Wrap it up: La La Land huge, but Moonlight triumphs to close out Oscars season

Writer-director Barry Jenkins celebrates onstage after his film Moonlight won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Even after a night of sleep, it’s still hard to fathom what went down at the Academy Awards yesterday evening. Writer-director Barry Jenkins’ brilliant, beautiful coming-of-age story Moonlight took home Best Picture after an absurd envelope mix-up led to the announcement of La La Land as winner initially. We talked about the error a lot last night in the immediate aftermath. Today, I want to shift the focus back to the awards and the winners.

The biggest question is how the awards prospects of La La Land were so badly misjudged. Now, make no mistake, Damien Chazelle’s musical romance was one of the night’s bigger winners, taking home six awards, but its haul was projected to be much greater. It was nominated by and won with essentially every industry guild where it was eligible. It was widely loved. It was a box-office smash. It looked unstoppable, so what caused it to stumble at the finish line?

The most likely answer is the preferential ballot. Voters are asked to rank the Best Picture nominees 1-9. The film with the fewest votes after the first round is eliminated, and the votes are redistributed to the No. 2 films on those ballots. This process is repeated until a movie ends up with 50 percent plus one vote. The victory of Moonlight suggests that it not only appeared No. 1 on a lot of ballots but was also many voters’ second- or third-favorite film of the bunch.

Let’s take a look at how the whole evening played out:

Picture & Director

Moonlight producers Jeremy Kleiner and Adele Romanski with Jenkins

This is the fourth year in the last five Picture and Director have split. Once seen as inseparable awards – of course if you directed the Best Picture, how could you not be the Best Director? – the preferential ballot and the expansion of the Best Picture lineup have created a schism. Now, it seems like the most audacious or breathtaking film from a technical standpoint wins Director, while the most important, best-told story wins Picture.

In each of the last four years featuring a split – Birdman took home both awards in 2014 – this dynamic holds true. In 2012, Argo, a well-made thriller about nations coming together in an act of quiet heroism, took picture, while Ang Lee won Director for the visually masterful Life of Pi. In 2013, 12 Years a Slave took home the top prize, for my money the greatest film ever to win Best Picture, while Alfonso Cuarón won Director for the technically astounding Gravity. Last year, Spotlight, the handsome drama about the team of journalists that uncovered the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, won Picture, while Alejandro González Iñárritu took director for the formally brilliant The Revenant.

This year repeats that same split. While I felt Jenkins was the more deserving winner, it is hard to argue with Chazelle’s accomplishment in bringing an old-school Hollywood musical firmly into the modern age while losing none of the classical charm. Chazelle is a star on the rise, and I cannot wait to see his next picture, based on the life of Neil Armstrong and starring Ryan Gosling as the first man on the moon. I imagine another visual feast, well told. It seems likely we will see him back at this ceremony.

Jenkins, meanwhile, should get a profound career boost from this. His first feature film, Medicine for Melancholy, was trending on Twitter this morning. I doubt many had heard of it prior to yesterday’s ceremony. Eight years went by between Jenkins’ first film and his second, Moonlight. If the industry is smart, we won’t have to wait eight years for his third. I doubt we will.

The acting categories

Casey Affleck wins Best Actor for Manchester by the Sea.

These went precisely as predicted – Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) for Best Actor, Emma Stone (La La Land) for Actress, Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) for Supporting Actor, and Viola Davis (Fences) for Supporting Actress. Ali and Davis knocked it out of the park with their heartfelt, moving speeches. Stone was gracious and humble, while Affleck just seemed in utter shock. One of the best crowd reaction shots of the night came in the image of two-time Oscar winner Ben Affleck crying tears of pride and joy as his younger brother reached the pinnacle of their profession.

The screenplays

Jenkins, who was not a nominated producer on Moonlight, won his only Oscar of the night for his adapted screenplay, an award he happily shared with Tarell Alvin McCraney on whose play the film was based. Their speech was elegant, impassioned, and important. Another playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kenneth Lonergan earned Best Original Screenplay for Manchester by the Sea. It was a wonderful moment for Lonergan, and I know his was a victory many people wanted to see.

The crafts

Kevin O'Connell (center) wins his first Oscar from 21 nominations.

La La Land picked up four below-the-line awards, predictably winning both music categories, as well as Cinematography and Production Design. Elsewhere, the Academy spread the love at the expense of La La Land. Arrival surprised in Sound Editing, while Hacksaw Ridge pulled off a huge upset in Sound Mixing. Rarely do Best Picture-nominated musicals lose that award, or musicals in general when they are cited, but Kevin O’Connell finally made it up on the stage in another of the night’s best moments. The 21-time nominee is now an Oscar winner.

Hacksaw Ridge also picked up Editing, with the Academy falling in love once again with the big, flashy action sequences of a wartime action picture, and the Academy reaffirmed its love for costume designer Colleen Atwood, who seemed genuinely bowled over by winning her fourth award. It was the first Oscar for the Harry Potter series, as well. Suicide Squad won Makeup and Hairstyling, a deserved honor for the wonderful artists who went home with the award but a certification of Suicide Squad as perhaps one of the worst Academy Award-winning movies in history, certainly recent history. The Jungle Book’s Visual Effects win was well deserved for an overall underrated movie.

While I was of course pulling for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who seemed to be having a great time last night, in Original Song, it is hard to argue with a La La Land win. However, I do wish “Audition (The Fools Who Dream” had pulled ahead of winning composition “City of Stars.” “Audition” really is the film’s signature number. Composer Justin Hurtwitz won for both Song and Score, and Chazelle has to be happy his longtime buddy won for their collaboration.

Of the nine Best Picture nominees, three were shut out completely with Lion going 0-for-6, Hell or High Water 0-for-4, and Hidden Figures 0-for-3. La La Land led with six wins, while Moonlight finished second with three, all in above-the-line categories. Hacksaw Ridge and Manchester by the Sea each earned two awards, while Fences and Arrival went home with one apiece. No film outside the Best Picture lineup won multiple awards, which since the expansion of the category has been the norm.

Documentary, Foreign, Animated, the Shorts

Apart from Moonlight’s Best Picture victory, I was most overjoyed to see my No. 1 film of the year take home Best Documentary. Director Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America is a towering achievement and one of the finest examples of the form. I could not be happier for him and am so pleased the Academy saw fit to recognize this film’s monumental achievement.

Iranian-American astronaut Anousheh Ansari accepts on behalf of Asghar Farhadi.

While politics were front and center all night in host Jimmy Kimmel’s material, the speeches, and the films, nowhere were they felt more than in Best Foreign Language Film. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman brought home the gold, but the filmmaker chose not to attend the ceremony in protest and out of respect for his countrymen and peoples all over the world unfairly targeted by the U.S. president’s inhumane and frankly un-American immigration ban.

It is an open question whether the controversy raised the film’s profile in voters’ minds and made it the must-vote-for movie in the category over early frontrunner Toni Erdmann. The political climate, however, should take nothing away from Farhadi’s film, which is an astounding achievement, and its victory provided another of the night’s brightest moments. Iranian-American astronaut and entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari accepted the award on Farhadi’s behalf and read a speech from the filmmaker blasting the travel ban and exalting the shared humanity that defines us all.

Best Animated Feature was also a triumph for shared humanity with Zootopia, Disney’s fable about overcoming racism and prejudice, taking the award. Award co-presenter Mexican actor Gael García Bernal took the opportunity onstage to blast the proposed border wall, a politically charged moment that was perfectly in keeping with the evening’s theme.

Also keeping with the theme were wins by Sing for Live Action Short – a film about joining together to confront abuses of power – and The White Helmets for Documentary Short – another show of support by the Academy for the peoples of the Middle East. Meanwhile, Piper finally put Pixar back on the stage for Animated Short after a 15-year drought for the company. It is a truly great film, both as a technical marvel and a touching tale of parenthood.

The final analysis

Our last “final analysis” before we close the book on this Oscar season. It has been a tumultuous year, to say the least. World events have rightly overshadowed the cinema to some degree. I understand how for some it can be difficult to care about handing gold statues to mostly rich people, but for nearly half of American history, the movies have been there for us. Through two world wars, Vietnam, and Iraq. Through a Great Depression, a Black Monday, and a Great Recession. Through 20 presidential administrations and now a 21st. The movies aren’t going anywhere, and I don’t see anything wrong with celebrating that.

Moonlight is a wonderful winner, whose ultimate message of empathy is among the most important we could have in these trying times. I hope many more people discover this fantastic little film as a result of this award. Like 12 Years a Slave before it and Schindler’s List and Casablanca, its victory means something and will stand the test of time. The world is a disturbing place right now, filled with hate and fear and deep feelings of mistrust. Moonlight is a film that allows us to step into the world of another and love, not hate, embrace, not fear, and understand one another deeper than perhaps we could have before. In short, it is a perfect film for the here and the now.

La di da, la di da, La La … Moonlight: Best Picture winner stuns in more ways than one

Writer-director Barry Jenkins accepts the Academy Award for Best Picture for Moonlight.

I am still processing what I just saw. The erroneous announcement of La La Land as Best Picture will go down as the biggest gaffe in Academy Awards history. There can be none bigger. Moonlight is your Best Picture winner of 2016. It is the most deserving of the nominated films, and writer-director Barry Jenkins and his cast and crew earned their spot in the sun. But, wow, what a way to step into that moment.

Your heart just sinks for the producers of La La Land, particularly Jordan Horowitz, who was standing at the microphone, pouring his heart out in gratitude, and clutching his Oscar when that frankly shocking announcement took place. I cannot begin to imagine the heartbreak to have achieved your dream for nearly a full minute before it is dashed to pieces on a stage in front of 100 million viewers the world over. Horowitz was incredibly gracious, standing tall in the face of an impossible moment, and stating his pride at getting to hand the award over to such a remarkable film as Moonlight.

Best Picture presenter Warren Beatty’s explanation was both reasonable and confounding, leaving several questions, including how he ended up with the wrong card in his hands. Most importantly, though, the Academy has safeguards in place for just such an occurrence, so how did the folks behind the scenes allow the La La Land filmmakers onstage and almost completely through their speeches before correcting their mistake?

La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz shows the card naming Moonlight Best Picture.

It was an embarrassment of great magnitude for everyone but the artists involved. It stole away what would have been a truly stunning moment of victory for Moonlight, a moment that would have gone down as one of the greatest in recent Academy history, and turned it into a circus. We are not more than a half-hour removed from that moment as I type this, and it remains hard to understand what we witnessed. I am overjoyed for Jenkins and Moonlight, but I will not feel the full weight of the win until tomorrow, when the fog of this absurd ending hopefully will have cleared.

The shame is that this ceremony was on its way to being one of the best Oscars ceremonies in a long time. Jimmy Kimmel made for a wonderfully funny, self-effacing host, if not particularly fleet for an evening that ran just a tad long. The recurring gag with the snacks falling from the ceiling was delightful, and the trick of bringing in a busload of tourists for the most amazing surprise party in history was inspired.

The winners gave uniformly magnificent speeches that spoke to everyone across the world and delivered messages of love, hope, acceptance, and defiance in the face of oppression. In particular, Best Supporting Actress winner Viola Davis stole the show – at least until the evening was hijacked by a misplaced envelope. Wins for movies like The Salesman, The White Helmets, and O.J.: Made in America showed a streak of protest ran deep through these awards, and the power of their victories hopefully will outlast the memory of the only moment anyone will talk about tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Moonlight’s victory, even apart from its circumstances, was a genuine stunner, but there were indications throughout the night Damien Chazelle’s front-running Hollywood musical was vulnerable. The first came in when Colleen Atwood picked up her fourth career Oscar for Best Costume Design for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, beating out Mary Zophres’ work on La La Land. If Chazelle and Co. were going to sweep, it would have started there.

Next came the sound awards, which went to Arrival (Sound Editing) and Hacksaw Ridge (Sound Mixing). La La Land would have been a mild surprise in Sound Editing, but rarely do nominated musicals lose Sound Mixing. By that point, the presumed juggernaut was 0-for-3. The headline in the sound categories, though, really should be Kevin O’Connell, a winner for Hacksaw Ridge and no longer the record holder for most nominations without a win. On his 21st try, O’Connell finally made it onto the stage, and it was among the best moments of the night.

La La Land did not pick up its first award of the night until nearly two hours into the show for Best Production Design, but after losing Best Editing to Hacksaw Ridge, it felt like something might be in the air. A lot of movies with no realistic shot at the top prize were picking up awards that had been earmarked by most pundits, yours truly included, for La La Land. Meanwhile, Moonlight kicked off the proceedings with a well-deserved win for Mahershala Ali as Best Supporting Actor. Jenkins and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney later picked up Best Adapted Screenplay, while Chazelle lost Original Screenplay to Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea.

Viola Davis wins Best Supporting Actress for Fences.

Heading into the final four awards of the night, La La Land had gone just 4-for-10, bolstered by a pair of wins for Original Song and Original Score that were as good as preordained, though on this night, such impressions were proved foolish at best. However, when Chazelle picked up Best Director and Emma Stone Best Actress – in between Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) beat out Denzel Washington (Fences) at the wire for Best Actor – it felt like the musical was back on track.

Six awards in tow, La La Land was back and chugging its way to the big one, which it won ever-so briefly. Its train was not just derailed, though. It was a crash of epic proportions, and all the blame falls on the shoulders of the Academy. The group’s detractors will laugh and point, and the U.S. president, perhaps with nothing better to do with his time, will probably tweet derisively. There is no doubt Hollywood’s biggest night ended in unprecedented fashion, a manner that will overshadow, hopefully only in the short term, all the good that was accomplished.

In time, I hope the underlying truths of the evening will lodge better in the cultural consciousness than a poorly timed mistake. For roughly the first three hours and 35 minutes, the Oscars ceremony was a beautiful ode to connection and transcendence through art. It delivered a message of hope and inclusivity to peoples all over the world. The final 10 minutes were a colossal disaster, but the triumph of Moonlight as Best Picture of the year only reinforces the ideas of hope, tolerance, love, and acceptance that I will take away from the evening, scandal be damned.

For a full list of winners, click here.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

Best Director nominee Denis Villeneuve (left), with Amy Adams, on the set of Arrival.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival

More than any other award, Best Director feels like a coronation. It is the honor that says: Welcome to the club, you are one of us. Four of these men – and once again, they are all men, for the 85th time in 89 years – are first-time nominees in this category. An Oscar is the greatest encouragement the Academy can give, a promise from members they find value in your work and wish to support it.

For the fifth nominee, though, the only one in this group who is an Oscar winner already, a victory here would mean something far different. Gibson’s exile from the Hollywood mainstream was entirely of his own making. We are all familiar with the multiple vile, racist, misogynist outbursts that made him a pariah in cinema circles. His name will forever be attached to that ugliness, and even now, more than a decade later, the question remains whether we can forgive his trespasses. This nomination suggests an answer, but an Oscar win would be the definitive statement of forgiveness from a town that once loved him so.

Damien Chazelle for La La Land – The “it” director of the moment is Chazelle, whose blockbuster musical drama has taken Hollywood by storm and enchanted the movie-going public at a time in our culture when enchantment is in short supply. In some ways, this has felt preordained since Chazelle hit the scene with his Oscar-winning triumph Whiplash two years ago. Once that film took home three trophies, it was clear Chazelle was working firmly in the Academy’s wheelhouse. Fast forward to today, and that assessment looks as on point as ever.

None of the adulation is undeserved, as the 32-year-old wunderkind has demonstrated a remarkable facility for devising ingenious individual sequences and cobbling those moments into a wonderful whole. This is the biggest canvas he has had to paint on yet, and the result is, to borrow a word from the film’s advertising, magic. Combining technically masterful long-take musical numbers that leave audiences gaping in wonder with a story that is as much an ode to the artistic process as it is a romance, Chazelle crafts a film that feels both utterly original and achingly familiar. It is like a half-remembered dream to which you always wished to return, and Chazelle possesses the wizardry to take you there.

La La Land amazes with the sheer audacity of producing an old-school Hollywood movie musical for today’s world. It works because it plays equally well to dreamers and cynics, offering validation to the hopeful and disaffected alike. Chazelle puts his heart, soul, and every ounce of talent into this thing, and as long as Hollywood does not steal him away to make the next big superhero movie, it seems like he has much more of himself to give.

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight – If anyone were to challenge Chazelle for the prize, it would be Jenkins for a film that could not be more different from La La Land. You have never seen a movie like Moonlight. It is a coming-of-age tale that asks you to see yourself in someone who likely could not be more different from you. Few of us know firsthand the trials Little/Chiron/Black faces in his life, but Jenkins does, and through him, we are able to empathize with the character’s experience.

One would not think a moody, contemplative film about a world so far removed from most of us could be this engaging, this enthralling, and this magnificent. Moonlight, which is ultimately a film about subverting expectations, subverts the expectations of the audience. Perhaps you have heard it is sad or slow, or perhaps you believe it will not appeal to you. Well, it is not sad; on the contrary, it is quietly triumphant. Slow is a matter of patience and willingness, and no film is slow that is guided by as sure and steady hands as these. Whether it will appeal to you is simply a question of whether you are able to feel sympathy and understanding for someone not like yourself.

All of this is to say Jenkins has made a perfect film, and his greatest success is forcing the audience to meet him where he wants to go. This is not an easy film – no great art is – but it is a necessary, poignant reminder of the joys and sorrows of people we never see. Everything flows from Jenkins, who guides Moonlight along a path that is sometimes shocking in its honesty, often aching in its beauty, and always leading toward transcendence.

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea – Lonergan earned his master of fine arts degree in dramatic writing. He is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright. He is a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay, including this year for this film. It is safe to safe Lonergan is best known as a writer and, more than that, a writer of deeply humanistic dramas about finding connections in those closest to us. On this account, Manchester by the Sea is firmly within his wheelhouse.

What is not often spoken of is Lonergan the director, particularly as a guider of performances. Manchester by the Sea is the only film this year with three acting nominations to its credit, and yes, the performers are wonderful and talented, but it takes a specific kind of director to coax such tremendous work from a cast. Whatever that specific skill is, Lonergan is clearly possessed of it. This is most evidenced by the performance he draws out of young actor Lucas Hedges, who at 19 years old and in just his ninth big-screen appearance, sets a bar that will be hard to clear for his young peers.

The direction of the film is what one might call unfussy. Lonergan mostly hangs back and lets the words and performances do the heavy lifting, which is of course the right call for the material. When it comes time to show off, Lonergan and his able crew, including cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes, are more than game. But in a film about repressed emotions, it is Lonergan’s restraint as a director that reveals his ultimate strength.

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival – The Quebecois director has been making films for more than 20 years, but he has rocketed to fame in the last six or seven. After directing the Best Foreign Language Film nominee Incendies in 2010, he made the jump to big Hollywood features with Prisoners, which though I found it tiresome was highly regarded. He also made the critically adored mindbender Enemy and the popular, Oscar-nominated Sicario, which was released last year.

I have been in the minority on his films, finding them self-conscious, macho, and didactic – at least, his most recent few features. For me, Arrival is his first English-language feature truly worthy of the praise heaped upon it. Villeneuve directs the science-fiction epic like a low-key character study, letting the audience become invested in the plot through the people, not the action. There is some self-conscious flashiness here, but it feels of a piece with the story and the drama. Nothing is done simply for the sake of appearances.

Villeneuve, like Chazelle, is on his way up in the directing world, and he is already in post-production on the high-profile Blade Runner sequel Blade Runner 2049. He does not necessarily need the support or encouragement of the Academy, though I doubt he would reject it. Rather, this is an acknowledgement a filmmaker the Academy has had its eye on for a while now has made a film members simply adored.

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge – Finally, we arrive back at Gibson – Mel, to his fans and supporters – and the question of whether forgiveness is possible, necessary, or just. I am of two minds, though I have the luxury of so being since I was not among the many targets of Gibson’s hate-filled invectives. My belief as a fan of cinema and art in general is that great art is great art, regardless of who produced it. If we agree the populace votes with its wallets, I think I am in the majority here, considering the record sales for someone like Michael Jackson, among other examples. If Gibson has produced work worthy of praise, we should praise it, though that should in no way be construed as forgetfulness or forgiveness.

On the other hand, in the world today, perhaps the last thing we need is to reward a rich, white racist and misogynist. Just because this describes well the leader of the free(ish) world does not mean we must celebrate such traits elsewhere. No one can know what is in Gibson’s heart, whether it has truly changed or if he feels no genuine remorse whatsoever. What we can know is what he has said in the past, words which are well documented and unavoidable. I do not know the answer, and I do not believe anyone else does or even can. I am saying I cannot judge you for what you feel, whatever it may be.

My feelings are thus: As a director, Gibson’s work on dark, gritty action-thrillers – among which let us count The Passion of the Christ for simplicity’s sake – has always been superb. He has a brilliant instinct for where to place the camera for maximum tension and effect, and his sense of pace and energy is astounding. Hacksaw Ridge is wobbly in its opening passages, where Gibson seems unsteady in setting up his war story, but once the war story hits and Gibson is in his element, the action is unparalleled. I will not tell anyone what to feel about the actions of the man, but I must say the actions of the director are tremendous.

The final analysis

The La La Land train really does feel unstoppable at this point, and as the conductor of that speeding locomotive, Chazelle is likely to pick up this award. He would be the youngest Best Director winner in Academy history, edging out Norman Taurog, who was 32 years and 9 months when he won for Skippy in 1931. Of all the history La La Land can make on Oscar night, this bit seems most assured.

Will win: Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Should win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Should have been here: Pablo Larraín for Jackie

Tomorrow: Best Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay

Miles Teller (left) and JK Simmons star in the Best Picture-nominated Whiplash.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The nominees are:

American Sniper, written by Jason Hall

The Imitation Game, written by Graham Moore

Inherent Vice, written by Paul Thomas Anderson

The Theory of Everything, written by Anthony McCarten

Whiplash, written by Damien Chazelle

The Writers Guild of America hosted its annual awards ceremony Saturday night. For best original screenplay, the writers chose Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness’ The Grand Budapest Hotel, and for adapted, they chose Graham Moore’s The Imitation Game. This has a number of people picking those two films for the same awards at the Oscars. Though it is certainly possible, the outcome is by no means a sure thing.

While the writers’ branch of the Academy does not have the same kind of eligibility issues as the music branch has shown, the Writers Guild has some very specific guidelines for what can and cannot compete for its awards. Every year, these guidelines prevent a number of top contenders from competing against each other, making the Writers Guild awards a poor bellwether at best.

Recent history shows missing out with the Writers Guild means little when it comes to the Academy Awards. Just last year, John Ridley won the Oscar for adapting 12 Years a Slave, despite not being eligible with the Writers Guild. Two-time Academy Award winner Quentin Tarantino has never competed at the Writers Guild. The point being: It is a nice feather in the cap for a contender, but it is hardly a golden ticket to the Dolby Theater stage.

As with Best Original Screenplay, a little Best Picture heat does not hurt an Adapted Screenplay contender, and four of the five nominees this year are in the mix for the top prize. None is a likely threat to win Best Picture, but the heat is enough. The fifth nominee, the most deserving and least likely winner, is a beloved auteur whose film did not do as well with the Academy as it might have, but his films rarely do.

Overall, I would call this a fairly weak category this year – not because this is the worst lineup I have ever seen but because the two most likely winners are middling films about British science geniuses that almost completely ignore science, one is a terrible script that was turned into a passable movie by a great director, the best film and script in the lineup is the least likely winner, and the last nominee comes from a brilliant script that has no business in this category because it is most certainly an original screenplay and not an adaptation.

The Theory of Everything – McCarten made an interesting choice in deciding to adapt the memoir of Stephen Hawking’s first wife, Jane Hawking, rather than a more conventional biography of the famed mathematician. The shift in perspective is an intriguing direction for such a film, but due to the obvious interest Stephen Hawking’s life draws, McCarten is forced to straddle the line between telling a story about a world-renowned theoretical physicist and the scientist’s long-suffering wife. McCarten is intermittently successful.

One wishes he had committed fully to telling Jane Hawking’s unique story of love, strength, and perseverance rather than attempting to combine her story with her husband’s. What results is a biopic about Stephen Hawking that seems strangely more interested in his relationship than with his world-changing science. McCarten is clearly a talented writer, and for what he was attempting, the screenplay has a loose, natural feel to it. It would have been nice to see what McCarten could have done had he focused solely on Jane Hawking.

The Imitation Game – From one film about a brilliant man to another film with similar issues, Moore zeroes in on the events of Alan Turing’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) life around World War II and his part in cracking the German enigma code. Spoilers for those who do not know their history, but Turing cracks the code and helps win the war. It is a thrilling story about one man’s mathematical and technical genius saving the lives of millions. Unfortunately, nowhere in the film are we shown the process of Turing’s work. We must simply take it on faith that he is a genius. Turing says as much in the film.

It is a structural mess, bouncing around from the war to Turing’s childhood to his final years, when he was persecuted by the British government for his homosexuality. While the film wants to make a larger point about that persecution, it treads so lightly around the issue of Turing’s sexuality that it undercuts its message of tolerance by fearing the audience might not be tolerant of a gay war hero. I said as much in my review that there is a great film to be made from telling Turing’s life story. This is not it, and much of the fault lies in Moore’s lacking screenplay.

Whiplash – I love Whiplash, and Chazelle’s script absolutely shines. It is sharp, funny, and insightful in ways that few others are. It is also wholly original. Due to a weird quirk in the eligibility guidelines brought to light during the nominating process, Chazelle’s script was forced to compete in the Adapted Screenplay category rather than Original, where it rightly belongs. You can read more about it here, but the short version is that Chazelle filmed a scene from the feature script as a proof of concept to raise money to make the film. Though the “short” came from Chazelle’s original screenplay, the Academy rules dictate the feature is an adaptation of the short. It makes no sense, but here we are.

Luckily, the error did not cost Chazelle a well deserved nomination, despite being caught long after nominating ballots were already in hand. Chazelle is a fierce young talent, and any recognition his film gets has been hard earned. Whiplash is a complex portrait of two obsessives that does not paint either as a villain or a hero. Chazelle’s script refuses to hold the audience’s hand through a dizzying series of power reversals and shifting sympathies that builds to a stunning climax. It is magnificent work that will hopefully give Chazelle the capital to continue making films.

American Sniper – I actually enjoyed American Sniper quite a bit. It is a well made action picture with a great central performance that manages to thrill while making engaged audiences think. Its script, however, is the least of its virtues. I would go so far as to say the film succeeds in spite of its script, and though director Clint Eastwood makes the most of what he is given, he does not start out with much. Eastwood famously does not interfere with the screenplays he chooses, shooting more or less the story that is on the page. While the final product is a good war film, Hall’s script would have benefited from a more authorial director.

Hall is to be commended for attempting to insert important questions about the war on terror and the nature of heroism, but the ham-fisted way he does so is to the film’s overall detriment. Too often, Hall has characters come out directly and state the themes of the film rather than allowing his ideas to develop organically through the plot. The film is structurally boring, as well, based as it is around Chris Kyle’s (Bradley Cooper) four tours in the Middle East. He falls into a pattern of home, deployed, home, deployed, etc., that becomes tiresome about halfway through the film.

Inherent Vice – Seeing Anderson in this group of writers is a bit like playing “One of these things is not like the other things.” While the other four nominees have a total of 12 feature screenplays among them, Anderson has written and directed seven features, each the brilliant vision of a once-in-a-generation auteur. Anderson has been nominated for six Academy Awards in his career, four for writing, one for directing, and one for producing his Best Picture-nominated There Will Be Blood. He will win an Oscar one day, but it will not be for this film.

I wish, however, that he were in the conversation because this is masterful work. Inherent Vice was one of my top 10 films of the year, and almost all of the credit for the film’s tremendous artistic success goes to Anderson. He adapted a basically unfilmable Thomas Pynchon novel into a stunning masterpiece that is as much a stoner comedy as it is a poignant examination of the death of the hippie dream. No one writes films like Anderson because no one takes the chances he does. His films, up to and including Inherent Vice, have always been as challenging as they are entertaining, and he will get his Oscar due – just not this time.

The final analysis

The two British biopics will probably duke this one out to the end. While The Imitation Game won the Writers Guild award, The Theory of Everything was not eligible. When these two films did go head to head at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards, McCarten came away the winner. Of course, the BAFTA win comes with the caveat that three years running, the Academy has gone a different direction in this category than its British counterpart.

Chazelle could swoop in at the last minute and take this as well if the love for Whiplash runs as deep as its Best Picture nomination suggests. Whiplash has yet to go up against any of these films as it has competed in the best original category at every other awards show. It should be a fun fight to the finish, and we will not know the winner until the envelope is opened.

Will win: The Theory of Everything

Should win: Inherent Vice

Wish it had been here: A Most Wanted Man