Best Writing Movies

I’ve been thinking about the writing process once again, specifically my writing process.

Catching a piece of ‘Mike & Molly’ triggered the thinking. Molly, as a teacher, decides to write, and quickly and seemingly easily writes a book, finds a publisher, gets it published and so on. Although I know from other glimpses of the show that she struggled at times, the sitcom’s presentation of writing effort and success is the sort of sequence that makes me growl and pour a fresh glass of wine to guzzle my irritation. This is the sort of story-telling that makes people say, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” the sort of avenue of writing that makes other people ask, “Are you published yet?” Because it is just that fucking easy.

Everyone can present their own movies about writers and why they like them. I liked these movies because of their focus on writers and their processes, and the struggles they encounter while trying to write. These movies present the sense of battle that I feel I endure on frequent days, a sense of battle imposed by the tensions of living, struggling to write, coping with low self-esteem and pursuing a prize in isolation, all somehow with the sense and understanding that no matter what I write or achieve, I’ll probably never be happy with it.

‘Adaptation’. Number one, I’m a Charlie Kaufman fan. He wrote this screenplay. Number two, I’m a Spike Jonz fan, and he directed the film.

This movie has a good cast: Nicholas Cage as a writer, Charlie Kaufman, struggling to adapt ‘The Orchid Thief’, but then we have Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep, Brian Cox and Chris Cooper, and Judy Greer and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Kaufman is going nuts trying to write the screenplay. In an interview given in 2002, Kaufman says, “The emotions that Charlie is going through are real and they reflect what I was goin’ through when I was trying to write the script.”

Then there is the question of Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother, who helps him write the movie. I often refer to my writing side as another person who happens to live in my shell, and that’s how I interpreted Donald Kaufman’s existence, since Donald is fictional.

‘Stranger than Fiction’. I’m not a huge Will Farrell fan. I like Emma Thompson but I was quite ready to not like this movie (because I am not a huge Will Farrell fan), so I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed Emma T as Karen struggling with writer’s block and pensively thinking through what she wants to write, rejecting different approaches and hating herself and the world in the process…but also coming to grips with it all.

That, also, is part of the writing life.

‘Wonder Boys’. I’m once again influenced by the cast and inspiration here, as much as anything, considering myself a fan of Michaels Chabon and Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Francis McDormand, Alan Tudyk and Robert Downy, Jr.

This movie is about several writers as played by Douglas and Maguire. One is the aging, struggling novelist trying to publish another novel, whose novel is now over twenty-five hundred pages; the other is a brilliant young talent (Maguire) on the verge of his career.

‘Barfly’. Kind of based on Charles Bukowski’s life, this is a gritty portrayal of the complications that haunt humans, including writers. Our writer in this movie is Henry. As so many are, Henry is self-aware and intelligent but victimizes himself and his supporters by his inability to deal with his flaws. And so, he begins and ends the movie changed but the same, fighting with the bartender in back of the bar.

Charles Bukowski wrote the screenplay. Mickey Rourke played the fictionalized version of Bukowski, Henry.

Honorable Mention: 

‘Death at A Funeral’. I’ve never seen the American version of this film, just the original British, which represents a great example of British black humor.

The Brit version’s cast includes Peter Dinklage, Alan Tudyk, Keely Hawes, Jane Asher, Matthew Macfadyen and Rupert Graves. Macfadyen and Graves play brothers who are writers. Graves is successful, living it up in New York and fawned upon by everyone as the famous writer while Macfadyen has remained at home, coping with his parents and his marriage and struggling to write a novel. This is carried through into the writing of the eulogy; Macfadyen’s character, Daniel, is writing it, and everyone is disappointed that his brother, Robert (played by Graves), isn’t writing it.

That’s the basic premise of their relationship. I don’t want to spoil the movie by revealing more.

I’m not an expert on these matters, or a pro critic or anything. Please, offer your take on any movies that attract your interest because of their portrayal of writers.

I always want more.