, and I do think that this one isn’t as good, so I’m less thrilled about its presence in this category. It’s chances of winning are pretty slim and it doesn’t really deserve to. It mostly seems like it’s here to throw a bone to the independent crowd (and also to make the screenplay categories a little less boy-only).
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky – It’s a shame that this is the only nomination that this film picked up. I’m generally not a huge fan of Mike Leigh’s, as his movies have a tendency to make me want to crawl into bed and wake up when the world seems less depressing. Happy-Go-Lucky is quite the opposite. It’s fun and jaunty and just a good time. Of course, the real thing that makes the movie work is the performance by its lead actress (which I’ll discuss in the Best Actress post), not its script, so it seems like this nomination is the best award this movie will receive.
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges – It would have been really easy for the Oscars to forget that this movie existed, given that it came out early in 2008. I’m thrilled that it’s nominated here and while I don’t think it’ll stand a chance against Milk, I’m crossing my fingers that it may eek out a dark horse win. It’s just such a fun film, and at the same time, manages to deal with some pretty deep and emotional story elements. It’s easy to write off a black comedy about hitmen versus a historical drama about the first notable gay politician in America, but honestly, I think In Bruges is a much better and certainly a more original film.
Dustin Lance Black, Milk – I’ve heard Dustin Lance Black talk about the process of writing the Milk screenplay on a couple of different occasions (thank you Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast) and it’s certainly a process that’s worthy of recognition. Usually, historical films such as this get their stories of written work, but Black visited San Francisco regularly, taking stories from people that witnessed Harvey Milk’s political rise, piecing the script together from their tales, an impressive undertaking. Still, I think a lot of my problems with Milk are due to Black’s inability to separate telling the absolute truth about Harvey Milk from telling a good and interesting story. In hearing him interviewed, it actually sounded like he left some compelling aspects of Harvey’s campaign out of the script for time and I kept help but wonder if those elements would have been more interesting than some of the things that were left in. Given that Milk looks to be a loser in a many of the categories its nominated in (though it could pull an upset in Best Actor and I still think it’s the likeliest dark horse for Best Picture in the event Slumdog‘s sure thing backlash), this seems to be a sure thing winner in this category.
Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter, WALL-E – There’s something amusing about a movie whose most compelling scenes are ones with very little dialogue being nominated for best screenplay. This is the third time Andrew Stanton’s been nominated in this category (Finding Nemo and Toy Story also received recognition here). Any fan of Pixar knows that the reason they’re so successful is because they’ve recognized the importance of good storytelling within the animated medium. WALL-E is an absolutely stunning film, easily better than every film nominated in this category, but animated films have yet win Oscars outside of the Animated Feature and music categories and it certainly doesn’t seem like this is the year that’s going to change.
THE FORGOTTEN
Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall – Yeah I know, it’s goofy, it’s silly, it derives laughs from the mere presence of a naked man, but I just can’t help it. The more times I’ve watched this movie, the more I’ve come to adore it and it’s largely due to the honesty of Segel’s screenplay, who actually derived several memorable aspects of the script from experiences in his own life. I know it would never get nominated for an Oscar (though it sure would have been neat if “Dracula’s Lament” would have been nominated for Best Original Song), but I just like it so much that I had to put it down here.
Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married – This film lost a lot of momentum over the awards season such that by the time it got the Oscars, all it got was a Best Actress nomination. It true, there’s a little bit of excessive schmaltz in the flick, but Lumet’s portrait of family dealing with long festering wounds in the midst of a joyous occasion is incredibly heartfelt and truthful. If we’re looking at independent films written by women, I found it much more worthy of recognition than Hunt’s Frozen River, though perhaps not nearly as much as…
Kelly Reichardt, Wendy and Lucy - It’s a small little film, but boy does it pack a wallop. It’s actually incredibly comparable to the nominated Frozen River. Both are films about women trying to take care of loved ones in the face of grinding poverty. You would think that River, about a middle-aged woman struggling to provide a home for her children would be more emotional and effective than Wendy and Lucy, about a young woman who gets into trouble when shoplifting food for her dog. I found the latter to be a much more successful commentary American poverty and about sacrifice. In fact, both films have scenes in the end where the protagonist is forced to make a difficult choice and abandon something they care about and there is so much more power in Wendy and Lucy‘s version of that scene. This is such a superior film to Frozen River and I’m quite disappointed in the Academy for not recognizing it as such, though it’s probably related to the fact that it only recently came out and not enough voters saw it in time for their nomination ballot.
Robert D. Siegel, The Wrestler -The fact that The Wrestler only picked up two acting nominations in this year’s crop is one of the most disappointing aspects of these Oscars. You’d think that they could have at least given it a nom in this category, but no. Siegel created a moving portrait of a professional wrestler past his prime, something that non wrestling fans like myself could have easily found silly or farcical. But Siegel gets to the core of his protagonist’s desperation and obsession. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.
