The Academy's judgment that
Moonlight and
Loving be considered adaptations certainly thinned things out in this field (while I normally don't hold myself to taking Oscar's cues, it appears in both cases to be have been a reasonable decision), but on the plus side it freed me up to welcome a bubble contender or two into the fray. My five favourite
Original Screenplays of the year are:
20TH
CENTURY WOMEN (Mike Mills)
Though not much happens in terms
of plot, Mills' prose is invisibly detailed.
No script this year has a
clearer understanding of its characters, and how to present them.
HELL
OR HIGH WATER (Taylor Sheridan)
Sharply
operates on multiple levels as political parable, masculine satire,
and exploration of the power dynamics between oppressors and the
oppressed;
A marked improvement over Sicario.
JACKIE
(Noah Oppenheim)
Takes a unique approach to
biography. Tells an intimate yet public story as a chronological
Rubik's cube that constantly challenges its audience to reconsider
previous scenes with new context.
THE LOBSTER (Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou)
Your mileage may vary on how funny you think this dry dystopic satire really is, but it gets big points for originality (a virtue that should never be overlooked in this day and age).
SING
STREET (John Carney, Simon Carmody)
An incorrigible crowd-pleaser
that owes as much to the warm, authentic humour of its characters and
tight narrative structure as it does to its songs.
Other considerations:
Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)
The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig)
La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
Zootopia (Jared Bush, Phil Johnston et.al.)
