Blue Car

So continuing my weekend of catching up on movies made from Nicholl Fellowship-winning scripts, last night I watched "Blue Car".

Wow.

The irony about "Blue Car" is that at first glance it seems to fit the formula of scripts that do well in the Nicholl competition -- the main character is a creative young person (in this case a teenage girl poet) who blossoms under the tutelage of a male mentor, who turns out to have a troubled life of his own. It's basically the same plot as "Akeelah and the Bee" and "Finding Forrester".

But the take here is much more stark and real, it throws some nice curveballs along the way, and ultimately it doesn't actiually have all that much in common with the other two movies. There were times in this movie that I had absolutely no idea where it was going next, but I wanted to. Which is pretty much what writers strive for.

"Blue Car" was directed by its writer, Karen Moncrief. Leads Agnes Bruckner and David Strathairn do very impressive work. It's not a happy movie, but it is a very good one. A strong recommendation from me.

Ironically, in the history of the Nicholl, there have been 85 winning scripts. Only 8 have been made into movies that got any kind of real theatrical release; along with "Blue Car", "Finding Forrester" and "Akeelah and the Bee", the others are "Mean Creek", "Traveler", "Closet Land" "Down in the Delta" and "Arlington Road". Another handful were made as low-budget films, and played the festival circuit.

(1998 was a particularly stellar year, with "Blue Car", "Finding Forrester" and "Mean Creek" all winning the Nicholl in the same competition).

But it just goes to show you that even winning a big contest like this is still no guarantee that your script will ever be made. It is a tough business.