(Hollywood) Comedy The Holdoversnominated in five categories at the Oscars, was accused of plagiarism by a British screenwriter, according to the magazine Variety.
These accusations, revealed Saturday evening on the eve of the ceremony, cast doubt on the film by Alexander Payne, one of the most serious competitors facing Anatomy of a fall for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Screenwriter Simon Stephenson, who notably co-wrote the script for the Pixar cartoon Lucaswrote to the writers union (WGA) in January to complain about plagiarism, according to documents published by Variety.
He accuses The Holdovers for having taken up key elements of the plot of Friscoa script which never resulted in a film, and to copy certain scenes “line by line”.
The screenwriter assures that he can prove his accusations, with a file made up of “truly damning” evidence.
The Holdovers tells the story of a pedantic and cantankerous professor, stuck for Christmas vacation with an insolent student and a grieving cook in an American boarding school in the 1970s.
Frisco was centered on a doctor tired of existence, forced to take care of a young patient of 15 years old.
Alexander Payne and the screenwriter of The HoldoversDavid Hemingson, declined to comment, according to Variety.
Mr. Hemingson is the only screenwriter credited for The Holdovers. But Mr. Payne has previously explained that he helped develop the script, and that it was inspired by a 1930s French film discovered at a festival several years ago.
“I’m very aware that people often have surprisingly similar ideas and sometimes it’s possible to borrow a few elements and so on. This is not the case here,” Mr. Stephenson wrote to the WGA, according to Variety. “Both scenarios are legally identical and riddled with the same unique elements. »
Mr. Stephenson points out, for example, the similarities between an early scene in the film, where the protagonist is reprimanded in his superior’s office for having wronged a politician.
In The Holdovers, this moment comes because the professor has graded the son of an American senator poorly. In Friscothe doctor calls an American congresswoman, who is the mother of a patient, an idiot.
The Holdovers is in the running for five Oscars on Sunday: best film, best actor for Paul Giamatti, best supporting actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, best original screenplay and best editing.