OVP: Best Adapted Screenplay (2006)
The Nominees Were...
Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, & Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, & Hawk Ostby, Children of Men
William Monahan, The Departed
Todd Field & Tom Perrotta, Little Children
Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal
My Thoughts: As I said yesterday, we are quickly entering into the final stages of the 2006 races, and with that the writing categories this week. The 2006 Oscars was one of the final ceremonies that didn't expand the Best Picture field, and as a result we only have one Oscar nominee here. The bigger question, though, is how many of these films would have actually been nominated for Best Picture even in an expanded field. After all, all of these despite some clear billboards indicating they were possibilities (critical acclaim, pop culture zeitgeist, multiple acting nominations), have some debits as well that might have hurt even in an expanded race. Let's get into these movies & their near misses with Oscar, but first, let's go with the picture at the top of Oscar's wish list in 2006: The Departed.
The movies of Martin Scorsese don't immediately invite in the script as the clear star, which is weird because Marty's movies have a lot of great dialogue ("You talking to me?" and "Do I amuse you?" being toward the top of the pantheon of iconic movie quotes). The Departed, though, it's easy to see the appeal for Oscar. Obviously it's a gargantuan story about two different houses, two different men of varied social situations who are thrown together through corruption and a blurred line-of-justice. The dialogue, though, is spectacular (Mark Wahlberg owes a lot of his Oscar nomination to William Monahan), and while it might be a tad too symmetrical toward the end, that's a small quibble to make for a great picture.
Little Children is also a movie that is trying for the Shakespearean, but it doesn't reach the heights of The Departed. Nearly forgotten fifteen years after the fact, the movie's plotting is solid (it's about two adults having an ill-advised affair, perhaps as a form of midlife crisis), and it handles the strange side story surrounding Jackie Earle Haley's Ronnie with an interesting amount of tact. This is a very smart film, with solid, almost ethereal dialogue from Winslet giving her peak "earth goddess" performance (this was what she was best-known for at the time to audiences). It's just a tad bit too long, and the film itself never quite gets to the places that Todd Field seems to have taken the (better) In the Bedroom. Still solid though.
Notes on a Scandal is not the boldest film in this bunch (it's coming, don't worry), but it is the movie that maybe plays the most with our expectations. Judi Dench as an aging teacher feels like she'll be a wizened mentor for Cate Blanchett at a crossroads, but as the movie progresses we find that she's got a bit of the devil in her. I have complicated feelings about this film, which I think is far too campy to work properly (and I think Blanchett's performance is shooting for the rafters), so I don't gravitate toward the movie all that much even if I get there's some genius afoot in Dench's work. That said, the script is too shock-and-awe and over-the-top for me to properly latch into what it's doing.
Children of Men is a risky film for a script. There are easy things to criticize (it feels too recent, too smart, too detached), but as the movie continues all of this falls by the wayside. The plotting is superb, giving us a deliberate move toward the end-of-the-world from our main character Theo, and it spends enough time giving us background on the world at-large for us to recognize ourselves in the characters we're seeing. The monologues are breathtaking (think of Pam Ferris's "funny, what happens to a world without children's laughter"), and the twists & ending are brilliantly-executed. Children of Men completely adapts its book in a way that feels at-home on the big-screen.
Which brings us to Borat. I hated this movie the first time I saw it, and upon revisiting the series with Borat 2, I didn't change my mind even as the film starts to become more-and-more rehearsed. The problem I have with this is that I don't find it funny-I don't get the appeal of a millionaire mocking poor people, even if those poor people's belief systems are anathema to me. This feels like a cruel joke, one that doesn't have enough social commentary behind it (this isn't Michael Moore, where it's obvious who the actual enemies are, and they aren't the huddled elites but instead the power-brokers who exploit them). As a consequence, I can't get behind this screenplay at all-it feels wrong, and I'm not onboard.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine their writing categories so there is no adapted or original distinction, and thus we have three adapted nominees in their five choices: The Departed, Notes on a Scandal, and Little Children (all three would miss & lose to The Queen). The BAFTA's do differentiate, but they went entirely different than Oscar, only keeping around The Departed and Notes on a Scandal, with Casino Royale, The Devil Wears Prada, and the victorious The Last King of Scotland the remaining contenders. The WGA gave its trophy to The Departed, and substituted out Notes on a Scandal and Children of Men from Oscar's lineup in favor of The Devil Wears Prada and Thank You for Smoking. I'm going to do something atypical here and not pick any of these as my sixth place posit (despite Last King and Prada making some sense)-I think it was Letters from Iwo Jima, which was a Best Picture nominee and was based on the memoirs of a Japanese general.
Films I Would Have Nominated: There aren't a lot of great choices here (honestly, the films of 2006 are not really "writerly" pictures). But I would definitely have put in A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman's final movie and one that has a wonderful series of quips, dialogues, & insights (as all of Altman's movies do). I know this is considered a pretty light film in his filmography, but I've always been partial and it would've made my cut.
Oscar's Choice: The Departed by a country mile-I honestly don't know what might have even been an option for second place (Borat?).
My Choice: I'm going with Children of Men, which towers above pretty much every other option in 2006, even a film as good as The Departed, my silver place. Behind them I'll do Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, and Borat.
Those are my thoughts-what about you? Are you with me over with Children of Men or are you sticking with the Academy's preferred The Departed? Why do you think that Borat has had such staying power in the culture that it literally got a 14-years-delayed sequel (that also scored with Oscar)? And do you agree with my theory that Letters from Iwo Jima was the near miss? Share your thoughts below!
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