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Genre: Comedy
Premise (from writer): Three socially impaired women, who think they have superpowers during PMS, believe they must find the remedy to menopause or risk losing their powers forever.
Why You Should Read (from writer): This is my attempt at a superhero script where there are no actual superpowers. It’s just three women who make some questionable choices because of issues with self-perception. It’s meant to be farcical fun so the humor tends towards sophomoric and crude. Curious what you think.
Writer: Stephanie Jones
Details: 91 pages
So a debate popped up in last week’s Amateur Offerings. Longtime contributor Stephanie Jones was getting a lot of votes, and some were saying that the reason was because everyone knew her, and that Amateur Offerings isn’t a “vote for your friends” contest, it’s a “vote for the best script” contest.
So here’s my take on that. I have not read all of the scripts so I can’t tell you which one is the best. But what I will say is that this is exactly how the real industry works. There are communities of people throughout Hollywood who work together. And when one of those people brings a project to the group, that project takes precedence over Rando Number 1’s project. It’s just how it is.
So how was anybody supposed to beat Steph this weekend? The same way you beat anyone in the real industry – YOU WRITE SOMETHING SO DAMN GOOD THAT THE GATEKEEPERS CAN’T OVERLOOK IT. And it doesn’t look like anybody did that last week. So tough cookies!
Weep, Crave, Loathe introduces us to the 35 year-old trio of lifelong friends, Ruby, Zora, and Peggy. Ruby is the plumper of the group, Zora is the crybaby, and Peggy is the angry one. There’s one important thing you need to know about these girls. They think they’re superheroes and that these traits (eating, crying, fighting) are super powers. They also believe that their periods bring out these powers.
All of this dates back to seemingly insignificant talks their mothers had with them when they were toddlers. But as you know, kids can take things literally, so when mom said that crying was a superpower, or that eating was a superpower, the kids just… believed them. All the way until they were adults!
But here’s the problem. At 35, the women are approaching menopause. And menopause means no more periods! And no more periods means no more powers! So they read about a procedure that allows doctors to slice off a piece of the ovary and save it for later, allowing the women to continue to have periods after menopause! All three women are in!
In the meantime, the group decides they need to spread their message to the world and therefore record a video of their powers in action. This video goes viral, and all of a sudden the entire world wants to know more. After going on a period-powers tour, the fame brings about issues in the girls’ friendship and the three break up!
We watch as they each learn to live life on their own, and to finally come to terms with the reality that their powers aren’t powers at all, just part of life. Or DO THEY???
Comedy is weird. It’s the only genre where you can break a bunch of the rules and still write something entertaining. As long as people are laughing, you’re doing a good job. Throw in subjectivity and grading comedy becomes a bit like grading a beauty pageant looking through a kaleidoscope.
I’m saying this so everyone knows this is just my opinion on Weep, Crave, Loathe, and if you want to know if this script is funny, you should read it and decide for yourself.
For me – I’m not going to lie – I struggled through it. And it came down to three problems. First, the humor was VERY broad. As in a character gets completely run over by a car and it’s played for laughs broad.
Second, the humor was very in your face. We only ever see Peggy, the angry girl, sharpening knives, watching shark videos, or trying to start a fight. Ruby, the fat girl, is only ever talking with her mouth full, or going to the supermarket to steal multiple boxes of pizza bites. To say that the humor was on-the-nose may be the understatement of the century.
But the biggest problem was that I never understood the concept. A 35 year-old woman believes that crying is a superpower because of a 3-second conversation she had with her mom when she was 5? Isn’t crying something you’d talk about thousands of times with numerous people over the course of 30 years, in which case you’d learn, at some point, that crying wasn’t a superpower?
Unfortunately, if the reader doesn’t buy into the concept, everything after that is a moot point. You’re building a story on a foundation that isn’t solid.
But even if I had bought into the concept, I still didn’t understand the goal. They’re going to have this surgery to take out a part of their ovaries so that they can continue to have their periods (and thus their superpowers) later in life? So when are they reattaching these ovaries? As soon as they get menopause? Is it then permanent? You can have your period and get pregnant indefinitely? Or does it only work for a limited time? And if so, how long? And if it’s only for, say, a year, then is making this the focal point of the plot even worth it? None of that was clear, which was a double-whammy as far as understanding what was going on in the screenplay.
In addition to this, the plot is stretched thin, giving everything a hurried “first-draft” feel. It’s something I talked about yesterday. Everything in first drafts takes too long. The big goal here is to have a surgery that will cut off part of their ovaries so they can continue to have superpowers after menopause.
The script takes up 16 ENTIRE PAGES of sporadic doctor visits just to determine if the women qualify for the procedure! Are we really going to spend 20% of the script just to get people approved for a procedure – in a superhero movie, no less, where audiences are expecting characters to go out and do superhero things? I think Steph could’ve gotten through this section in a page and a half with all three characters via a montage. It’s not the kind of plot point that warrants a huge chunk of screenplay real estate.
I will say this for Steph’s screenplay though. You won’t be able to predict where it’s going. Having the friends split up and figure life out by themselves for the last third of the script was an unexpected choice. But it also, once again, calls into question the concept. If you’re promising people a super-hero movie, even if it’s a different take on one, are they going to be satisfied moving into a character-piece that has little to do with the initial concept for the final 40 pages?
Put plainly, Weep, Crave, Loathe is a script that’s flawed at the concept level. Most of the script’s problems can be traced back to that shaky foundation. I’m trying to think of a way into this story that would work better. Maybe these three women really are superheroes? With REAL super-powers. But the only time they get these powers is during their periods, so they’re super bloated and moody whenever they’re out saving the world? I don’t know though. Is that sexist? The world is so sensitive these days I have no idea if that would fly.
So yeah, you can basically erase all of my issues if you go back and fix the concept. But that’s ultimately up to Steph and whether she thinks it’s flawed in the first place! What did you guys think???
Script link: Weep, Crave, Loathe
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The reason you hear myself and other screenwriting junkies tell you to write something great isn’t because the professional competition is great. It’s because everyone likes working with their own people on their own stuff. The only way to break through that is to write something so good that they’ll choose you over their friends. So write the best script you’re capable or writing and then you’ll have a legitimate shot.
What I learned 2: If a plot thread is going to take up a lot of time in a script, it better be important. Otherwise, we’re going to wonder why the writer is taking so long to tell a seemingly inconsequential piece of the story. I didn’t think getting approved by a doctor for a procedure should take 16 pages. We could’ve built in a much more important plot line that felt worthy of a 16 page investment.
