The Film Experience

Team Experience is discussing each Oscar category as we head into the precursors. Here's Eric Blume and Nick Taylor to talk Best Original Screenplay...

Portrait of Nick and Eric discussing the Best Original Screenplay race

ERIC: Hi Nick, we have some great options in the Original Screenplay category this year. It feels like there's two guarantees for a nomination: Greta Gerwig's Barbie (unless it changes categories and is nominated for Adapted instead) and David Hemingson's The Holdovers. I like both of those pictures enormously, and both films succeed largely on the words and structure of their screenplays. The Holdovers is essentially out of a Screenwriting 101 class, in the best way possible, in that it has all the classic elements (inciting incident, minute 30 turn, minute 60 turn, etc.) that scripts are built upon, but Hemingson executes everything very artfully so it feels satisfying rather than him hitting points...

Gerwig is a tricky case: it's absolutely because of her overall conception of the Barbie world that the entire thing works, and of course because she was able as director to be the person to bring that conception off the page and onto the screen, it's easy to underestimate how strong the script is. It's got so many jokes and pithy corners. Hot take that’s perhaps not that hot: I will say that I think America Ferrera's big monologue is a bit overrated, not really full of any new ideas, but yes, distilled dramatically into a very fun, intelligent run. But we’ve seen all of that before, certainly.

What is your take on what are our two arguably lead candidates here?

NICK: Hello Eric! It's so nice to be doing another Volley with you.

I like a lot of the films hovering in contention for Original Screenplay, though I would not call The Holdovers a pet favorite. Payne's direction is absolutely part of the problem here - he makes the Screenwriting 101 plot beats and character arcs feel even more mechanical, and he doesn't coax out enough creativity or lived experience in the world or the cast to goose the script with any kind of organic feeling. But even on its own terms, I didn't buy the directions Hemingson took with these well-worn archetypes, let alone enjoy them. In particular, Mary Lamb's status as a supporting character feels entirely rooted in Hemingson not knowing her well enough to delve into her history the way we're continuously handed incidents that show us more and more about the stranded, petulant student and the smug, petulant teacher she's stuck with. Enough folks love this movie for me to recognize I'm in the minority on this, but I'm gonna be very annoyed if The Holdovers becomes the de facto frontrunner in this category.

Nick and Eric like Barbie's script a lot! Look at us singing its praises!

Barbie, now there's a movie! I agree that Gerwig's direction is arguably even more successful as a realization of this world than her writing is at conceiving. I love how many ideas it has about gender and personhood and finding out who you can possibly be amidst some of the most rigid standards for identity imaginable, enveloped as they are by an incredible number of jokes and slightly more musical numbers and ghost inventors than I was expecting. Not every supporting role or narrative pile-up feels as neatly explored as it could've been, but the cumulative build of zany, human mess and creative play is really impressive. To me, putting it as an Original Screenplay rather than Adapted like most films based on pre-existing properties reads mostly as a strategic choice from Warner Bros so Barbenheimer can clean up both screenplay categories. I'm not against its categorization, but right now I have it in my Adapted lineup.

Outside of those two, the rest of the field has a pretty eclectic set of options. There's a lot of odd ducks poised to either receive several key nominations or miss entirely. Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, May December, Saltburn, The Iron Claw, Asteroid City - which films stand out to you of this group, for better or worse?

ERIC: Nick, sounds like you're gonna have a rough winter, since The Holdovers is indeed winning a lot of the early screenplay awards! I feel your pain...I'm still not over CODA (arguably a bad screenplay, or a good afterschool special at best) won the Oscar over four far superior scripts.

Your list of other candidates feels like the most likely for nominations. There's one I'd love to discuss with you at length: May December. This film is incredibly divisive, people who I think will love it can't stand it and vice versa. I'm in the love camp, and while I think what truly makes the film special is Hayne's purposefully multi-tonal direction, Hayes is of course a writer himself and is really just leaning into the text. One of the things that I love about the script is how Samy Burch slowly (very slowly) reveals information to us. We hear Gracie's lawyer talk about how she had no concept of going to prison, then of course we find out via Gracie's letter to Joe that she fully understood what was going on, of course, and the entire conception of the Gracie character as a calculating monster is so carefully constructed. Even the way we find out about Elizabeth Berry's TV show. We get the byte about "operating on an elephant" and then we hear the hilarious title of the show...NORAH'S ARK. It's the kind of promo you see on CBS, where it's a woman named Norah...who is a veterinarian...please god no, it won't be called NORAH'S ARK...and then IT IS. Even the comedy comes in slowly-revealed moments. This script could have fallen apart without a director as adept and brilliant as Haynes, but since he highlights Burch's writing in such bold and provocative ways, you see all its strengths. I just kind of love Haynes for "getting" Burch's script in a way possibly nobody else might have.

Where are you in the May December camp, before we get to other potential nominees?

Oh goodness, we put on the same outfits to write this volley. Nobody mention it. We know

NICK: I was gonna start with some schaudenfraude about The Holdovers missing Best Screenplay at the Globes, but it took me a little longer to realize May December is hunkering down abandoned with it in boarding school. In truth, I don’t love May December the way I do a lot of Haynes’ other films, even as your description makes me believe I’d get more out of it on rewatch. It’s in a Power of the Dog place for me, where I’ll be tremendously happy for all the laurels this’ll get folks to throw at a wildly inventive auteur I’ve worshipped for years even if it’s absolutely not my favorite of their filmography.

I love the slow reveal of information you describe, and the fairly successful way it juxtaposes a lot of almost hilariously mundane interactions and dynamics with the inherent perversity of Gracie and Joe’s life. Yes, it’s profoundly weird that your husband looks more like an older sibling than the father of his actual children, but that still leaves room for you to body-shame your daughters and have very strong opinions about how to bake a pie. Being able to quietly transmit key details about a tangled life is as impressive as its more bold-faced notes of luridness and comedy, yet the script never feels like it’s complicit in the rubbernecking or sin tourism or mile-a-minute excuse-making we see others participate in. Sometimes it feels like the movie is telling you a bit too overtly how to watch it with scenes like Portman’s trip to the high school, and I don’t think it finds exactly the right balance of time spent on its three leads and their different arcs. Even so, Burch’s script is ambitious and funny, and it’s a damn good debut. I’m excited to see what she does next.

One script that did get nominated at the Globes is Past Lives, which registers as something of a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t sure if it would be too indie for their radar, but it showed up pretty goddamn well. I already did a whole piece about what I find elegant and underfed about Song’s film and her script, but what do you think about it, Eric?

We were so excited for PAST LIVES making a splash with the Globes that we threw up on the merry-go-round!

ERIC: Past Lives is one of those films that could go either way with Oscar...scoring big with multiple nominations, or falling short. But it won't fail in this category...the writers who nominate here will fully understand Celine Song's accomplishment with this script, building characters not only devoid of cliche but filled with depth and intelligence, where the writing is so specific that it sets herself up as a director to be elusive in the most powerful way. The scene between Greta Lee and John Magaro is as beautifully written as any onscreen moment this year, capturing the exact feel of how couples sound when they lie in bed together and slowly let down their guard. Song's script is grounded by lyrical, and it doesn't strain for profundity: she lets the layers of meaning accumulate gradually and honestly. The category makes zero sense if this screenplay is excluded.

I'm feeling Anatomy of a Fall scoring here too. Justine Triet and Arthur Harari would deserve it even if they had just delivered it as a crackerjack court movie. The writing in the court scenes is incredibly compelling on mainstream movie terms. But of course the script is so much more, and it truly does "put marriage on trial" as they've said somewhere in interviews. There's no way any married human watches that movie without feeling the dread, stress, and pain of having their own marriage under that sort of microscope, and the writing is unrelenting in its mercilessness. Just when you think they can't hammer away at Sandra Huller's character any further, these writers keep going. The beauty of the script is that while our main character is "stripped bare" in some ways, she remains cagey and unknowable, questioning the human capacity for performance and cover, and the infallibility of truth. If tackling all that doesn't merit a nomination, I don't know what does.

What are your thoughts on Anatomy? What else do you feel sticks out as our strongest candidates?

Nick and Eric face the French tundras to learn if Anatomy of a Fall can pull out the win

NICK: Anatomy of a Fall is my favorite of the contenders by a pretty solid margin. It's a great dissection of marital, judicial, and familial discourses, flaying open the contradictory or inexplicable actions of its characters while laying bare so much unhappiness and smothering compromise. For my money, it does the best job of any of these scripts at being "about" what it says it'll be about, while also offering equally rich stories outside of the opening logline. It's an incredibly tricky film about language and compromise, where the more boldfaced ideas about couplehood and public/private skewering are emboldened and underlined by the less foregrounded but equally essential notions surrounding them, There's a whole, riveting story thread on Sandra's half-blind son Daniel that a lesser film would reduce to a deus ex witness or enfeebled victim/reactor, where his testimony becomes so painfully important to whether his mother will be exonerated or imprisoned for his father's fate. Just as Sandra is so fully exposed without making her reveal her actions, Daniel is forced to either report damning information about his parent's lives or lie to make sure the court ultimately makes his desired outcome. The script shows what a terribly painful situation he's in while allowing him some privacy about his exact motivations. I would love for Triet and Harari to win the Oscar, and the high probability of them making the nomination list is so exciting.

Beyond these five films, I'm not sure how much more I have to say about the likely contenders for Original Screenplay. As of this dialogue I haven't seen Maestro, though it doesn't seem like Cooper's script is being singled out for praise on the same level as his acting and directing. Air is an entirely vapid proposition, and I think Saltburn's big "reveal" ending scatters whatever alternately potent and embarrassing goodwill it earned from me til then. I wonder about Asteroid City or The Iron Claw sneaking into the field, as well-received projects which might have a hard time getting into crowded fields, but that might also mean they'll have a hard time getting in here. Are there any other films you'd want to shout out as unlikely possibilities, or do we want to go straight to naming faves and predicting Oscar's choices?

Nick and Eric assume the position to deliver their predictions

ERIC: Just a quick meniton for both Maestro and Saltburn. There are wonderful things about both pictures, but their scripts aren't one of them. Maestro is not specific on a lot of details that are crucial in understanding the central relationship...Bernstein's at-best-bisexuality, and how that works within the marriage, is given painfully short shrift, a disappointment since the relationship is so inherently interesting. But the script is awfully vague about the details. Saltburn starts off so strong, but around the midway point, Emerald Fennell stops developing her ideas. When they arrive at Saltburn, it becomes a thriller mostly about class issues, when she's set up so many fascinating ideas in the first half of the picture.

My predictions for nominations, in likelihood of landing a nod, are:

BARBIE
THE HOLDOVERS
PAST LIVES
ANATOMY OF A FALL
MAY DECEMBER

How about you?

NICK: I’m going to be incredibly risky here and completely agree with your predictions. I wouldn’t have them in the same order, but saying Barbie and Anatomy of a Fall are locks while Past Lives, The Holdovers, and May December are very likely without feeling absolutely ironclad is splitting the thinnest of hairs. If one of those miss or Barbie is deemed an Adapted Screenplay, I’ll peg The Iron Claw as the next slot, because why not.

As far as personal champions with not a single chance of being nominated, Saeed Roustaee’s Law of Tehran (originally released as Just 6.5) is maybe my favorite script of the year. A 2019 festival circuit player that finally got distribution this year, Roustaee’s script follows a police officer trying to hunt down a notorious drug kingpin, threatening and interrogating a daisy-chain of dealers, enforcers, and associates until he can get his hands on this shadowy figure who’s plagued Tehran for years. The script surveys a pretty extraordinary scope of corruption and morality across national, generic, and character-specific registers without turning anyone into a flat stand-in for Iran’s turmoils. Every role emerges as a layered, complicated personality, every conflict and relationship fraught with years of baggage despite every character moving and plotting through life on a moment-to-moment basis. This is as much a credit to Roustaee’s directing and collaboration with his actors, but the script is a doozy on its own terms.

What about you, Eric? Which original screenplay would you recommend to me and the folks reading this? Oh, and since we’re closing shop on this conversation soon, lemme take a second to say THANK YOU for being such a fun conversation partner, and for setting up these Oscar Volleys in the first place.

ERIC: I think our dive was deep! I’m not rooting for anything more strongly than the films we discussed. I’m sure someone will yell at us for something in the comments! Thanks for being such a smart sparring partner!

Nick, Eric, and Iranian superstar Peyman Mooadi wait in grizzled terror to see what will unfold in the comments