Oscars 2014: If We Picked The Winners (Best Adapted Screenplay)

1. Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater - Before Midnight

I feel somewhat guilty placing Before Midnight as the should-be Oscar winner of Best Adapted Screenplay, because it seems a bit like cheating. Unlike the other four nominees in the category, Before Midnight is almost an entirely original story developed from the minds of its three writers: co-stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, and the director Richard Linklater. The third film in their real-time relationship series, the only restriction placed on Delpy, Hawke, and Linklater were their characters pasts that had been played out in the previous two films. Other than that, they could go wherever the wanted, unlike the other writers nominated who were strictly adapting stories of real peoples lives as laid out in their memoirs or biographical equivalents. It's a bit weird that simply because the characters have been established in previous films, even though the story itself is wholly original, the Academy considers Before Midnight to be an "adaptation", but that is their decision on how to treat sequels. Doesn't make much sense, but it's the way it is. Despite then whatever advantage Before Midnight may or may not have over its competition due to the Academy's awkward categorization, it is a fantastic screenplay, so I can't feel too badly for rewarding it. The film's continuation of the epic yet familiar relationship between Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jessie (Ethan Hawke), Before Midnight takes place nine years after the events of Before Sunset. After reigniting their relationship in Before Sunset, we find out that Jessie left his wife to be with Celine, and now the couple have two twin daughters of their own. Vacationing in Greece, we watch as Celine and Jessie deal with the realities of their now old hat relationship and how or if they can come to a new understanding of one another under much less romantic circumstances than their whirlwind beginnings. As with the the previous two Before films, Before Midnight is essentially an extended conversation between two characters, so in other words, a writer's dream picture. However, too often films with prolific amounts of dialogue are considered "good writing" while films with sparse amounts of dialogue are somehow considered inferior. This is an utter fallacy, for writing a screenplay amounts to much more than putting words in the characters mouths, as elements such a narrative, arc, subtext, theming, and structure and pacing, which are not associated with writing as often as they should be (although admittedly the director and editor can have a big effect on these elements as well), are essential to a good screenplay and, ultimately, a good movie. In the case of Before Midnight though, the kudos for the film's script are truly deserved, not simply because there is so much conversation in the movie, but because how fascinating and resonating the dialogue is. Always the armchair philosopher, Richard Linklater's films often contain philosophical suppositions that are like heroin to the amateur philosopher (the ultimate example of this being Waking Life, where Celine and Jessie make cameo appearances), and Before Midnight is no different. Particularly in the early sections of the film, when Celine and Jessie are part of a larger conversation among friends and the conversations veer from any number of topics that range from the philosophical to Jessie's ideas for his next book, the dialogue is pure gold, as the film sustains itself on nothing other than top rate conversational dialogue. As the film wears on and Celine and Jessie are isolated, the film becomes about relationships again, and the difficulty of maintaining a healthy one as reality begins to set in and fantasy starts to fade. By the end, the argument gets rather nasty and cutthroat, and while this "realism" seems to be what the critics responded to most, I think the film overdoes it a bit and tries too hard to bring home the point (running into some of the same issues as the similarly themed Blue Valentine). However, the film is never less than engaging, primarily because of its script, and although my personal favorite film (and script) of the trilogy is Before Sunrise, which is the most overtly cinematic of the three films, Before Midnight still stands as quite the achievement. There simply aren't very many people who could or would write a screenplay such as Before Midnight, and for this I think that among the nominees, Before Midnight is most deserving of Best Adapted Screenplay.