OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2006)
The Nominees Were...
Guillermo Arriaga, Babel
Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis, Letters from Iwo Jima
Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine
Guillermo del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth
Peter Morgan, The Queen
My Thoughts: We move today in our 2006 sojourn into the Original Screenplay category. Whereas adapted only featured one Best Picture nominee, here we're getting the rest-only one of these five films missed out in the Best Picture race, and that one was clearly a near miss considering how well it did otherwise. As we are always searching for an in into the race, let's start with that movie, from the wholly original mind of Guillermo del Toro.
Pan's Labyrinth is not obviously a movie that you'd center your love around it for its screenplay. Though it plays with fables & fairy tales to a large degree, it's a story for the eyes, not for the dialogue. Still, the movie does a strong job of juxtaposing the tale between the magical realism of our young heroine's journey against the all-too-real horror of Franco's fascist regime fighting to take over Spain. That the film ends the way it does (I won't spoil it, but there's more realism in the ending than fairy tale), is a testament to the way the screenwriters understand what is punching you in the gut during the adventure-the way that this girl needs an escape, because real life is unfair to such a child.
Letters from Iwo Jima also finds a way to juxtapose two stories. Told on the opposite end of the Flags of Our Fathers film that Eastwood made earlier in 2006, this one gives us an untold look (for American audiences) to the Japanese side of the battle, and brings a nuanced (particularly for Eastwood) perspective to the movie. The film's honesty and character development is solid, particularly when it comes to side characters, and while it doesn't tread a lot of new ground (either in "my enemy is also human" or "war is hell" territory), it is an interesting movie, a particularly difficult feat considering that we know how the picture will end.
This is also the case for The Queen, playing with recent history, and giving us the story of one of the world's most famous women in the most difficult chapter of her long reign. Mirren's performance is the light in The Queen, but Peter Morgan, years before The Crown, gives us a strong series of prose that rivals some of his later works. The writing is crisp, dialogue is specific, and we get to see the unique challenge of writing for a woman who must always keep what she's feeling shoved behind a tough veneer. The movie doesn't quite have as much to say about Blair as it probably should (particularly considering that in 2006, Blair was worthy of scrutiny due to his ill-advised involvement with George W. Bush in the Iraq War), but it handles the queen with precision, something that The Crown would perfect.
Babel is one of many films in the 2000's that decided putting a host of major stars into a loosely-connected story with a technical connection qualified as great cinema if it was serious enough. I don't subscribe to that theory, and for me this film is more Crash than Traffic. The stories don't have enough inner-connection and coherence, they also suffer from a serious balance problem (where you desperately want to get back to the plots that you enjoy rather than the ones you're merely putting up with), and like many of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's movies, it's just too damn depressing without any respite. It's the movies, not C-Span-give us something elevated in the story.
We'll end with the one comedy in the group, Little Miss Sunshine. In retrospect I want to like this movie more than I do-the cast is solid, it's a fun concept, and there's some good acting in the movie (we'll get to Alan Arkin's surprise Oscar win next week, but even better is his costar Steve Carell, then about to be launched into superstardom as The Office was just taking off). But I don't like it-the movie is a bit too cute for me, the relationship between Arkin and his granddaughter Breslin too cliche, and just in general the movie falters from a quirkiness the mid-aughts found endearing but I always felt covered up that it wasn't saying much (just because you're in a van doesn't mean you're being profound).
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine adapted and original into one category, and they gave their winning trophy to The Queen, while we also saw Babel among the nominees. The BAFTA's separate out their awards, giving the trophy to Little Miss Sunshine over Babel, United 93, Pan's Labyrinth, and The Queen (how the hell did The Queen lose the BAFTA but win the Globe?!?). The WGA kept the Oscar lineup save for Letters and Pan's, here favoring Stranger Than Fiction and United 93, with the winner being Little Miss Sunshine. I have to assume considering it also got a Best Director nomination that United 93 was definitely in the sixth place slot for this race.
Films I Would Have Nominated: As you might be able to tell, I wasn't exactly thrilled with this lineup, though if we're being wholly honest, the writing categories in general aren't as much my forte for 2006 (the film's that year that weren't Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth didn't suit me). I would have for sure included Spike Lee's sharp Inside Man, though-the conversation about class, crime, and all the marvelously vicious dialogue works well in one of his most commercial movies.
Oscar’s Choice: Little Miss Sunshine won, which made sense at the time though in hindsight you wonder why the Academy didn't go with The Queen, as it'd have a longer legacy in the coming years.
My Choice: I'm going with Pan's-even if it's not a "writer's" film, it still unfolds well & has a terrific sense of structure to its story. Behind it I'll put The Queen, Letters, Sunshine, and Babel.
Those are my thoughts-what about you? Are you on Oscar's side with the lovable Sunshine or will you come into the darkness with Pan and I? Do you think Peter Morgan will ever win an Oscar (or for that matter, an Emmy)? And how did The Queen lose the BAFTA? Share your thoughts below!
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