Oscar 2013 - Adapted Screenplay

I'm not in a very good mood. But I said that it might be productive to "release" some nerves in writing, so I've decided to risk an entry that I usually avoid. Reason 1: it's probably gonna be boring because for scripts I'm not in the mood and I don't have the patience anyway to search any exemplifying clip = what follows is just text. Reason 2: it's hard to evaluate a script when you don't have the script in front of you, and I don't have the patience to search online and look through them. So I'm going to resume to a general impression, a bit of intuition, and to the adapted category (because for the original I didn't have time to see all the nominations). So .. let's get to business ...

Jack O'Donnell: If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus.

"Argo" is an adaptation based on an autobiographical book and on a magazine article having as subject a 1979 rescue operation of a group of employees from the U.S. embassy of Teheran. How did that end up as a movie subject .. well .. probably it candidates somewhere to a top 10 (if not even higher) as "eccentricity" of such an action. Sufficiently to look like a fiction movie, and not like a real case. If the subject is not known already, in brief the mentioned exfiltration (to use some "technical" terms) was done under the cover of a fake film production crew that was supposedly looking for a filming location in Orient. Crew that had a movie title, a Hollywood producer, press coverage, and even .. a script. At a first sight the story might look like a gift for a subject to adapt, but you realize that's not that simple when you compare the movie with the trailer that's much more alert. In the movie you don't have as much action as you may be tempted to believe, but the adaptation is done in such a way that it doesn't create unnecessary lengths. So I've been a bit surprised by the script's tempered tone, but it's fine, because it stays believable for most of its length - and that's the purpose after all. And to this you can add also that there isn't much cliche compared with what you might find in an U.S. production with an obvious patriotic feel (and an example for that is somewhere below). To conclude, for me it looks to be the script with the highest chances to get an Oscar here. Although, subjectively, I would also pay attention to another one ...

Hushpuppy: I see that I am a little piece of a big, big universe, and that makes it right.

"Beasts of the Southern Wild" would probably qualify as the most original script in the adaptations section, given that the adaptation is of a play written by one of the screenwriters. To summarize, what we have here is the story of a 7 years old girl from a poor community, living in an improvised shack somewhere in the Louisiana bayou swamps. Without giving much detail, the movie is a drama focused on a early coming of age, the script being mostly made of a monologue of the main character. A monologue that I assume that wants to sound like having a high degree of philosophical depth. Well, I guess it's really up to each viewer to appreciate that .. I, personally, am a bit hard to impress lately :) And for the rest of the script .. I doubt that it rises up to the level of others around here.

Pi Patel: So which story do you prefer?
Writer: The one with the tiger. That's the better story.

"Life of Pi" is a subject that I've discussed before. And talking about philosophical depth, although it might look slightly more superficial, the essence is much deep that the previous title - mostly because the movie has lots of parts that can be interpreted in various ways. I think it's pretty clear that I would like for this one to get an Oscar here. As a support for the claim, technically speaking a script's value doesn't come only from the character lines but also from the context and the situation description. However, for this particular case, I tend to believe that for the movie's central part which is heavily context-based = the tiger interaction, surviving in the boat, etc .. the merit for how these came out is mostly the director's and less of the script. And if we look at the script we probably have as much monologue as in the previous title, and that's a bit of a downside after all regarding the complexity, even if is more quantitatively speaking. Not to say that here we also have a success novel as a base (which actually has some inspiration in another novel). So, as much as I liked the movie, if I would be objective ...

Abraham Lincoln: I am the president of the United States of America, clothed in immense power! You will procure me those votes!

"Lincoln" is pretty self-explaining in order to jump quickly over the subject. It's based mostly on a book analyzing the political activity of the American president and is centered on the times close to the Civil War end. More exactly the central subject is the addition of the slavery abolition to the U.S. constitution. Very good as history lesson :) As script though, we have a typical Spielberg production = nice, for all the ages, with a ton of cliche in it .. So, really, "ending spoiler" - if the script would have stopped at the moment when Lincoln left for the theater where he was assassinated, scene shot and edited beautifully .. I would have been less acid. But it really needed another chunk of patriotic speech and cliche afterwards too. Well, I assume that a certain public likes this. I really prefer more discrete references even when dealing with major historical characters (did I say the scene was beautifully shot and edited ? ... that was enough). About the rest, I have to admit that a plus point of the script is the English used in the lines that's adapted to the period. But still .. the ton of cliche .. and for the Oscar I'm really worried about the quote in the beginning, in case the reference wasn't clear enough :)

Tiffany: You let me lie to you for a week?
Pat: I was trying to be romantic.


"Silver Linings Playbook" is closing the today's list. Since this entry is already too long (even I'm getting sleepy), let's be short: it's a romantic comedy (with some drama inside) - adaptation of a novel. Adaptation in which I really don't see anything to give something special to the script. The lines are ok, the movie rolls on pleasantly, but I don't know what would separate it from other genre production in terms of script, especially since it's not an original one. That's pretty much all about it; will discuss the subject some other time; it's late :)