In Contention

Tag: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume One

    Tech Support at In ContentionThe Academy Award for Best Costume Design recognizes, shock of shocks, the clothes and accessories worn by actors in a film.  Clothing can add to the story and express the nature and situation of the characters who wear them.

    If a single word could be used to describe this category, it would be “period.”  31 of the 40 nominees here this decade were period pieces.  This is not altogether surprising.  Period clothes automatically draw attention by not being the sort of fashion we see every day on the street and require the costume designer to accurately portray the time in which the film takes place.

    The nominations two years ago “The Queen” and “The Devil Wears Prada” were refreshing in my opinion but extremely rare, being the first contemporary nominees in a dozen years.  Admittedly, fantasy films occasionally find a home here as well.  Seven nominees this decade fit that mold.  But even so, there is usually only one –- and never more than two –- spots available for non-period films in this category.

    This is also an arena that tends to reward many familiar faces.  In a typical year, only one or two of the nominees are first-timers, while many designers are (usually deservedly) seen year after year.  This trend has occasionally resulted in some films one would never expect to find in the awards race landing the label “Oscar nominee.”

    Catherine Martin might be leading the way this year.  She won this category seven years ago, the last time both she –- and her husband/director Baz Lurhmann -– worked.  That film was “Moulin Rouge!” and its design elements were fantastic.  Again doubling as a production designer on “Australia” this year, Martin will fashion the world of a Briton coming to a strange historical land, filled, as always, with Lurhmann’s bordering-on-fantastical elements.  The design opportunities should once again be amazing and I’d be quite surprised if Martin failed to make the cut.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: When the movies play second fiddle

    Kate Winslet and Stephen Daldry on the set of The ReaderShort column this time around because there are just a few specific things on my mind.

    It’s been a relatively slow couple of weeks in the wake of the Toronto International Film Festival.  At least on the surface.’

    Behind the scenes, studios are circling their wagons, securing Oscar ad buys, prepping their fall product and gently waiting.  “Hope you had fun at the fests,” they seem to be saying to the independent success stories of the year.  “The main event is about to begin.”

    And yet, the “main event” consistently disappoints.  Downfall can as easily be attributed to hype as it can to poor quality, an idea our own John Foote pondered last week.  Indeed, there are a few productions I expect to be rewarded for their discretion this year, lying in wait while the usual suspects empty their chambers in the loud march to Oscar.

    But it seems like casualties are already presenting themselves.  It pains me to see the Scott Rudin/Harvey Weinstein debate dragged through the mud every single day, right down to the manipulation of Nikki finke in order to make Weinstein look like an outright douche bag.  Whatever the particulars, is there any question that the real loser at the end of all of this isn’t Weinstein, isn’t Rudin, but “The Reader” itself?

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  • Stop the presses: random, anonymous people say it’s ‘Button’ vs. ‘Nixon’

    The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonIn this otherwise solid piece from the New York Times’s Michael Cieply, I was taken aback by the following aside, taken anonymously from a publicist (or publicists) that obviously has a stake in this year’s Oscar race:

    Some publicists who specialize in Oscar campaigns are privately predicting a year-end shootout between “Button” and “Frost/Nixon,” a planned December release from Universal Pictures, directed by Ron Howard and with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the title roles. The films have been seen by few, but the campaign machinery is already lining up behind them.

    Huh?  What?  Says who?  Well, let it be so, as far as those associated with the true frontrunner are concerned, but this is a foundtationless aside to be just tossed out there in a major Times piece if you ask me.  Three graphs later, “Quantum of Solace” is slid into a list of expected Oscar heavies like it’s one of the boys.  What’s that all about?

    Anyway, Cieply’s story goes on to discuss Paramount honcho Brad Grey’s Oscar successes, drops Oscar consultant Lisa Taback’s name and details the bumpy road for “Button” to the screen.  Check it all out here.

  • Brand new ‘Benjamin Button’ trailer

    And in beautiful Quicktime at Apple.

  • New ‘Benjamin Button’ TV spot

    The folks at TheMovieBox.net are being douche bags and disabling the embedding on the new TV spot for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” but you can check it out on YouTube and feast your eyes on their glorious watermark if you like.  The unnecessary exclusivity ought to evaporate soon enough.

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Cinematography — Volume One

    Tech Support at In ContentionToday we begin our in-depth looks at the individual crafts categories.  I’m a sucker for starting with my favorite: Best Cinematography.

    The art of film is reliant on the motion picture camera and those men and women who lend their talents behind the lens.  The Director of Photography is in charge of charge of capturing the director’s vision on film, not only by ensuring mood through lighting, thematic comment through juxtaposition, etc.  This work has to be done in tandem with the director, which makes it not surprising that many cinematographers and directors work together frequently.

    This category tends to award “pretty” films.  Big epics and gorgeous landscapes frequent the nominated five each year, as do war films and anything generally considered a labored task in this department.  That is not to say such efforts have a monopoly on this category –- just that they are especially apt to be nominated.

    Last year it was sad to see Roger Deakins lose for the sixth and seventh times on the same evening. I cannot deny that Robert Elswit -– a longtime favorite of mine –- was an excellent choice for “There Will Be Blood,” but the great Deakins is once again searching for his first statuette!  He will be back in contention this year, lensing Sam Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road.” This film clearly has Oscar in its sights.  While I still remain skeptical on how it will be received overall, Deakins will almost certainly be in contention should the film deliver in the slightest.

    Deakins will also be lensing “Doubt” this year, which also has the potential to be a major awards player.  Though I’m doubtful (no pun intended) about its chances in this category.

    In what would be a historic nomination, Mandy Walker will likely be in contention for Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia.”  She would be the first ever woman nominated in this category.  Yes, that’s right.  No woman has ever been nominated for Best Cinematography in 80 years of Academy history.  Lurhmann’s films are always visually spectacular and this effort in particular fits in perfectly with the sorts of epics usually nominated in this category.

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  • What does early (and excessive) Oscar hype do to a film’s chances?

    Cover of Entertainment Weekly featuring The CrucibleIn 1996, a fall movie preview of Entertainment Weekly arrived in my mailbox, the cast of “The Crucible” staring back at me on the cover, making clear to me this was going to be THE film of the fall. There were rumors floating within the industry that the film, based on the Arthur Miller play, could conceivably be nominated for 12 or 13 Academy Awards, and it seemed a cinch for at least a Best Picture nod.

    Having directed the play twice, studied it at length in university and being a huge Arthur Miller fan, I was thrilled that the film was finally going to get the intense big screen version it deserve. The 1959 French adaptation was okay, but not enough people had actually seen it. Here was a chance for one of the greatest dramas of the 20th century to make the transition to film with a superb cast, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen, Paul Schofield and Winona Ryder.

    Somewhere along the way Fox panicked and released the film late in December, and though Day-Lewis finished second in balloting for the New York Film Critics Awards, the picture never caught fire as it had been predicted to do. Instead it was a dismal box office failure, nabbing only a supporting actress nomination for Joan Allen and an adapted screenplay nod for Miller.

    “The Crucible” is a great film, with powerhouse performances from Day-Lewis, Allen and Ryder, though many critics attacked the latter. But was the film a victim of over hype, or were audiences simply too familiar with the story? What happened?

    The same sort of thing almost happened to Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which at this time in 2005 was being touted as not just an Oscar nominee, but the likely winner for Best Picture and Best Director, sight unseen. It opened and was very good, but it wasn’t the searing masterpiece everyone had been hoping for.  And somehow “Crash” won the Best Picture prize.

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  • Best Actor race looking tight as always — expect surprises

    Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary RoadThe Best Actor category tends to be one of the more crowded categories come Oscar time, and 2008 looks to be no exception. To be sure, there are a handful of frontrunners as usual, but hovering behind them are another group, more than eight who could easily sneak in and nab a nomination. Last year Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for his powerful work in “The Valley of Elah,” a richly deserved nod, but completely unexpected by the majority of prognosticators.  I remember smiling when I heard his name read, but it was a huge surprise.

    I would expect something similar this year, as we have some of the great  actors and potentially stunning performances in contention.

    The obvious frontrunner at this point is Mickey Rourke, basking in the attention being given to “The Wrestler.”  His performance is nothing short of miraculous, an astounding piece of acting, and it is great to see him back in the fold.  But when it comes to winning the award, I have to say: not a chance. Rourke is intensely disliked in Hollywood.  He’s seen as someone who basically spit on the industry to walk away and become a boxer. As a friend close to Rourke said, “A lot of people were happy when he left and don’t want this guy back.”

    Frank Langella looks to be terrific in the trailers for “Frost/ Nixon.”  He has always been a great actor, better known for his stage work than film, though in the last few years he has become a formidable presence on the big screen. I remember seeing him as “Dracula” both on stage and on film in the late 1970s and hoped he would go far. He did, just not in the movies, until recently.

    Kris has Michael Sheen down as a lead actor possibility as well, and I agree. It’s one of those “Amadeus” situations where one performance cannot exist without the other. There is a strong chance that if the film and the actors are terrific, both of them will be nominated, though Langella certainly has the showier role of the two.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Indies on the march

    (from left) Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerMaybe mid-way through the Toronto Film Festival, two things are strikingly clear: Darren Aronofsky has the goods with “The Wrestler” and Danny Boyle’s streak of successful versatility at the helm continues with “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    Both films, which enjoy pre-Toronto success at Venice and Telluride respectfully, are also evidence that surprises will happen this time of year.  And with an uncharacteriztically level playing field in Toronto this year, we should be thankful they are getting a fair shake.

    One of them is set for distribution, however, while the other is waiting out a buyer.  But will “The Wrestler” find a home and see a release in 2008 or will an awards-heavy distributor pick it up and save it for a rainy day in 2009’s awards season?

    Both options are on the table, it’s just a matter of who bites first, and what they bring to the table.

    On the horizon, everyone is awaiting their post-Toronto peeks at films like “Australia,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Milk” (landing a trailer this week) and “The Soloist.”  David Fincher’s 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” may have been caught off guard by over-zealous bloggers in Telluride, but the damage may not have been as considerable as some may have thought.

    Speaking of “The Soloist,” chatter is making its way out of the Paramount camp that Robert Downey Jr. is outstanding as LA Times columnist Steve Lopez and hopes are high for a Best Actor nomination.  And as far as “Milk” is concerned, prognosticators may have the wrong idea going in as to which supporting performance has the awards-worthy chops.  More on that at a later date.

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  • 9/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    I\'ve Loved You So Long• Mark Olsen counts down Toronto’s must sees. It’s an indie dominated list (and fest, really) with more than a few surprises. [The Envelope]

    • Pete Hammond talks to Tom O’Neil about the Telluride success of “Slumdog Millionaire” and “I’ve Loved You So Long,” as well as the whole “Button” footage dust-up from yesterday. [Gold Derby]

    • Regarding the dust-up, Jeffrey Wells defends himself. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Then he slams Anne Thompson’s cinematographical skills. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • But Brad Brevet, in nicely rounding up the whole mess for your reading pleasure, wonders whether the damage has already been done. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Which, digging through all of that, is there more to the Paramount/Fincher friction than we might know? [The Playlist]

    • In happier news, Nancy Kriparos introduces herself as Sasha Stone’s Toronto correspondent this year. [Awards Daily]

    • Michael Cieply previews Toronto from the angle of ’70s New York nostalgia dominating a number of films playing the fest. [New York Times]

  • Pete Hammond can’t resist sticking it to the blog-o-sphere

    You know, I kind of, sort of let it pass when Anne Thompson decided to take a mini-stab at bloggers (written as a pejorative, no doubt) who didn’t really like the 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown at Telluride last week. But I can’t help but be irritated at the gall of Pete Hammond offering:

    Voracious movie bloggers, with a need to be first rather than right, took shots at the film over the weekend on the basis of the modest Telluride peek. They would be advised to hold their reviews a few months until the other 2 hours and 25 minutes can be seen.

    “Right?” What the fuck does that mean? There is a right and wrong opinion to be taken from watching a few clips? One guy’s “They didn’t wow me” is not another guy’s “It could be good?” Give me a break.

    No doubt this is all a result of publicity teams circling their wagons, prodding other writers to get something up that is positive and FAST. But there is no need to shit all over the opinion of a few folks who didn’t react as the suits would have preferred.

    The buzz is the buzz, and if a couple of guys didn’t dig it, their opinion is valid. We linked to the dissenters here. Jeff Wells did too (though Thompson mistakenly thought he was reviewing the clips without having seen them…he was simply passing along an opinion).

    This stuff really gets on my nerves. Writers burned by the quickness of the net (indeed, those who are a valid part of the net) can’t help but douse the flames of opinion that go up before theirs. Sad.

    Personally, if I’ve taken anything from the mixed reaction to the clips it is that this could be a tougher Academy sell than I originally thought. And indeed, I expected as much all along. And with a truly Oscar-bait effort like “The Soloist” in the pipeline at the same studio…

    But that script…man, that script is a work of art.

  • Another vote of confidence for ‘Button’

    Kris linked earlier to Anne Thompson’s defence of the 20-minute taster of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — a riposte to the underwhelmed response from certain corners of the blogosphere.

    Encouragingly, Thompson’s Variety colleague Todd McCarthy is of the same mind. Saying the footage “pushes all the right buttons,” he elaborates:

    The footage looked artistically and technically impeccable, and quite different in style from Fincher’s previous work. The ambitious aging technique, employed to tell the story of a man who is born with the features of an old man and gradually grows bigger and younger, was seamless in the footage Fincher presented.

    I must say I took the criticism with a pinch of salt when I heard it — I think it’s impossible to draw conclusions on such a structurally and thematically complex work based on so little footage. As far as I’m concerned, until we can see the entirety of David Fincher’s vision, his film is innocent until proven guilty.   

  • 9/1 Oscarweb Round-up

    Dev Patel in Slumdog Millionaire• Anne Thompson points us to a Best Original Song contender from the Boss in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” But it’s a closing credits tune, which doesn’t bode well given the newest rules implemented by the Academy in 2005. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • She also tries to offset some of the negative press that greeted the 20 minute “Benjamin Button” reel, taking the time to swat at bloggers who didn’t exactly “review” anything, but actually gave their honest opinion. Fancy that…maybe teasing an unfinished product wasn’t the best idea? [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Screen Daily gets the scoop on the “Che” distribution strategy…but didn’t we always know it would be released as two films? [Screen Daily]

    • T.L. Stanley wonders whether this year’s crop of Oscar films will be a box office buzz kill. [Gold Rush]

    • “Disaster Movie” is probably not going to be an Oscar film…FYI. [/Film]

    • Kim Voyner kicks the Oscar tires for Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Godsend for Fox Searchlight, which was sitting hollow with a Dakota Fanning vehicle as their only awards hopeful until this week. [Cinematical]

    • Pete Howell chases the buzz in Toronto. Hey, didn’t “For Your Consideration” win this poll last year? [Toronto Star]

    • Jeffrey Wells gets hears some second hand buzz from a friend who thinks Jeff Goldblum gives an Oscar-level performance in Paul Schrader’s “Adam Resurrected.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • And in case you missed it, we’ve launched our weekly Oscar column. [In Contention]

  • OFF THE CARPET: Make way for the little guys…or not

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedIt may be Labor Day, but the work at hand is breathing down our necks. So it is that we come to the first weekly Oscar column of the new awards season.

    Though to be frank with you, I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ll be able to keep the conversation going, much less interesting on a weekly basis as we push through the last four months of the year. I knew going in to this year that it was going to be a somewhat low-key season, and my own worst fears have been founded in a number of pre-Toronto screenings of films that will be discussed in a week’s time, films leaving me cold, irritated or otherwise just unconvinced.

    I don’t sense a lull on the level of 2005 by any means, but I do get the feeling that after two solid years of cinematic goodness, 2008 could just be one of those “rebuilding” years, to steal a sports term and painfully attempt its application here. It’s interesting (and telling) that my two favorite films of the year are a stoner comedy and a superhero adaptation respectively (though the latter obviously has a legion of fans banking on major awards success…more on that later).

    The most intriguing component for me is the playground that Toronto will provide for a bevy of independent and genuinely smaller product. The heavy-hitters (or, at the very least, the presumed heavy-hitters) are incomplete and not prepared for fall fest unveiling (aside from “Frost/Nixon,” which has already been seen and seems to be riding a wave of confidence at Universal).

    But efforts like Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married,” Vicente Amorim’s “Good,” Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” Rian Johnson’s “The Brothers Bloom,” Richard Eyre’s “The Other Man,” etc. — true indies with a fighting chance to turn some heads — won’t have to suffer in the shadows of big studio films angling for the press of an Oscar season starting gun.

    Meanwhile, Cannes entries such as Fernando Meirelles’s “Blindness,” Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” get an uninhibited second chance in front of festival audiences. Ditto Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” in the case of the New York fest.

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  • ‘Button’ footage raises concerns at Telluride

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWell I was willing to let the first murmurs go by without commentary, but the more I poke around, the more I’m hearing that the footage from David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown last night at the director’s tribute is underwhelming to say the least.

    This is disconcerting.  As much as I loved Eric Roth’s screenplay, I also made it a point of mentioning that it had a lot of room to be interpreted peculiarly on screen.  It’s the sort of narrative that could fly off the rails in the transition and it seems that perhaps — just perhaps — this could be the case.

    I’m keeping my hopes up for the moment, but it seems Jeffrey Wells conveyed these sentiments from one attendee:

    It just wasn’t particularly exciting or engrossing, one explained. Excellent visual effects (old Pitt as a baby, etc.) and fine cinematography but with a kind of enervated, waiting-for-something-to-happen quality. The footage showed portions of the entire film, the other friend said, but in a way that kept you from getting into it with cuts coming too abruptly. And so people were kind of…whatever, grunting and muttering on the way out.

    And now Peter Sciretta of /Film has unloaded this first hand reaction:

    I’m all for conserving the director’s artistic vision, and I’ve enjoyed most of Fincher’s work, even if Zodiac could have been 30 minutes shorter on the back end. So when I first heard rumors of the studio pushing Fincher to cut back, my first response was to write it off as another movie studio exec that just didn’t get it. But as it turns out, they might be right.

    The footage I screened tonight was met with disappointment and concern. There are moments of magic and wonder, but interrupted and surrounded by moments which had me questioning, “Is this really the best footage he has?”

    Sciretta has some nice words to say about Brad Pitt and the cinematography, but regardless of the brief high marks, I don’t think I’m alone in saying: “Gulp…”

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by Eric Roth

    Page to Screen at In Contention“Time is the most precious of God’s gifts. It is untouchable, unseeable, unknowable…it is as light as a feather…as heavy as a stone…Time, my darling, what precious little there is, is all we have…”

    I’ve known from Eric Roth for a few years now. I’ve spent some time investigating his process, picking apart his tendencies and have committed such findings, in addition to personal impressions of the man, to print. So one thing I’ve always taken to heart when sitting down to read one of his scripts is that, “bastardized art form” or not, he is insistent on challenging himself with his screenwriting, stretching the potential for thematic resilience and above all, treating the work like an exercise in elegant prose.

    Such is the case with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a 159-page adaptation of a 30-page F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. It’s a rare thing to flip through the pages of a script written by someone focused on the words almost more so than the images he or she expects them to become. And as part of an art form that can be insufferable as a result, I have to say that “Benjamin Button” is something of a masterpiece.

    The script begins with an aging Daisy (to be played by Cate Blanchett), recounting, via the reading of a diary by her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond), the life and times of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt). The love of her life, the one that got away, the one that came back and the one that will stay in her heart forever, Benjamin was born, as you certainly know, “under unusual circumstances.”

    Roth decides to do away with the hilarity of Fitzgerald’s take on Benjamin’s birth. We aren’t treated to a full-grown 85-year-old man in a baby crib greeting his father with a hearty hello. Instead, he treats Benjamin’s early years as something of a potential disease that makes a newborn aged beyond his or her years, so to speak. Frail skin, deformities…”His body is failing him before it has begun,” a doctor conveys with flabbergasted wonder.

    Benjamin’s mother does not survive childbirth, while his father instinctively passes him off on a lonely Baltimore doorstep before disappearing from his life…for a time. It is there, not hours old, that Benjamin is taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) at an old-timers’ home, for lack of better vernacular on my part.

    It was actually a stroke of brilliance by Roth to place Benjamin in such a setting for his formative years (and he’ll come back frequently throughout the tale). The writer’s commentary on wisdom and its many vessels is perfectly conveyed in this environment, simultaneously providing a fair share of comedic relief here and there, most of the time via unexpected flatulence (but it works).

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  • New ‘Button’ TV spot

    A new spot for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” popped up on the Olympics last night.  There’s a rather sub-par clip of the commercial up on YouTube.  Hopefully something better will land soon.

    Eric Roth’s screenplay, by the way, is an out and out masterpiece.  I’ll be reviewing it in this space a week from tomorrow.  I was floored.  If David Fincher can come close to expressing those words on the screen, it’ll have to be considered one of the year’s best films.

    Here’s the spot:

    Anne Thompson, meanwhile, is stirring the shit with some comments out of the studio regarding a lengthy cut from Fincher:

    The early word on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: again, David Fincher has handed in a movie to Paramount that is quite long. That hurt his last pic for Paramount, Zodiac. This film is polished to a fine sheen, I understand. The word from one viewer: “shiny.”

    Well, there is always the old agage: “No good film is too long, no bad film is short enough.”  We’ll see, but the script is 160 pages (that could admittedly use some paring down), so it’s not like the studio didn’t know what it was getting in to here.

  • Fitzgerald’s agonizing beauty

    Cover of The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonI sat down last night to spend a half-hour with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  It’s been ages since I first gave the story a look and I don’t even think I ever read it throughout until yesterday, but the measured simplicity of it all was striking.

    I don’t count myself one of Fitzgerald’s followers.  I don’t find myself attuned with whatever it is that makes legions of readers consider “The Great Gatsby” to be the greatest American novel, for instance.  I typically find myself leaning toward Hemingway’s brand of the mundane instead, but that’s neither here nor there.

    The structure of “Button” is what stuck out to me.  The strange sort of insight into the stages of one’s life and how Fitzgerald flipped those notions on its ear is incredibly effective.  By the last page, I had that knotted feeling in my stomach, the kind you get after you know you just experienced something that is much more than yourself.  The truth apparent in the final moments, the skewed vision of a life at its end, it was almost too much.

    And I imagine Eric Roth’s adaptation is just as in tune with these notions, albeit in an expanded (well…greatly expanded) format.

    Additionally, the trailer for the film seemed to carry across a similar structure that stuck out to me the moment I saw.  I didn’t know how to address it at the time but reading the original work last night hammered it home.

    All things considered, I think “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” might be my most anticipated film of the upcoming Oscar season.  It seems the easy choice, the obvious one.  No one can argue with the apparent artistry on display from what we’ve seen so far and I find myself watering at the mouth the more I consider its potential.

    I also find myself thankful that a guy as savy and complex as Roth is the one to take the story to adapt the tale for the screen.  Of course he would.

    Roth’s screenplay wil be reviewed here at “Page to Screen” on Tuesday, August 25.