Oscars 2022 – Best Adapted Screenplay

Well, award season is upon us. Should creative people be fighting it out to be “the best”? Perhaps not, but it happens every year. And to writers, even being nominated for the Academy Award is a career-changer. So it’s a reality.

Sometimes it seems like the “best” screenplay doesn’t win. A smaller independent production can lose out to a bigger studio production if the studio works on getting their employees to block vote—i.e., vote for productions made by THEIR studio… for the prestige value. Not fair but it’s done.

All that being said, which film do you think deserves to win this year? The nominees are:

--CODA by Sian Heder

--Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi & Takamasa Oe

--Dune by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth

--The Lost Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal

--The Power of the Dog by Jane Campion

Everyone has their favorite, and I have mine. For me, it’s no contest—CODA is the best adapted screenplay this year.

I remember when it was first out and being talked about I just wondered what it was—I didn’t know then that the word CODA stands for child of deaf adults. I only knew the word from music and recall explaining to a friend that the coda in music was the little add on, the little end bit that is a kind of restatement of a theme of the musical piece. So I misled my friend as well as myself!!

This is one of those rare films that focuses on human emotion without becoming maudlin or overly sentimental. And the premise is simplicity itself—Ruby is the only hearing person in her family of four and acts as translator for them. When the family’s fishing business—their livelihood—is threatened, Ruby finds herself in a quandary. Why? She’s discovered that she can sing—in fact, that she loves to sing. And she wants to go to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Which means she can’t be there to translate for her family.

So what do you do? Sacrifice your love of music for your family or leave them high and dry so you can pursue your music?

As I said—simple. And how incredibly easy would it have been to turn this idea into something cheesy!

And yet, that didn’t happen. Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pmfrE1YL4I

So how did the writer do it? How did she avoid all the clichés? One major thing—she was true to her characters and told EACH of their stories in the course of telling Ruby’s story. The supporting characters weren’t just there for ‘bits’—no, they were there as complex characters who had their own stories.

This was one of my two favorite films of the year. Next week, we’ll discover my other favorite when we talk about Best Original Screenplay nominees.

Copyright © Diane Lake

20Mar22

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com