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Genre: Comedy
Premise (from writer): A dysfunctional family must band together to save their outcast daughter from marrying into a cult.
Why You Should Read (from writer): My name is Allison Raskin and I’ve been a fan of the site for years. I graduated from USC’s screenwriting program in May 2011. I’ve been lucky enough to snag a manager (after working as his assistant for a year) but he hasn’t done anything in terms of my writing (instead I go out on audition for roles I’m not pretty enough for because my headshot is misleading). If my logline sounds familiar, it’s because there was a 2008 blacklist script with a similar logline (APOSTLES OF INFINITE LOVE). I wasn’t aware of this until I was halfway through my first draft. I also wasn’t aware that my management company is the one trying to produce it…Despite these obstacles I decide to continue because it was a story I really wanted to tell. Hopefully it will be a story you want to read.
Writer: Allison Raskin
Details: 103 pages
I realize this goes against ethnicity in the script, but Gina Rodriquez for Jenny?
I feel like some of you are holding back on the amateur submissions lately because you’re saving your scripts for The Scriptshadow 250 Contest. Getting your script reviewed here is actually going to IMPROVE your chances of getting into The Scriptshadow 250 since any script good enough to get a review will definitely get into the contest. Also, there isn’t another place on the internet that helps a script get better than Amateur Friday. You not only get feedback from me, but from a group of really smart people who put a lot of time and effort into giving thoughtful notes. After a review here, your script is going to be so much better going into my contest. So keep those submissions coming!
I picked this script today because a few of you personally e-mailed me to tell me you liked it. I also think it’s interesting to review scripts from writers who have representation (“Anonymous” is a huge management company) but haven’t yet broken out. I also love giving female writers a shot since it’s a little harder for them to get a leg up in this male-dominated industry. So let’s take a look!
20 year-old Jenny is going to school at an obscure college in California, light years away from her weird family, which you can probably guess is planned. Jenny is a chubby sci-fi loving nerd who aches for any kind of attention, and secretly wishes that her family will finally wake up and realize how important she is to them.
So it probably isn’t a surprise that when mini-celebrity sci-fi author Bozeltus shows up at her bookstore, she falls in love with him. Unfortunately, Bozletus has a little L. Ron Hubbard in him, and has created his own religion based on his books. Still, when he asks Jenny to marry him, she’s so happy that someone’s finally given her the time of day, she says yes.
When the fam finds this out, they decide to make a cross-country trip to save Jenny, but they’re so ignorant of her life, that finding her proves to be a lot harder than they expected. You’ve got the selfish mom, the selfish hot older sister, the sister who has since had a sex-change and is now the brother, the dad (who’s just been diagnosed with MS), and the pretty sister’s new psychologist boyfriend, the only level-headed member of the group.
The script is really about the family learning who they are during the trip, with the occasional cut back to Jenny at the compound. It’s back there where Jenny learns that Bozeltus keeps everybody high or drunk so they’re easier to control, he’s already married to several other women at the compound, and, oh yeah, the consummation of their marriage is going to happen in front of all the members.
As Jenny becomes more and more nervous about her decision, her family races to get to her before L. Ron makes her his galaxy queen. But can the family figure out their own issues in time to do so? And will they finally realize that it was their fault that Jenny got into this situation in the first place? Read the script to find out!
WHAT I LIKED
The script has a great energy to it. Even if you’re not a fan of the sense of humor being used, you can appreciate the way the comedy pops along. The main character is original – a 20 year old female who loves science-fiction books. I don’t run into many characters like that. Overall, the family was very colorful and unique. A common complaint in most amateur screenplays is that the characters all sound the same. That’s not the case here. Everyone definitely sounds and acts differently. And finally, this isn’t an empty comedy premise. We’re exploring something here – broken families and the importance of love, attention, and support.
THE FIRST ACT
The first act moved too slowly. I’m not sure the opening flashback where a 13 year-old Jenny is bombing at her bat mitzvah is needed. Maybe if it was funnier I’d keep it – but the comedy was very straightforward – a girl is a bad singer at her bat mitzvah. A comedy has to take a funny idea and find a fresh angle on it. This was pretty standard stuff and I don’t know if it deserves the most important section of real estate in the screenplay – the first five pages. I actually tell a lot of writers to get rid of these opening flashback scenes and they often come back to me saying, “But then you don’t know how bad her family life is. I need to establish that” The thing is, we get that her family relationship is bad in the very next scene, when Jenny calls home and the family doesn’t give a shit. In that moment, we can imagine that there was a shitty bat mitzvah (or something like it) without having to spend 3 pages on it. Never underestimate how much you can convey to the reader in a very short amount of time. Getting rid of this scene also allows you to set up Jenny’s adult life better, since you can jump right into it.
SIMILAR SCENES IN THE OPENING ACT ARE DEATH
There are either two or three scenes in the opening 15 pages with Jenny sitting somewhere alone. They each have something a little different going on in them, but they’re generally the same thing – Jenny is sitting alone proving she’s a loner without friends. We don’t need you to show us that three times, especially since each time is so static (character sitting down being lonely). Especially early on, you want to show movement. For example, if you want to show how much Jenny loves sci-fi books, maybe instead of showing her reading one (boring) she’s at a bookstore trying to hunt down a rare print of one of her favorite books (note: to Allison’s credit, she did have a scene with Jenny in the car listening to a sci-fi audiobook – but the scene still wasn’t necessary. There was nothing going on in it that told us something we didn’t know through these other scenes – that she’s a sci-fi book nerd). This is actually a great opportunity to combine scenes. Why not combine the scene where she’s calling her family with the scene where she’s listening to her audiobook in her car?
THE COMEDY
I don’t love to give comedy advice since comedy is subjective and my own sense of humor is a little left-of-center, but I wanted to make a couple of observations about the comedy here. First, I don’t think “on-the-nose” comedy is a great option. I suppose it can be used ironically but I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here. Giving a character the name “Buzzkill Jones?” Wouldn’t it be funnier if he’s got a regular name and, through his actions and dialogue, you show him to be the biggest buzzkill ever? Also, I’d be careful about featuring debilitating diseases in comedy. It’s not that they can’t be funny. And I know 50/50 did okay. But it’s typically something people find more depressing than funny. Remember that you’re a writer. And therefore you have the power to do ANYTHING. That means hitting the same joke without bringing people down. Why, for example, can’t the father go online and self-diagnose himself and become convinced (without any medical knowledge whatsoever) that he has MS? Now you can play with him reacting to what he thinks the disease is doing to him. He can accelerate through all the stages during the trip. That’d be my advice.
JENNY
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Jenny because she seemed so needy. Whenever you write a main character, consider how that character would be received in real life, and you’ll get a pretty good indication of how they might be received by readers/viewers. The way Jenny hangs up the parent phone call after they forgot her birthday and says to herself: “Happy birthday to me.” Or when she hears about how another character’s mom smothered him, you write: “She’d kill to be smothered.” It’s so desperately needy. I understand that you need to convince the reader why she would marry a cult leader, but that doesn’t 100% excuse it. I think you need to calibrate the situation here and look for a way to get the same point across without jeopardizing our support of your hero. For example, you can use “offset traits” – positive traits you can give characters to offset their negative vibe. Or, you can find another personality trait to hit with Jenny (low self-esteem?) that doesn’t turn the reader off so much.
IN SUMMARY
I think there’s something here. This is an inherently funny premise. It was a little too over-the-top for me, but so was Little Miss Sunshine, a similar film. So taste could be playing into that assessment. I think Allison is a good writer and I hope some of these observations help her improve.
Screenplay link: Jenny’s Got a Cult
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Yesterday we talked about “leading,” a very powerful storytelling tool. Today’s script actually used leading IN THE TITLE, which I thought was interesting. The first 20 pages are a little slow, but I wanted to keep going since I knew that Jenny was going to be in a “cult” at some point. So I was committed to, at the very least, getting to that point. The lesson here is, you can use your title as a lead if you want to.
