Talk To Her Wins Best Original Screenplay (2002)
Pedro Almodóvar is one of only five people to win a Best Screenplay Oscar for a foreign language film. To anyone who closely follows world cinema, that is not much of a surprise, as the Spanish auteur’s work is wildly original and filled with compelling characters. He followed up his Oscar-winning All About My Mother (from 1999) with a film even more daring and incendiary, Talk to Her. That romantic drama is now seen by many cinema fans and scholars as the director’s masterpiece.
Usually, the screenplay categories award films that are universally beloved by the Academy but may not be shoo-ins for the top prizes. Although Almodóvar had a best director nomination, Talk to Her was ignored from the Best Picture race and wasn’t even Spain’s selection to represent the country in the foreign language film category. (In hindsight, that was a big mistake.) Meanwhile, competition was stiff. One could argue over whether or not Alfonso Cuarón’s road trip comedy Y Tu Mama Tambien, also nominated in the category, was better than Almodóvar’s drama, but the latter’s screenplay was more fascinating in many ways.
Talk to Her managed to be both heart-wrenching and shocking, especially in a late plot development where the audience is asked to root for a man who sexually assaults a comatose woman. (Had Almodóvar released Talk to Her this past fall, it likely would have drawn much greater scrutiny.) Beyond the deeply complex characters and realized themes, Almodóvar’s screenplay takes some audacious risks – something that many would argue the Academy does not value as much as it should.
