The Lessons in Best Screenplays

The awards season for movies is in full swing and that means honoring the best in the business as interpreted by critics, guilds and Academy members. Chances are, the better films also have the best screenplays considering that story truly makes the difference. It might be the most clichéd of statements, but “if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.”

And when it comes to storytelling, there are certain core tenets that every script should try to employ: a strong central character; a clear conflict or plot; a well-defined structure; engaging dialogue and a compelling story arc, which includes a beginning, middle, and end. One could argue that rising tension and resolution are essential, too, but they are really more like embellishments to the core tenets that, if done right, keep an audience invested and stay a step or two ahead of them along the way as well.

So, what films in 2024 had scripts that aced such tenets?

There were many that did so, like Wicked, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Sing Sing, We Live in Time, Red Rooms, The Wild Robot, and My Old Ass, just to name a few. However, for the purposes of this article, I’m going to assign each tenet to a singular 2024 film where it’s clear that the screenwriter leaned into that distinct characteristic.

A STRONG CENTRAL CHARACTER

One of the best screenplays of 2024 was The Brutalist, and its success in no small part is due to its protagonist László Tòth (Adrien Brody) being so clearly defined by his feelings of victimization. In fact, if one went through the screenplay by director Barry Corbet and fellow screenwriter Mona Fastvold, you’d find Tòth’s central flaw is the chip on his shoulder, evident on every page. It’s easy to understand why he’s so bitter as in most every instance in the film’s plotting, Tòth faces discrimination, rudeness, or outright hatred from Americans for being a Jewish immigrant. Those he meets in the States are not only antisemitic, but they tend to think of any WWII refugee as a pathetic soul, not a brave or worthy person who was able to have escaped the Holocaust intact.

When Tòth finally gets the chance to shine as the architect he was in his native Hungary before the war, he feels victimized even more as his colleagues don’t wholly appreciate his vision or give him the carte blanche in his architectural designs that he feels he deserves. Such a stubborn character is hard to like in many regards, and indeed, Tòth doesn’t exactly earn an E for empathy throughout the story. Nevertheless, he’s imbued with clear characteristics, an easy-to-comprehend fatal flaw, and all of his actions come out of those traits.

CLEAR CONFLICT

The character-driven film Anora may be hard to pin down as one distinct genre since it starts out as a dark romantic comedy, turns into a chase movie, and finally evolves into a poignant drama. And all of this is done within the same basic plot of warring parties, in this case a headstrong sex worker fighting for her rights amidst a group of close-minded oligarch henchmen.

The Brooklyn stripper is named Ani (Mikey Madison), and she is shrewd enough to turn a young client at the club into her boyfriend, and then her husband, to ensure some semblance of financial security for herself. (She also happens to like the goofy young man a lot, too.) Unfortunately, their budding relationship creates all kinds of conflict that the film has a delicious time trying to sort out during the second and third acts.

Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the boyfriend, you see, is the immature son of a Russian mobster, and there is no way that such prideful, macho gangsters as those in his employ will ever accept someone like Ani as the legitimate wife of the heir apparent. Thus, the battle to annul the nuptials becomes one of wills as the stubborn, foul-mouthed Ani wants some compensation for her troubles and isn’t going down without a fight.

And despite being part of the Russian mob, the fixers sent to straighten out matters are buffoonish and only make things worse. Chasing after the AWOL Ivan to annul the marriage becomes a comedy of manners where every moment could easily turn into death and violence, but it instead turns into a farce as nobody wants anything worse to come from the rash marriage that is causing everyone such a headache.

The stakes are high for these characters as they want to solve the problem without bloodshed, but their overreaction to the conflict from the start makes for one perilous journey. It all helps make this film exceedingly clever and surprising. It never goes quite where you think it’s going to go, despite having a clear as crystal conflict.

WELL-DEFINED STRUCTURE

More often than not, screenplays jump around these days. I mean, how often do movies start with a scene from the middle of the drama and then jump back in time to show us the beginning of such things? (Too often, for my money.) Thus, when a script has enough confidence to tell its story in a straight-forward manner, it can seem as fresh and novel as all those scripts from the past 30 years, trying so desperately hard to mix it all up to keep the viewer’s interest.

Conclave, adapted from the provocative 2016 bestseller by Robert Harris, is an utterly straightforward A to B to C story, concerning  the power struggle amongst competing cardinals after the sudden death of the Pope.

Its structure is so sincere, so earnest, that at first it might even seem pedantic. Still, its plotting is rudimentary so the complexity can seep through in other facets of the story. The complications are evident in the intricacies of the varying vote tallies, the backstabbing and politics that flow throughout the conclave, and the many surprising twists and turns that create a frenzy in the pressured week as these men of God try to choose a worthy new leader.

The structure of the week’s conclave is easy to absorb, and it gives screenwriter, Peter Straughan, more time to showcase the nuances of the players, their knotty relationships, as well as their hidden and not so hidden agendas.

The story is also enhanced by the fact that Cardinal Thomas (Ralph Fiennes), the main character, is managing the conclave so we see everything up close and personal. Thomas is not only our in, our guide, but the referee for all the shenanigans.

Straughan uses his central character to keep the action moving along, too, almost like Thomas is watching the shot clock, ensuring hustle to keep the game moving. It works so brilliantly that the drama ends up playing out less like a stoic drama and more like a breathless thriller.

ENGAGING DIALOGUE

Actor Jessie Eisenberg’s years as an actor in show business clearly prepared him for A Real Pain, the latest film that he wrote, directed and stars in. Eisenberg is known for playing fast-talking characters (The Social Network, Zombieland) and that helped him immensely in crafting a screenplay heavy on dialogue and instrumental in defining characters by what they say.

In A Real Pain, Eisenberg has written a hilarious and often heartbreaking comedy about two mismatched cousins (Keiran Culkin is the other one) on a tour of Holocaust sites in Poland to honor their recently-deceased grandmother who survived the camps in childhood. The banter between The Odd Couple-esque duo is engaging the entire time, as they are clever sorts who know each other well and have had years of experience together.

Additionally, throughout the Holocaust tour, the two cousins banter and bicker over everything from travel etiquette to opining about their fellow tourists. Their dialogue feels fresh and spontaneous, seldom writerly. The dialogue is witty, pointed, sometimes competitive, sometimes even petty, but it all sounds natural coming from these two sharp characters. There’s even an undercurrent of brotherly love in their repartee. And Eisenberg and Culkin play it perfectly together.

Still, Eisenberg understands too that good dialogue often means using the silences between the lines just as effectively. You see Eisenberg’s cousin, David, pondering how honest he can be with his sensitive cousin Benji. And Benji is often a chatterbox, but you can see the breaks Eisenberg has written in Culkin’s blathering where he stops and considers going on a tangent or expressing a different perspective.

Eisenberg’s writing makes for banter that is knowing and edgy with a chess-like quality to each conversational move each player will make. It’s impressive screenwriting that brings the characters and their world to vivid life.

COMPELLING STORY ARC

Finally, any film must have a story that goes somewhere, and that usually means we follow a main character who changes from one thing to another. That is certainly the compelling arc in The Godfather as we watch Michael Corleone turn from killer for his country to a killer for his family.

A compelling story arc can also mean that the character journey propels the protagonist to definable action in their quest to affect their world. Such stakes are what drove Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The adventurer’s goal was to find the Ark of the Covenant, keep it out of the hands of the bad guys, and ultimately destroy it so no one could use its power to win WWII.

One 2024 film that created such a compelling arc is one where not a single word was uttered. The movie is Flow, the Latvian animated film about a cat who survives a tsunami and then must find a way to stay alive as the flood waters overwhelm his habitat.

We follow this plucky feline’s journey as he navigates his way through various parts of the disaster, starting with the kitty finding an abandoned sailboat to take shelter on. From there, he learns to accept other critters as passengers, and together, they even learn to work together to steer the vessel. Finally, the last part of the arc concerns this band of misfits finding their way to higher ground, surviving torrential winds, jagged rocks, and more.

Flow is a brilliantly rendered work of art with its realistic landscapes and churning waters, as well as its uncanny recreation of animal sounds and movement. The film also creates white-knuckle tension, as we cheer on the animals’ quest to survive whatever obstacle comes their way. Such an arc, pardon the pun, almost feels like a take on Noah’s Ark at times, because so very much is at stake.

Additionally, regarding this year’s best scripts, I could go on about how Winnie Holtzman’s adaptation of her book for the theatrical musical Wicked not only keeps all the best of the Broadway production, but also deepens the material for the big screen.

There is also something to be said for the slow reveal of all of the quirks that define the female protagonist in Red Rooms, traits almost as frightening as the serial killer she’s tracking.

Finally, the focus on moments, rather than big events gives the romance We Live in Time its unique power, rendering it one of the better love stories in many a moon.

Indeed, 2024 was a very good year for film, and an exceptional one when it came to clever scripts making it so. Let’s hope that the new year equals what was accomplished, if not surpassing all the lessons learned.  

*Feature image created by Jeff York