When I first saw Donnie Darko in the theaters, I left confused. What was it I had just seen? It didn’t make sense. Nothing coherent appeared to have happened. It honestly felt like some clueless writer just threw a bunch of weird scenes together and called it a movie. I thought it was terrible. Then I began reading all over the internet that people had actually liked the film. Some were even calling it genius. I tried to tell anyone who would listen that there was absolutely zero skill going on here but they insisted that the writer, Richard Kelly, was a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci and would continue to grace us with cinematic genius for decades to come. I like to think of Southland Tales as my “I told you so.” I remember reading up on the movie’s development back during the AICN glory days. We’d get pre-viz tests of Kelly’s special effects shots, like cars having sex with other cars. Everyone in the comments section was like, “Wowwwww. That’s amaaaaazing.” I sat there going, “Cars having sex with other cars?? That isn’t cool. That’s stupid.” When would you ever want to introduce a story element that had cars having sex with other cars? It solidified my belief that Kelly did not have a firm grasp on the craft of screenwriting. Then came Southland Tales. It was a disaster pretty much on every level. It was bloated, confusing, incoherent, rambling, bizarre. It’s such a terribly constructed story that it’s hard to create a basis for even critiquing it. But I’ll try. Now I actually read TWO versions of the script, the original 2001 version, and then the more recent 2006 version (which Kelly changed significantly as he was inspired by the 9/11 attacks).
1) There is such a thing as finding success too early – Don’t be upset if you’re 27, 28, 29 and haven’t made it yet. I’ve seen tons of writers get lucky and find success too early (usually from a script with a great premise that was terribly executed). This almost always results in a floundering career. Now I don’t know Richard Kelly personally. I don’t think anything bad of him as a person. But I believe he’s a pretty good example of this. He found success via a script/movie that showed little recognition of basic storytelling skills. A guy in a weird bunny costume is a cool image, but it isn’t storytelling. So I’m not surprised he’s struggled since. He never learned how to write a cohesive story, which is what Hollywood is built on. Learn and practice screenwriting AS MUCH AS YOU CAN so that when you do make it, you’re ready.
2) It’s always a sign of a bad script if we don’t know what the story’s about by page 25 – Page 25 is typically the end of the first act. It’s the time at which we should know what the main character’s goal is or what the main dramatic question is. In Southland Tales, all I know is there’s a lot of people, it’s the future, and there are some “tidal brakes” that may or may not affect how people act.
3) A new vision often means scrapping your old vision – A common screenwriting mistake is to come up with a new vision for your story, write a new draft, but still keep a bunch of outdated elements from the old draft. In Southland Tales, the original story was about a movie star who inadvertently gets mixed-up in a botched framing. The new story is about a post-Apocalyptic world of terror and “tidal shifts” and evil German corporations. So why is Kelly still incorporating his “movie star who inadvertently gets mixed up in a botched framing” plot? It has NOTHING to do with this new story. This decision is often born out of laziness. Writers believe that if they bring stuff over, they’ll have 30-60 pages already written for the new draft, which is, of course, better than having 0 pages. But what does content matter if it has nothing to do with your new angle? Each rewrite is different. But know when you’ve changed a story so much that you need to blow everything in the old draft up.
4) No main character = bad news – Whenever you don’t have a main character, you increase the difficulty of writing a compelling story by 100%. It can be done but the level of writing skill required to make it work is dramatically higher. So many writers make this mistake and think they can pull it off. But 99% of the time it turns into a confusing mess (just like Southland Tales!). Until you’ve proven you know how to make a single protagonist story work, don’t try a multi-protagonist story.
5) Multiple protagonists means a more slowly emerging story – Remember that readers are impatient people. They’re typically looking for a reason to check out. Almost all the agents and managers I know stop reading as soon as they’re bored. They don’t feel any duty to read the whole script. That’s why every single page of your script should be entertaining. The thing is, when you’re telling a mutli-protagonist story, it’s taking you 3, 4, 5 times as long to get your story going because you’re setting up 3, 4, 5 character storylines instead of one. This typically results in readers getting frustrated and bailing on you before your story becomes interesting. Another warning for those wishing to dive into multi-character waters.
6) Don’t put pointless weird shit in your script just because you think it’s “cool.” If you can’t explain it, ditch it. – We meet policemen David Clark staring at himself in the bathroom. We’re told, “Every time he moves, his reflection in the mirror is late. There is a one second delay in his reflection.” Again, cool image, but what does this have to do with the story?? Where’s the logic in this image? How does it connect to the rest of the script? Nobody cares about writers’ trippy coffee-shop style ideas if they don’t serve a purpose in the story.
7) Don’t have your characters quoting classic novelists or poets – Characters reciting people like Robert Frost or T.S. Elliot often come off as a desperate attempt by writers to sound “deep” and “intelligent.” The only time this works is when the character is so well-crafted and their interest in these authors so organically intertwined with their character, that the quoting feels honest. This is rarely the case though
8) Beware losing important information in the draft process – Writers often detail an important action or motivation or backstory or plot development in a draft, only to pare it down or eliminate it altogether in a subsequent draft. This happens for a number of reasons, but usually because writers start to know their story so well that they erroneously assume that the information in question is embedded in the fabric of the story whether they mention it or not. This results in huge chunks of relevant information being lost from draft to draft, leaving a story where not a whole lot makes sense. In the 2001 draft of Southland Tales, much is explained about how Boxer (The Rock) is researching a cop role. In the 2006 draft, barely anything is mentioned about it. So it isn’t really clear why Boxer’s doing what he’s doing. This is a classic case of writers getting lost in the draft process. If it’s not on the page, the reader won’t know it. So if you’re getting rid of information, be sure it’s information that can be gotten rid of.
9) Never drown your reader in information – On the flip side, too much information results in reader circuitry overload, which results in the reader giving up on you. Here we have “tidal braking,” which changes people’s personality, we have Utopia 3, a tidal generator, we have nuclear attacks, we have a new police unit called US-ident, we have a fuel source called Karma something, we have a strange new drug sweeping the streets, we have porn stars, we have action stars writing screenplays they believe they’re living inside, we have twin cops, we have Neo-Marxists, we have a character count approaching 40. Drown your reader in information and they will surely jump ship.
10) Use common sense – While seemingly obvious advice, I am shocked by the number of writers out there who don’t ask themselves this simple question: “Will anyone actually want to see this movie?” They get so wrapped up in the machinations of their story that they never ask themselves the hard question. I read so many bad scripts that would’ve never existed had the writers been honest with themselves. I mean go read the synopsis for Southland Tales here. It’s beyond laughable. It’s impossible to follow. Everything from the idea to the characters to the story is laughably ridiculous. Be honest with yourselves, guys. Write movies that people are actually going to want to see.
