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Genre: Comedy
Premise (from writer): Based on a true story, a group of college kids in the 60s pose as royalty from a made-up country (Marchentia). What starts out as innocent fun, spins out of control when the media turns their arrival into the most important visit in the city’s history.
About: Well, we didn’t have an Amateur Offerings two weeks ago due to Holiday madness, so I had to pick an amateur script on my own to review today. Long-time reader of the site, Matt Hirschhorn, recently won a comedy contest with this script, and since we haven’t reviewed a comedy for Amateur Friday in awhile, I thought it was time the Scriptshadow community stopped screaming at each other (ahem – Grendl), and started having some fun again.
Writer: Matt Hirschhorn
Details: 110 pages
The sure to be classic, Fishbein!
The second I read Matt’s premise, I loved it. The best comedy ideas are the ones where you can immediately start imagining the funny scenes. But the reason you don’t see me reviewing much comedy on the site anymore is because despite all these fun premises, THE SCRIPTS ARE NEVER FUNNY! Not to mention that the execution is always terrible, often sliding between lazy and cheap. What makes a lot of funny people funny, it seems, is what also makes them lazy. They just don’t put in the effort required for a polished “take me seriously” screenplay.
But Thallus isn’t like that. It’s actually quite intricate. There are a lot of storylines going on here, and they’re all rather well balanced, building and interweaving cleverly as the script goes on. There’s a strong sense of purpose for both the story and everyone in it, and, most importantly, there are a lot of laughs. Imagine that, a comedy with laughs. I guess it’s still possible!
The story is set in 1968 and centers around a Buffalo college kid named Marty Goodman. Marty’s your average frustrated chump. He’s in love with a girl, Eve Ryan, the daughter of a senator, who’s way out of his league (she dates guys like O.J. Simpson, not short Jewish boys with questionable haircuts). Marty complains about Eve all the time to his best friend, Herbie, an overweight James Bond wannabe who’s in denial about his lackluster fitness regimen.
So one day, while spitballing ideas for a social experiment Marty must do for class (he must show how people go along with the herd rather than question the masses), he and Herbie stumble across a couple of plants Herbie’s studying for a test (the “Thallus” and the “Marchentia”). They joke that, when thrown together, they sound like the title of some prince from a tiny country. One thing leads to another, and Marty gets the idea to become the “Thallus of Marchentia” for his experiment. He’ll fool the campus and get an ‘A’ on his paper. Added benefit? He’ll finally have a shot with Eve!
The two enlist their annoying acquaintance, school reporter Fishbein, to write about the Thallus’ arrival in the school paper. Fishbein reluctantly agrees, and sure enough, when the article is printed, everyone is talking about the Thallus’s arrival. Which then spreads to the local newspapers. Which then spreads to the local television outlets. And within 24 hours, everybody in Buffallo, including the Mayor himself, can’t wait to meet the Thallus of Marchentia!
As things get bigger, the group finds themselves expanding their story. They’re now a Uranium-rich country who’s in the middle of a war with the Communists, a war only slightly smaller than Vietnam. They’re coming to Buffallo to hopefully open a Uranium plant and expand their relationship with the United States. Things get even more complicated when Senator Ryan (Eve’s mom) wants to get some of that Thallus money to fund her campaign.
Then, of course, there’s local college activists Zen, Cloud, and Wolf, who want to make a difference but are sick of their current SDS group’s lack of action. So they decide to take matters into their own hands by kidnapping the Thallus and getting him to remove all American troops from Marchentia. All of this while Marty desperately tries to take advantage of this one and only chance to bed Eve Ryan, an opportunity that’s quickly slipping away with each passing hour.
What The Thallus did well that I don’t see with a lot of amateur comedies is it was really soundly structured. And what I mean by that is that it always had thrust. Every section had characters going after important things, and each of those pursuits had some level of immediacy behind them. For example, Marty, when he first becomes the Thallus, only has that day to try to hook up with Eve. Fishbein only has one shot to secretly record Senator Ryan offering political favors for money. Senator Ryan only has one shot to get money from the Thallus. Zen and Cloud are running out of time to record the Thallus to get American troops out of Marchentia.
Screenplays work best when characters are all going after something, and the characters need that something immediately. That’s why Back to the Future is one of my favorite screenplays of all time. It’s all about characters constantly needing something RIGHT NOW. And while I’m not saying the Thallus is up to the level of that masterpiece, I loved that it latched on to the same storytelling principle.
I think the big thing with comedy though is that the characters have to stand out on the page. And not just the protagonist, but everyone. Because everyone has to be memorable and everyone has to be funny in their own unique way. Matt did a great job of that here. I dare you to read this and not remember these characters two weeks from now. Herbie, Fishbein, Zen, Cloud, Wolf. These were all hilarious characters with their own unique shit going on. Herbie, especially, with his obsession of dieting and exercise, despite never going through with anything or ever actually putting any work into his regimen. His White Castle breakdown binge was classic.
I also thought Zen and Cloud’s bickering was hilarious. I thought Herbie’s really bad version of James Bond was funny. Loser Fishbein and his dream to one day go on a “Canadian Adventure” with friends. I even loved the out-of-left-field Russian agents who were there to assassinate the Thallus because Russia’s president “hated Marchentia” (despite the fact that it didn’t exist). I loved watching them dance awkwardly in the club and argue whether you can only do “The Twist” dance to the song “The Twist” or if it was allowed during other songs as well.
And I think what elevated this beyond your typical comedy was that Matt was actually trying to say something with the story. We do follow the masses at the expense of our own opinion. I was just talking about this the other week in regards to what movies we feel we’re allowed to “like” and “dislike.” There was a theme building here that we’d rather pretend we know what everyone’s talking about and go along with it rather than do a little research, form our own opinion, and rock the boat.
There were a couple things that didn’t work for me though. Every once in a while, the scenes felt a little stilted, particularly early on, and I think that’s because Matt was setting up so much story. That’s one of the hardest things about writing an intricate plot like this one, is that almost everything in your first act – all your scenes – double as set-ups. You’re setting up how we come up with the Thallus idea. You’re setting up who Eve is and that Marty wants her. You’re setting up Zen and Cloud’s problems with the system, so we understand why they kidnap the Thallus later. No matter how good of a writer you are, if you have to pack a lot of exposition into your story, it’s going to bleed through at times and make scenes feel a little artificial.
The only thing you can do to combat this is keep working on the scenes and keep simplifying the setups for all these later events. The less information you have to give the audience, the more you can focus on the making the scenes themselves entertaining, which is doubly important in a comedy, since it’s hard to make people laugh when you have to cram a lot of information into the scene as well. Matt did a pretty good job of this in places, but in other spots it felt like the exposition overwhelmed the scene and gave it that “stilted” feel.
The only other big problem I had with the script was the final act. This is where all the storylines intersected. While it was easy to identify who was who in their own separate worlds, once everyone came together, since there were so many of them, I had to read everything twice to remember who the characters in the scenes were, how they knew each other, and what all the subtle but important story points were between those characters so I could fully enjoy their interactions. We have a three-way car chase for example, and I was trying to remember who everyone in each car was and how they were related to one another, as well as those subtle intricacies between all of them. Because of that I had to read everything twice. The end of the script is so important. It’s when the reader should be flying through the pages because things are building and moving quickly towards the climax. If you’re stopping to read everything twice, it’s the exact opposite experience of what you want the reader to go through.
Despite those problems, I really liked this. You don’t often see an amateur comedy (or a comedy in general) that has this much story going on, yet always stays so focused and entertaining. If you’re a comedy fan, you’ll definitely want to take the Thallus for a spin.
Script link: The Thallus of Marchentia
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Once you’ve set up everything in your first act, go back through those scenes and try to smooth them out as much as possible. Do everything in your power to hide the setups, or else your opening act will feel like a bunch of exposition as opposed to a bunch of entertainment.
