How could the Oscar for Writing Adapted Screenplay possibly go to “Benjamin Button?”

January 6, 2009 in book review, film by Kim | No comments

As I discussed earlier with regard to “Revolutionary Road,” Claire and I are going to try to predict which screenwriter will win the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Now, I should be perfectly clear, we have absolutely no qualifications to do this, but so what.  While I don’t know which screenplay I’ll pick to win, I know it won’t be for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

I read the story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald before I saw the movie not worrying that it would ruin the story; the previews already tell the story of a baby born old and growing younger in body.   In any event it was irrelevant, the only thing adapted from the short story to the movie was the title, that’s it.  Not a single fact is the same.  Moreover the concept is different.  In the Fitzgerald story, the baby is born mentally and physically old and both aspects of his life grow younger.  The story familiar to all of us who read The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer of goola baby born physically old and mentally young, then grows younger in body but matures mentally with age, that is the ”Benjamin Button” movie plot line.  Mr. Greer explains that he didn’t know of the movie or the short story and the movie didn’t know of him until his book was published, which explains why the movie wasn’t named after Max.  However, it doesn’t explain why the movie is entirely different from the short story, yet still used its title.  If this concept intrigues you, I recommend the Tivoli book, it’s a nice read.

One aspect I do find interesting with this entire concept is the question of who will take care of the character when he is a baby?  It seems even more difficult than deciding who will take care of an elderly parent, at least there are nursing homes and experts to turn to.  All three stories, the Fitzgerald short story, the Greer novel, and the movie, chose a different ending.  Personally, I like the movie’s ending the best, but I can almost always trust Hollywood to give me a nice American conclusion.

I’ve asked around about the standards for judging a screenplay and it seems fuzzy.  I specifically asked if “Button” would qualify as an adapted screenplay since the only similarity is the title and half of the concept.  One suggestion I heard was that the producers have given themselves wiggle room as to which screenplay category to enter, adapted or original, and that they will argue to be in the category that they view has the weakest competition.  So, if “Benjamin Button” gets nominated for a writing award, which category it is nominated in could indicate that the field for the other writing category is stronger.

The movie itself is fine.  I think the hype is overdone, or maybe better described as inaccurate.  Every fan of the movie I talked to admitted that it is because Brad Pitt is gorgeous in the film.  And he is, truly, but he never convinced me that he was Benjamin Button, he was always Brad Pitt looking fantastic.  In my opinion, the movie would play just as well on DVD, it doesn’t justify the cost of seeing it a theatre unless you want to be part of the conversation now.

UPDATE:  “Button” was nominated in the Writing Adapted Screenplay category, clearly the strongest writing category (come on, “Wall E” was nominated in the Writing Original Screenplay category and it doesn’t have a lot of dialogue), which just proves what I’ve said along, I’m just giving my relatively uninformed opinion.

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