OVP: Best Adapted Screenplay (2018)
The Nominees Were...
Joel & Ethan Coen, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, & Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper, & Will Fetters, A Star is Born
My Thoughts: We are finishing up the writing categories today with a dirty confession-I almost always like original screenplay more than adapted. This is weird for me to say, because with one exception, these are not stories that are familiar to me. I have never read any of the books that these movies are based on, and therefore they "should" be all original to me. However, in 2018 like in many years, these feel a bit more traditional, a bit more "we've seen this before" even from filmmakers that are trying to do new things.
Case in point: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which is an anthology film, something you rarely see in film today (and honestly, it never REALLY had a heyday in film...it was always more of a television thing). The movie is watchable, but the script feels like it's struggling to connect these stories together, many of the tales coming across as incomplete, and not in the way you'd hope for. After all, short stories are supposed to give you a peak into a world you'd want to spend more time with, but with rare exception these tales don't do that, and I feel like the vignette appeal of the script is lost on me (and lost in general).
A Star is Born is another story that feels "seen this before," and partially that's because I have-I've seen many of the Star is Born iterations, and so I knew where this was headed. The modern touches in this movie don't work at all-it reads as tired to have Ally going on Saturday Night Live and for us to go back to this same well of "a star must rise, a star must fall." Honestly, even for the best parts of this movie (and there are decent things happening in A Star is Born, particularly Cooper's performance), it feels totally unnecessary, and the scriptwriters never justify its existence. It'd have been better if Gaga had just come out with a new album and left this overdone tale to rest.
If Beale Street Could Talk is far more urgent & necessary, bringing our first real taste of James Baldwin to the big-screen (the first English-language adaptation of his work). Barry Jenkins' followup to Moonlight gets so much right, and a lot of that is grounded in the way he approaches this script. The story is told in a nonlinear fashion, which gives off the appeal of almost a memory, where we remember the biggest things first & then move from there. If we're going to quibble, one could argue that the central character of Tish leaves too unknowable, which is part of the point (we're supposed to see this tale through her eyes), but it gives off the slight aura of a puzzle missing a couple of pieces, even if you can see what it would eventually turn into.
Can You Ever Forgive Me doesn't suffer from that central idea, even if it might start out that way. How to make Lee Israel, a bitter, difficult woman who is frustrated that the world has screwed her over, into someone that feels real-to-life (she's not going to become a different person by the end of the picture), but also gives us an authentic portrait of a complicated woman...that's a tall task. Holofcener pulls it off though (with help from her leading woman). This is a really smart script, one with a lot of bite & a bit unrelenting in how vicious life can be if you're single at a certain age without a support structure...you both sympathize with & understand the impact of Israel's crimes by the finale of the picture.
BlacKkKlansman is also a smart script. Spike Lee is always funny (the scenes with some of the KKK members, particularly some of the women in the group, are played for shocking humor), and though this comes with some hiccups (I didn't love the film, as I felt it was a bit too long & that some of Lee's easier sight gags toe-the-line between being repetitive & driving home a point), I enjoyed this. I also have to admit that the OVP is structured in a way that I only pick the best of that lineup, without any thought of whether someone was over or under-rewarded at that point (i.e. I may end up giving some legends no trophies and some others 6+ statues), but as the actual Oscars don't operate in such a bubble, getting Spike Lee a competitive Oscar was a correct decision by AMPAS even if he's not going to end up my choice here.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine their writing categories so there is no adapted or original distinction, and the only nominee that they picked that was adapted was If Beale Street Could Talk (which lost). BAFTA went with Spike Lee as their winner, and traded out Buster Scruggs in favor of First Man among its nominees. The WGA went with Can You Ever Forgive Me over this lineup save one (Buster Scruggs was skipped in favor of Black Panther). There's a lot of solid arguments for sixth place: Black Panther was a Best Picture nominee, First Man did well in tech awards which might have given it a home here...but I still wonder how close we got to Crazy Rich Asians getting this citation. I predicted it at the time, and sometimes the writing branch gets really into adaptations of books the Academy members actually had read (given the novel's bestseller status, that was the case here). Hard to tell (Black Panther makes more sense), but I do wonder if Crazy Rich Asians was closer than the precursors indicate.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, this was an underwhelming year for this category, but for sure First Man would've made the cut for me. Biopics are rarely that well-concentrated, and I love the way it made a universally-recognized figure so revealed.
Oscar's Choice: Light competition and his long status as an Oscar bridesmaid made Spike Lee not just a winner, but one that I would bet took a majority of the ballots.
My Choice: Like I said, the OVP is in a bubble, so I'm not thinking about if Lee is overdue or not, and under those criteria, this is Can You Ever Forgive Me for me, the most complete tale of the bunch. Follow that with Beale Street, BlacKkKlansman, Buster Scruggs, and A Star is Born.
Those are my thoughts-what about you? Is everyone of the mind that Spike Lee deserved this, or can I have any takers over with Nicole Holofcener? Are we finally done with A Star is Born remakes or is that a story that will never die? And was it Black Panther, First Man, or Crazy Rich Asians that was nipping on the heals of, let's face it, Buster Scruggs? Share your thoughts below!
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