Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The occasion of a new Diablo Cody movie is upon us, and there isn’t nearly enough fanfare about it for my taste. Marvel can throw as many superheroes into the black hole of infinity that they want to, but when the writer of Juno, Young Adult, Jennifer’s Body, and TV’s United States of Tara comes out with her latest film, SOUND THOSE TRUMPETS. Especially when that new film — Tully, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival last week ahead of its May 4th premiere — re-teams a Diablo Cody script with a Charlize Theron performance under the direction of Jason Reitman, a.k.a. the same team that delivered Young Adult. This is cause for celebration.
With a new (and excellent) Diablo Cody movie about to drop, it’s worth considering the writers who get anointed in the cinephile community as The Great Screenwriters. Rightly so, names like Paul Thomas Anderson, Kenneth Lonergan, and the Coen Brothers get floated to the top of those lists, but before we get to chiseling on our current Mount Rushmore of screenwriting, it’s probably worth mentioning that two of our boldest and most relevant current screenwriters are Diablo Cody and Greta Gerwig. Yet it still feels like a huge boys club.
In an effort to push back against that tide, then, here’s your playlist for the day: 11 films by women screenwriters to savor. Some are originals, some adaptations; some of these women also directed, some did not; some scripts were collaborations, some … you know, you get it. ALL of them are superb movies that deserved to be watched and watched again.
'Young Adult'
Diablo Cody was already an Oscar-winning screenwriter — for the 2007 Best Picture-nominated Juno — when she reunited with director Jason Reitman for this 2011 movie about a selfish, embittered, stuck-on-her-high-school-glory writer of young-adult novels. Charlize Theron is astoundingly good playing the instantly iconic Mavis Gary, and she’s up for every razor-barbed line of dialogue Cody throws at her. It’s a ballsy script, too, one that never lets its characters (or us, really) off the hook for a second, while still feeling tremendous empathy. One of the great, underrated dark comedies of this decade.
'Bachelorette'
Playwright and screenwriter Leslye Headland made quite the splash into the indie film world with back-to-back films that dance on the outside of the romantic-comedy genre. Her most recent, Sleeping with Other People, is a better rom-com fit than most, with Jason Sudekis and Alison Brie taking a roundabout route to anything approaching a happy-ever-after. But her first film, based on her own play, was Bachelorette, a scorchingly mean, exhilaratingly nasty, and unexpectedly wise little movie in the shape of a rowdy Bridesmaids knockoff. The similarities to Bridesmaids (cosmetically only; this one goes way darker) probably kept it from being able to stand on its own at the time, which is a shame. Kirsten Dunst delivers one of her all-time best performances as a Type A nightmare just trying to land this plane on time before she has a rage meltdown. It’s great.
'For a Good Time, Call...'
Another under-recognized gem from 2012, For a Good Time, Call… starred Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller Rogen as mismatched friends who get closer when they start running an at-home phone-sex operation. The film came from Miller Rogen and her co-writer Katie Anne Naylon, and it’s full of the kinds of small tweaks and features that take a decently funny comedy into something that really connects. You wouldn’t expect that from the phone-sex movie, but there’s a real story of female friendship in here.
'Middle of Nowhere'
Rounding out our trifecta of killer movies written by women from 2012 (quite the microgenre, that) comes Ava DuVernay‘s romantic drama about a woman (the wonderful Emayatzy Corinealdi) whose husband is serving an 8-year prison sentence and who ends up drawn to another man. DuVernay (who also directed) keeps an incredible sense of balance between Ruby’s romantic situation and her life at home, drawing colorfully realistic characters who push and pull on each other if ways we’ll all recognize.
'Frances Ha'
Greta Gerwig co-wrote this one with Noah Baumbach (who then directed), but after seeing Lady Bird last year, you definitely feel a common voice running through both films. That voice increasingly seems to be Gerwig’s. Her Frances is the kind of character who could be accurately described as a “free-spirit,” though there are connotations to that terms that would sell her short. What’s so great about how she, and the world around her, are written is that nothing is ever so serious that it can’t become ridiculous, yet nothing is ever so ridiculous that it can be brushed aside. It’s a film that’s funny and heartfelt in ways that don’t strain too hard to achieve either.
'Pariah'
Dee Rees broke through in a big way with Mudbound last year, but more people should be directed to the film she wrote and directed in 2011: Pariah. The film centers on a Brooklyn teen trying to deal with her turbulent home life, plus all the usual high school dramas and fraught teenage experiences, all while coming to terms with her own gay sexuality. Rees gets a killer performance from young Adepero Oduye, but it all comes from the firmament of a script that cares deeply for its young characters.
'Bright Star'
Jane Campion earned herself a place in the record books as the second woman ever nominated for a Best Director Oscar, but it should be noted that she’s also written almost all the screenplays to her films (the adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady being the most prominent exception). And while Bright Star remains a standout for its lush direction and breathtaking photography, it also does an incredibly strong job pulling together this true-life story of poet John Keats and his beloved Fannie Brawne. It’s a sweet and sensitive story that incorporates tragedy but never feels even a little bit heavy. It is hard to write romantic drama this well.
'Howards End'
The recent Starz adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel has brought the story back into the cultural consciousness, but we should probably remember that this is a story that’s already been brought to the screen pretty much perfectly, by the legendary Merchant-Ivory team. And with them, as always, came screenwriter extraordinaire Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Her work adapting the story of the Schlegel sisters and their struggles with the Wilcoxes earned her the second of her two Academy Awards, cementing her reputation as the preeminent adapter of classic literature to the modern screen.
'Little Women'
There’s no use counting how many screen adaptations of Little Women there have been. The most indelible one in recent memory was the 1994 version directed by Gillian Armstrong. That one was so well-received that it earned Winona Ryder an Oscar nomination, and it helped launch the careers of Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, and Christian Bale. The screenplay adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel was done by Robin Swicord, the Hollywood veteran (and mother of Zoe Kazan) behind such scripts as Matilda, Practical Magic, and The Perez Family.
'Carol'
Carol marked the first time that visionary director Todd Haynes ever made a movie from anything he didn’t write, which speaks quite well of the work that Phyllis Nagy did with her adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt. Nagy’s script is one of smartly mannered social maneuvering and personal boundary-crossings that feels compelling no matter what stakes are on the line. Even down to that breathtaking note Carol leaves for Therese near the end (“Dearest…”) is largely Nagy’s handiwork, and a more gorgeously evocative piece of writing you’re not likely to hear.
'Marie Antoinette'
For starters, Marie-Antoinette remains the most daring movie Sofia Coppola ever made. Flush with Hollywood capital after her Oscar-winning film Lost in Translation, Coppola could make anything she wanted. So she made a New-Wave and fashion-forward version of Versailles to tell the story of decadence ahead of the French Revolution. It’s a mad idea that is nearly infuriating in its desire to stay cloistered in the queen’s quarters with her, but its boldness is rewarding. And furthermore, now’s a great time for a Sofia Coppola streaming marathon, if you have the right subscriptions, considering all of her films (with the exception of The Bling Ring) are streaming on either Netflix or Amazon Prime (with the Starz and HBO add-ons). There can’t be too many more indulgent ways to spend a day.
Stream Marie Antoinette on Netflix
Stream Lost in Translation on Amazon Prime with a Starz subscription
Stream The Virgin Suicides on Amazon Prime with a Starz subscription
Stream Somewhere on Amazon Prime with a Starz subscription
Stream The Beguiled on Amazon Prime with an HBO subscription
