Three literary adaptations won Academy Awards on Sunday, with One Battle After Another scoring the most wins of any film this year.
One Battle After Another, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel, Vineland, was the big winner at the awards, taking home six trophies, including best picture, best director and adapted screenplay (both Paul Thomas Anderson), best supporting actor (Sean Penn), best casting (Cassandra Kulukundis), and best film editing (Andy Jurgensen).
Accepting the award for best adapted screenplay, Anderson said, “This is an [adaptation], so I owe a huge debt of admiration and love to Thomas Pynchon.”
Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s legendary Gothic novel, won trophies for best production design, best costume design, and best makeup and hairstyling.
Hamnet, the adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel directed by Chloé Zhao, written by Zhao and O’Farrell, earned Jessie Buckley the best leading actress Oscar for her role as William Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes.
In her acceptance speech, Buckley said, “Chloé and Maggie, to get to know this incandescent woman and journey to understand the capacity of a mother’s love is the greatest collision of my life. It’s Mother’s Day in the U.K. today, so I’d like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
