Sometimes it’s the screenplay that makes the film. I love, love, love great dialogue. Believable dialogue. Cohesive plots. Mostly because it’s not that common a film has all these elements. Quite sad. Anyway, I love watching a film and then thinking afterwards, ‘I wish I wrote that.’ I thought that about Crash, Conversations With Other Women, Morvern Callar and other perfectly written films. As a writer, of course I am biased, although I can appreciate great directing. In fact, bad directing is almost the first thing I recognize when I see a bad film. But, bad writing, is so much harder for me to stomach. There is to me, almost nothing worse than a one liner or a cheesy or generic piece of dialogue such as many you would find in the typical action film. And bad monologues are perhaps even worse such as that painful scene from Chasing Amy with Holden (Ben Affleck) and Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) where Holden is confessing his feelings for Alyssa. Makes me cringe just thinking about it. Anyway, Bad writing is also much easier to cover up with good actors, good driectors and stylized cinematography. If, let’s say Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz played Holden and Alyssa, perhaps then Chasing Amy would not have been just another “indie” flick with B actors directed and poorly written by Kevin Smith.

Nonetheless, here are some wonderfully talented screenwriters who wrote wonderful screenplays worth noting (in no particular order):

• Conversations With Other Women, Gabrielle Zevin
  This is the best film I’ve seen all year and definitely one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Besides the perfect performances by Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart, and the beautiful directing by Hans Canosa, the writing was what just made this film. Numerous films attempt to convey the complexities between a man and a woman in a relationship, this film just hits the mark. See my full review here.
• When Harry Met Sally and Mixed Nuts, Nora Ephron
  Although Nora Ephron’s known for such cheesy films as You Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle and The Super (what was she thinking!), she best known for the romantic comedy classic When Harry Met Sally. When Harry Met Sally is the seminal “boy meets girl” film in my book. The dialogues between Harry and Sally, and between them and their friends are so believable and embarassibly familiar since many of these discussions I’ve had with boyfriends and friends about the “friends” issue between men and women. Can Women and Men be friends? Not according to Harry:

  Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
  Sally Albright: Why not?
  Harry Burns: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
  Sally Albright: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
  Harry Burns: No you don’t.
  Sally Albright: Yes I do.
  Harry Burns: No you don’t.
  Sally Albright: Yes I do.
  Harry Burns: You only think you do.
  Sally Albright: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
  Harry Burns: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
  Sally Albright: They do not.
  Harry Burns: Do too.
  Sally Albright: They do not.
  Harry Burns: Do too.
  Sally Albright: How do you know?
  Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
  Sally Albright: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
  Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail ‘em too.
  Sally Albright: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
  Harry Burns: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
  Sally Albright: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
  Harry Burns: I guess not.
  Sally Albright: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.

  Also noteworthy is Ephron’s Mixed Nuts. It’s just a solid, fun and somewhat silly holiday film well acted by an ensemble cast which include Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Juliette Lewis, Adam Sandler and Parker Posey, among others.

• Crash, Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco
  I didn’t care much for Million Dollar Baby, but it was well written. Crash, however, I love and own on DVD. Forget about the race issue, the writing, the plot, and how all the stories came together without cheese or improbability is just fabulous. I think of other ensemble cast films with intersecting story lines and am dissapointed. 21 Grams was a laugh. Magnolia was a stinker. The only other one I can think of in recent years that is as solid as Crash is a foreign film, Amores Perros with the ever so lovely and wonderfully talented Gael Garcia Bernal.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman
  I couldn’t ask for a better screenplay really. It’s hard when you start with a high concept such as being able to go to a clinic to erase the memory of a lover (or anyone for that matter), ’cause we can all relate so we’re already hooked. Unfortunately, high concept films often fail because the production talent isn’t there to back it up, nevermind the actors. Take Thank You For Smoking for instance. The concept of a film whose main character can convince you the tobacco industry is one of the good guys is intriguing enough to watch. A film about the tobacco industry being one of the good guys done ala Breakfast of Champions, is even more intriguing, ’cause satire is always a crowd pleaser…if done right. Thank You For Smoking was not. Eternal Sunshine had the production talent to back up the high concept in Charlie Kaufman’s writing. He’s a talented bastard. He also wrote one of my other all time favorite films, Being John Malkovich which was also high concept with talent to back it up.
• Waiting For Guffman, Christopher Guest
  Christopher Guest is the premier satirist. There’s something he just gets and can convey about how to poke fun with wit. His first satire was This Is Spinal Tap was bloody hysterical and done with such detail that the songs Spinal Tap performed could really be any song you’d here on a rock station. And though Best in Show was a great satire about pet shows and the people involved in them, nothing for me is funnier than making fun of small towns. And though numerous films have done it, Guest did it perfectly with Waiting for Guffman. He not only poked fun at the smalltown life and way of thinking, but poked fun at outsiders as well. Humor isn’t just making fun at people you think are laughable, but pointing the finger at yourself too.
Date posted: September 15, 2006
Category : Lists
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Posted by: FilmMad