One Category at a Time: Original Screenplay

This category seems pretty up in the air if you ask me. With neither of the two strongest Best Picture nominees in contention here, it feels as though this prize could go a few different ways. A similar situation arose last year when Django Unchained, Amour, and Zero Dark Thirty all seemed to have an angle in this race because none of them had a hope of actually winning Best Picture (whose highest contenders were adaptations). I can also envision three of this year's nominees as potential winners, so let's start with the one I am picking (with trepidation) for the win.

Review - Nebraska

How do you define the essence of a man who's no longer here? No longer here in a mental sense, that is. Alexander Payne and veteran character actor Bruce Dern venture to do just that in Nebraska. As a character study about a somewhat tragic figure nearing the end of life's journey, it is rife with fascinating nuance, although not without expense to the story it tells on the surface.

Woody Grant (Dern) is a millionaire. Or so he believes. The letter he received in the mail clearly tells him that he's a “winner”, and failing to recognize the blatant scam, he sets out on foot from his home in Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his million dollars in person. Surely, any reasonable kin would agree that the time has come to put Woody in a home, but his son David (Will Forte) has other thoughts. Much to the chagrin of his harried mother (June Squibb) and his older brother (Bob Odenkirk), David plays along with his dad's delusion, agreeing to drive the stubborn codger to Lincoln until Woody accepts the reality of his quest. Stopping over in Woody's hometown – the depressed community of Hawthorne – gives some old family and friends a chance to catch up, but word about his money luck starts to get out of hand.