Genre: Thriller
Winning Logline: An emotionally fragile executive failing to live up to his potential in life hires a mysterious personal development coach whose unorthodox, life-threatening tactics push him to the brink of death.
About: This logline took on a competitive bunch this weekend and, in a hard fought battle, came out on top, pulling in 30% of the votes with 22. The second-place logline, A Chinese Vampire Story, snatched up 21 votes. That’s the tightest race we’ve had in a while! Mr. Gregory is a teacher teaching all the way out in Cambodia! So make sure all my Cambodian readers chime in. Phnom Penh for life!
Writer: Howard Gregory
Details: 124 pages
Javier Bardem to play the Mentor?
First of all, I just want to say how happy I am for today’s writer, Howard. I consulted on this script for him a while back and I kept telling him, “This is a really good idea.” But when he queried people, he wasn’t getting any requests and began doubting the marketability of the concept. That didn’t sit right with me. I knew this was a good movie idea. So I’m glad everybody who voted it into the number 1 slot this past Showdown confirmed that.
I’m actually curious if Howard’s e-mail query is the problem. Maybe he can share it in the comments. As someone who reads a lot of queries, I know that a poor query can result in someone immediately dismissing the submission. Cause querying is writing. So if you can’t get that right, it’s an “honest signal” to the manager/agent/producer that you won’t get the script right either. If anyone’s interested, I do e-mail query consults. They’re 50 bucks. Just e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested.
From what I remember, I wanted The Mentor to achieve a certain level of darkness. The execution was too light and surface-level for my taste. I also wanted more authenticity and depth to the characters’ jobs and storylines. I wanted it to feel REAL, which, in my opinion, Howard hadn’t achieved yet. This is a whole new draft, though. So I’m expecting it to be bigger and better! I’ll post the first page of the script then get into the plot summary…
30 year old Joel works as an assistant at a PR firm and is, for all intents and purposes, invisible. Until one day his boss, Harvey, is freaking out because their biggest client just called someone the n-word. Joel walks in the board room with coffees and accidentally spills them on a furious Harvey.
Joel races out of the room to his one friend in the office (who’s more like a frenemy), Alex, and Alex takes care of it, convincing Harvey to give Joel another shot. Meanwhile, Joel heads to his artist girlfriend’s show, where he sees the art curator touching her inappropriately and her allowing it. He confronts her and they get in a fight.
Afterwards, as Joel walks the streets, trying to calm down, a mysterious man, who witnessed the scene at the show, gives him the card of a man who can help him. Joel hems and haws for a couple of days but eventually meets the man, Nathan. Immediately, we can see that Nathan is a different cat. He’s strong-willed, cocky, assured, confident. And he tells Joel that if he wants to change his life, he can help him. He’s got five lessons. Are you in, or are you out? Joel is in.
Lesson 1 is “Be comfortable in your own skin” and involves Joel wearing an embarrassing rabbit mask in public. Lesson 2 is “Say it like you mean it” and requires yelling out what Joel feels on the top of a derelict silo. Lesson three is “The Chair” and requires Joel to sit in a chair and withstand a barrage of people who try to take it from him. Lesson 4 is “The Blindfold,” and requires Joel to walk across a road blindfolded, trusting Nathan to guide him. Lesson 5 is “Behave in ways that get you what you want” and places Joel in a scenario where he must decide whether to hurt someone he knows badly.
As this is happening, Joel takes the lead on the PR debacle and contacts the elusive client on his own. With his newfound confidence, Joel masterfully convinces their client and the man he called the n-word to meet and reconcile, making him a company star. But the second Nathan feels that Joel is no longer grateful for what he’s done for him, he gets angry. And when the most psychologically manipulative man in the world gets angry… watch out.
Since I gave notes on this script, I want to point out how much it’s improved from Howard’s initial draft. There’s so much more detail to this world, to the characters, to the tests, than were in the original screenplay. To the point where it feels like a completely different movie. And Nathan is a MUCH BETTER character. He was so simplistic and one-dimensional in that first draft. He feels way more fleshed-out here.
We screenwriters can get discouraged easily when we compare our early drafts to others’ final drafts. As long as your script is improving from draft to draft, that’s all that matters. You should only be worried when your drafts stop yielding improved results.
With that said, I’m still having some issues with the script and I’m not sure why. I suspect it’s because of a bunch of little things rather than one big thing. For example, I’ve always been hesitant about this PR job and this racist subplot. The problem when you introduce race is that you can’t help but have some of the script be about race. Which takes away from the central concept. And, in this case, the central concept has nothing to do with race. So I just think those two parts of the script don’t work together. Could we create a more relevant job for Joel?
Also, something isn’t quite clicking with Joel’s character, for me at least. I do not like that we meet our hero accidentally spilling coffee on his boss then running away and hiding like a 3rd grader. I understand we have to show that Joel needs help for him to need Nathan’s services but acting like a child is too far, in my opinion. I would rather meet him in a scenario where he’s challenged in some way. And he fails to meet the challenge.
I also don’t know what Joel’s primary flaw is. I don’t know why he needs the mentor. As currently constructed, he just seems to be in this general “rut.” He’s accidentally spilling coffee on his boss then running away. He doesn’t tell his work friend when he’s being a jerk. And he gets angry that his girlfriend is not doing more to fend off the art curator’s advances. Where is the common denominator?
I would prefer we lean into a more specific flaw. Specificity is your best friend when writing screenplays. It is preferable over generality 9999 times out 10,000. Especially in a script like this, whose entire purpose is built around “fixing” the protagonist. Another recent thriller, Nightcrawler, comes to mind. Louis Bloom’s flaw was his relentless ambition. It was super clear that that was his flaw because the writer kept reminding us over and over again. I think that’s something writers forget. They’re afraid of being “on the nose” about their hero’s flaw. But the hero’s flaw is so important in a script like this, therefore, as long as you’re exploring the flaw through ACTION as opposed to EXPOSITION DIALOGUE, you can hit it a lot more than you think.
As much as this script has improved, I still feel like there’s potential for it to be better. I’m wondering if just changing the PR job to something more organically connected to the concept would be enough. And for whatever reason, that opening coffee spill scene really put me off our protagonist. As you guys know, if your main character’s introduction fails, it could end the reader’s interest in that character for the rest of the script. I get the ick with that scene so maybe changing jobs allows us the opportunity for a new scene where we immediately like this character instead of dislike him.
I’m curious what the Scriptshadow Faithful thinks, especially those of you who voted for this logline. Did it deliver on what you hoped? Let’s try to help Howard take his script to the next level.
Script link: The Mentor
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Watch out for malapropisms, misused words or phrases that can make sentences feel “off.” For example, here we get “big honcho,” instead of “head honcho.” Or we get, “You always feel he’s got a great big microscope and he’s peeking into your brain,” whereas I think the more appropriate word is “peering” into your brain. If you have one of these in your script, it’s not a big deal. But readers start noticing if there’s more than that.
