My Award nominations: Adapted Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, Robert Harris):
The script, cowritten by Polanski and novelist Robert Harris, is smart and ironic. Their style is simple and unfettered by needless genre tropes. The characters are written consistently with economical and effective dialogue. All around, a chilling and intelligent exercise in constructing tension.

Never Let Me Go (Alex Garland):
The film as a whole may have gone down as an admirable miss, but Garland's adaptation of Kuzuo Ishiguro's book is an elegant study of character and theme; themes about mortality, the intangibility of love, and how in the grand scheme of things, the amount of time we spend on this earth cannot quantify the lives we lead.

Rabbit Hole (David Lindsay-Abaire):
Lindsay-Abaire opens up his Pulitzer-winning play for the screen so effectively that you never would have guessed that it was based on a play. Understated grief and tactful humour mix to form an interesting emotional flavour. A fine study of not only coping with loss, but coping with other people's coping.

The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin):
If the movie has to belong to anyone, it's Aaron Sorkin. His loose adaptation of
Ben Mezrick's book slices through the perceived glory of the Internet with a cynical but perspicacious edge, extrapolating from a small group of characters to make comment on broader societal virtues and faults. The dialogue is deliciously verbose.

True Grit (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen):
Despite the conspicuous absence of their usually idiosyncratic personality, the Coens' faithful retelling of Charles Portis' novel provides a rip-roaring adventure tale with smooth character arcs, well-appointed comic relief, and delighfuly antiquated dialogue. Impeccably paced to boot.

Just missed: The American, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, The Town, The Way Back

Review - The Ghost Writer

Flying under the radar this year is Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, a slow-burning political thriller with intrigue to spare.

Ewan McGregor plays an acerbic writer hired to ghost write the memoirs of a retired British PM (Pierce Brosnan) at his seaside home in America. After a few puzzling discoveries, he begins uncovering secrets that reveal an unsettling truth, naturally putting him in a position of peril.

The script cowritten by Polanski and the novelist Robert Harris is smart and ironic. Polanski's style is simple and unflourishy, calling basically on the fine performances (and occasionally Alexandre Desplat's stringy score) to ease tension out of this gradual film. McGregor and Brosnan are both strong, while Olivia Williams provides the best turn as the former PM's suspiciously icy wife. The setting and production design add nicely to the chilly atmosphere.

Unfortunately, having flown beneath the radar most of the year, I can't imagine The Ghost Writer will earn any Oscar recognition. Pity, as consideration for Best Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Williams) would be most welcome.

*** out of ****

Best of the Decade #5: The Pianist (2002)

Drawing on his own experiences in war-torn Poland, mastermind Roman Polanski gives us a riveting story of survival told from the point of view of a Polish Jew during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. It's the famed director's most personal film to date, and marks a soul-rending feat of naturalistic and emotionally naked direction.

Making the most of a terrific sound design and some outstanding photography, Polanski puts us right in the shoes of Wladyslaw Szpilman (very well played by Adrian Brody) has he escapes the Warsaw ghetto by virtue of his cunning and the aid of his friends. Polanski's smartest decision is to not linger too long or deeply in the politics and history of WWII, but to keep focus on the story of Szpilman, his family's ordeal, his ordeal, and his miraculous survival. It's an incredibly compelling human drama that ends in triumph but still leaves us on a sorrowful note, as we contemplate the price at which Szpilman's freedom has come.