2009: Precious (based on the novel Push by Sapphire)

Screenplay by Geoffrey S. Fletcher
Adapted from the novel Push by Sapphire

Precious is sixteen years old and pregnant with her second child by her father. Molested and abused by both her parents and unable to read, Precious is used to no one caring about her. Then she's sent to an alternative school, where she feels seen for the first time.

This is a heart-wrenching, thoroughly upsetting story, but honestly, I wish more Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar-winners were like this. The movie changes some things around, omits a few details, adds a few characters, but keeps the heart of the original story, and doesn't shy away from dealing with the harsher aspects of the novel. Not every instance of abuse described in the book is directly translated to the screen, but the movie shows enough to give a good impression of what Precious's life has been like without glossing over anything, but also without focusing too heavily on what happened to her and losing the character herself, which I found impressive. In short, this is an adaptation that successfully remains true to its source material without becoming confined to it, which is what I'm always hoping for and only rarely find.

While the movie does an outstanding job of adapting Precious's story, it could have done better in its portrayal of the other girls in her class at the alternative school. The film made them seem significantly meaner and cattier than the book did. The novel ends with excerpts from the book in which the whole class wrote their stories, so readers get to learn more about several of these characters, while none of that was in the movie. I get that the film wanted to focus mainly on the protagonist, and it does hint at the stories of the other girls. However, in the book they're mostly encouraging each other, and in the movie they're constantly insulting each other, so this combined with the elimination of their stories reduces them to stereotypes, while I feel like part of the point of the book is that they each had their own individual struggles that they were overcoming. Perhaps the movie was trying to show that they were only putting on a tough exterior to hide their pain, but I don't feel like it quite got there, which I found disappointing. But overall, the movie is very well done, and I think it's one of the best adaptations to win this award.

Coming up next: The Social Network, based on a book by Ben Mezrich