Larry Karaszewski

Johnny Depp's Ed Wood never doubts that the next film is worth making, and the script gives him no evidence at all that he will make it well. That is the comedy of Ed Wood (1994), and Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who wrote it together, never once tell the joke against him. They build the film around persistence and friendship rather than a career, so there is something to follow other than a rise and a fall. Tim Burton lets the pleasure of working together count for something. It runs long, and there are stretches where the writers' affection leaves Depp with little to do but beam.

Karaszewski and Alexander began on Problem Child (1990) and its sequel, comedies the studio softened from the darker films they had in mind, and the reviews were poor. Ed Wood was the turn. After it they made a trade of what they call anti-biopics: The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), Man on the Moon (1999), Big Eyes (2014), Dolemite Is My Name (2019), each about a fringe figure the respectable version of the form would not have touched. Karaszewski has said, "Biopics were always three hours long, really boring, and kind of cradle-to-the-grave. We wanted to cover the least amount of time possible." The films pick a few years or a single relationship and stay there.

That habit is why the pair could move to television without changing method. They created American Crime Story (2016) and wrote its Simpson season as a workplace drama: prosecutors with a case they believe in, a boss who wants to be seen winning it, a judge who likes the cameras. Sarah Paulson plays Marcia Clark as a woman who has never had to be liked before and is bewildered to find it is now part of the job, and we felt for her more than we had bargained for, because the writing never pauses to ask us to. Sterling K. Brown's Darden counts the cost of every sentence before he says it. The later seasons, which they produced rather than wrote, are lumpier; the one they wrote is as sharp as courtroom television gets.

Their strength is making obscure or awkward true stories playable for a large audience without sanding off the awkwardness, and the trick depends on the director. Burton, twice, and Milos Forman, twice, understood that the subjects were to be enjoyed before they were judged. The weakness is the same thing in reverse: liking a subject this much can leave too little for the actor to play, which is what happens to Depp for stretches. The Flynt film drew complaint for seeming to celebrate its subject, and that is the risk they run every time. If you want to know whether the method is for you, Ed Wood is the test, and it has not stopped working.