The State of the Race, What Went Wrong?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2UKvM7SjWc[/youtube]

I’ve been mulling over one title since the Oscars came to a screeching halt this year. One title really should have done better, even if not in the big categories, certainly in Original Screenplay, where it seemed like a slam dunk. Rachel Getting Married was written by Hollywood spawn Jenny Lumet. It was well-reviewed, on the awards track, when all of a sudden – it went into freefall and never recovered. So what went wrong? I’m going to blame it on the dishwashing scene.

Rosemary DeWitt never got any recognition either, if we’re counting. Hers was, to my mind, one of the better turns last year. The only one who got anything at all was Anne Hathaway and at some point it became just about Hathaway and not about the film at all. The film got shitcanned. Could it be because it was about the whiny privileged set and no one really cares about them? Lumet was writing what she knew, though, and not slumming it for the sake of art, but was too much reality not a good thing? Did the extended wedding scene with quirky, colorful characters throw people off?

It continues to confound me in retrospect. How did Jenny Lumet get shut out? She’d won the New York Film Critics and the Toronto Film Critics for Best Screenplay, she has showbiz royalty in her blood….and yet…and yet…