Today’s script is Steven Spielberg’s classic, “Duel,” meets Falling Down.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A young woman driving her son to school gets into a road rage incident with a man who killed his ex-wife earlier that morning.
About: Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe, was originally slated to come out this fall. It is the only movie during all of this craziness that has been MOVED UP in the schedule, and will now come out July 1st. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth is best known for Red Eye and Disturbia. He is also one of the many writers who’s taken a shot at Gremlins 3.
Writer: Carl Ellsworth
Details: 100 pages
You know the pandemic’s getting to you when you’re eagerly checking your promotions folder in your e-mail.
Today I want to talk about a common mistake I see screenwriters make, which is to explore issues in an on-the-nose manner. For example, let’s say you’re upset with how divided the country is politically and how it’s creating a lot of anger on both sides.
The wrong thing to do, then, would be to write a movie about politics and people getting angry about politics. It’s not going to land. It’s on-the-nose.
The better approach is to figure out what’s at the core of the issue you want to explore and write a movie that tackles that thematically. So with the political divide, it’s resulting in a lot of anger on both sides. Therefore, you’d want to write a movie about ANGER. You can pick from dozens of different topics where anger is involved. But the important thing is that the concept explore anger in a powerful way.
That’s what Carl Ellsworth did. This is not a political movie by any stretch. But it’s about anger. Therefore, a lot of people are going to be able to resonate with these characters.
Unhinged begins with a 50-something guy in his pickup outside of what, we presume to be, his house. The dude just looks angry. A few clues point us in the direction that his wife, who he’s in the middle of a divorce with, is in this house. We then see the man go inside. We hear a fight. The man comes back out a few minutes later, blood-smeared clothing. And the house slowly begins to burn.
Cut to Rachel Flynn, in her 30s, single mom, also in the middle of a divorce. She’s taking her son, Kyle, to school and she’s late. We get the sense that Rachel is always late. And that it’s usually her fault. Although you wouldn’t know that if you talked to Rachel. To her, it’s “the world’s” fault. Not the fact that she slept in an extra half-hour this morning.
Rachel pulls up to a red light, needing to take a right ASAP, but there’s a car in front of her. If we’re paying attention, we notice this car is familiar. Wait a minute. Is that the pickup our angry man was in earlier? With cross-traffic clear, Rachel is FURIOUS that the pick-up doesn’t take a right and lays on the horn – BEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Oh. Poor poor Rachel. That was a baaaaaad move.
She angrily whips around the truck and guns a right turn. But it’s rush hour. So it’s only a hundred feet before she’s behind more traffic. And, oh yeah, that pickup guy? He’s now next to her, motioning to Kyle to roll down the window. He’s got a smile on his face so Kyle obliges, and the man kindly tells Rachel that it looks like she’s having a rough day and, therefore, he understands why she honked at him back there.
All he wants is an apology.
But Rachel has too much pride and too much anger to offer an apology. And that just ensured this was going to be the worst day of her life.
The man, who’s never given a name, makes it his mission to follow Rachel around and terrorize her. But not just in his car. He manages to get a hold of Rachel’s phone (early on when she thinks she’s lost him and needs gas, he jacks her phone while she’s inside paying) and starts visiting her most precious contacts, taking them out one by one.
The scariest thing about this man is that he doesn’t care. He’s already accepted that this is his last day on earth. And that makes him very dangerous. He is going to teach Rachel a lesson she won’t forget for the rest of her life. To be a little more mindful of others and show some kindess, even in your worst moments.
This script started out FIRE.
Literally.
The man sets his ex-wife’s house on fire after he kills her.
And for half a script, I’d put this at an [x] impressive. There was a key moment at the midpoint which I thought was a bad choice that negatively impacted the rest of the script. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, there’s a lot to celebrate here.
I have to give props to Ellsworth for picking this subject matter. This is one of those ideas you read and you say, “OH MY GOD. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??” It’s so obviously a movie. Road Rage. There’s never been a movie about road rage based in the city.
There’s Duel, which was highway road rage. JJ Abram’s Joyride, another rural road rage movie. But there’s never been a city road rage movie despite the fact that it’s one of the most relatable things out there. So how nobody’s thought to write this movie before, I don’t know.
There’s also a key moment early in the script where I knew it was going to work. And I talk about this all the time. This is the thing readers look for. That early moment that hooks them, that lets them know this is going to be a little more thoughtful than the average execution of this idea.
It occurs after Rachel drives around the man and speeds off, only to have the man catch up to her and tell the son to roll down the window. Now in 99% of the theoretical scripts I’d read covering this scenario, they would have had the man act crazed or psychotic.
Ellsworth makes an unexpected choice though. The man is nice. He’s smiling. And he’s genuinely prepared to let this go. He kindly asks Rachel to apologize. It was a small moment. But the choice was just unexpected enough to draw me in. I thought, “Hmm, okay. This is not your typical bad guy. He’s got some complexity to him.”
The next moment that pulled me in was when Rachel goes to the gas station. For those of you thinking she would’ve gone straight to the police already, keep in mind, this is early on. She’s only had the one encounter with him and she thinks she’s ditched him.
While she’s inside, he steals her phone from her car. The reason I liked this choice so much is that it allowed for a second series of scenes to occur outside of car-chasing. Cause if the whole movie is him following her around in his car, that’s going to get monotonous fast.
Once he has her phone, he can start checking her e-mails, her texts, and begin infiltrating the lives of the people Rachel knows. For example, he finds out from some texts that Rachel is supposed to meet her divorce lawyer at 9. We know how this guy feels about divorce lawyers so he goes there under the pretense that he’s a friend of Rachel’s.
All of that was fun.
But there was a key moment at the midpoint where the script lost some steam. The man calls Rachel (he left a phone in her car) and they kind of unload the difficulties of their lives on each other. And the reason I didn’t like that was because a character like The Man only works if he’s mostly mysterious. The more we know about him, the less scary he becomes. And if he’s connecting with Rachel and understanding her anger, on a certain level, that takes away from the engine driving the script, which is him making her pay for what she did earlier.
From that point on, the script lost something. And you can go right back to the grandfather of this genre – Duel – to see that, yes, the best way to make that person scary is to not tell us a whole lot about them. All we needed to know about this guy was that his ex-wife left him and destroyed him in the divorce. THAT’S IT. From there just make him scary. That’s it.
Despite that hiccup, this was a good idea for a script and the execution was pretty darned snappy. For those frustrated at being kept inside all this time, Unhinged should offer a nice release.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Don’t use camera directions on the page (i.e. “CAMERA PANS UP TO SEE THE ENTIRE ALLEYWAY”). You’re not the director. You’re the writer. However, there are ways to get around this. You simply imply where the camera is going to be. Here is a line of description from that first scene where the man kills his wife: “We STAY INSIDE THE CAR and watch through the windshield as the Man heads ominously toward the house, passing by a FOR SALE SIGN now planted in the front yard.” Without ever saying “camera” or using technical terminology, we understand where the camera is. You don’t want to do this all the time, cause it’s still directing. But you can throw these lines in there every once in a while and get away with it.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from IMDB) Tim thinks he’s invited the woman of his dreams on a work retreat to Hawaii, realizing too late he mistakenly texted someone from a nightmare blind date.
About: I think it was William Goldman who once said, if a producer is setting a movie on a tropical island, that movie is not about making a movie. It’s about getting a paid three month vacation. Well, the glove fits. This is another Adam Sandler movie (his fourth Netflix movie set on an island?), except he ripped David Spade off the end of the bench and threw him in, probably because Sandler was so exhausted from having to make a real movie in Uncut Gems. Writers Pappas and Barnett are best known for writing a few episodes of The Righteous Gemstones. Oh and The Do-Over, which also starred Spade.
Writer: Chris Pappas & Kevin Barnett
Details: 90 minutes
The Wrong Missy was the number 1 movie on Netflix over the weekend. You can’t stop the Sandler. What’s interesting about Sandler PRODUCING The Wrong Missy instead of starring in it is that Spade is more of a straight man than Sandler.
This forced them to work harder on the script, since they couldn’t operate under normal Sandler Netflix Rules (show up on location, let cameras roll while Sandler does his schtick, cut, on to the next scene). This resulted in some semblance of a movie with structure and plot.
But, overall, The Wrong Missy is yet another example of how the Hollywood comedy has hit an all time low. The town doesn’t know how to make them anymore. And we’re going to see why that is and if we can change it.
The concept here isn’t a bad one. Tim Morris works a generic office job where he’s trying to get a promotion. If only he could somehow connect with his boss, who barely knows he exists.
Reeling from a divorce, Tim tries to get back out there, meeting up with Missy, a girl his mother set him up with. Missy is an out-of-control zero-filter freak show. The date is so bad Tim actually tries to sneak out of the bathroom window. He considers it a win when he makes it out of the date with all his limbs in tact.
Then, at the airport, Tim bumps into a stunning woman who’s ALSO named Missy (to show you how uninspired the writing is, the two literally bump into each other then accidentally switch bags, forcing them to reunite over a drink at the bar when they miss their flights).
Tim later texts the good Missy to join him on a business trip to Hawaii but, wouldn’t you know it, the bad Missy shows up instead. The bad Missy proceeds to get wasted. But during this legendary blackout, Missy uses an old hypnosis trick on Tim’s boss so that he now thinks Tim is his nana, who he loves more than anything.
To the frustration of all of Tim’s co-workers, who are all angling for that promotion, Tim can now do no wrong in his boss’s eyes. And to make things even better, Missy calms down so Tim actually starts to like her! But what will happen when Missy’s hypnosis wears off? Will Tim still be able to get the promotion???
Look. I’m all for a good comedy right now. People need to relieve some stress, laugh a little. And The Wrong Missy isn’t catastrophically “Like a Boss” bad.
I liked the setup. It’s clever commentary on today’s society where we hide behind our phones and our little texty fingers so that we never truly get rejected. That ends up costing our hero, who ends up inviting the wrong girl on his trip.
But once we get to the plot of The Wrong Missy, the writing falls apart.
To understand why that is, you must understand the two things you’re trying to do with comedy.
You’re trying to create funny characters.
You’re trying to create a plot that gives the specific funny traits about your character the best chance to shine.
A great example of number 1 is Alan from the Hangover. The world’s most socially unaware man who talks first and thinks later.
A great example of number 2 is Big. There’s a moment where Tom Hanks’s character brings his date back to his place. Here, the plot is specifically exploiting the comedic situation of a 12 year old boy living in a grown’s man’s body. To him, when you go back to your place, it’s a sleepover. For her, it means you’re going to have sex. The fact that the characters aren’t anywhere near the same page is what makes the scene so funny. It’s designed to exploit the specific comedy roots of the character.
We can debate whether Missy is a funny character or not. She’s basically no-filter to the nth degree and I’m sure mileage will vary depending on if you like outrageous characters or hate them.
But where “Missy” screws up is in the second department. The script doesn’t construct a plot that properly takes advantage of its key comedic foil – Missy.
The way this situation SHOULD work is that Tim needs this promotion more than anything. Preferably, there would also be the threat of him losing his job if he’s not promoted. You do this so that the stakes are sky-high. We must feel the pressure of Tim needing to get this promotion. Because if you don’t have stakes in a comedy… THEN NOTHING IN ANY OF THE SCENES MATTERS.
It doesn’t matter if Tim screws up because he’s right back to square 1, where he was at the beginning of the movie. So he’s lost nothing.
Contrast this with David Spade’s most successful comedy, Tommy Boy. In that movie, he and Tommy were in charge of keeping Tommy’s recently deceased dad’s company alive. If they fail to keep enough clients on their road trip, the company goes bankrupt.
Once you have stakes, the audience is more invested in the scenes because the scenes now MATTER. And once a scene matters, the jokes become WAAAAYYYYY funnier. It’s funny when Tommy says something stupid in the meeting that loses them the client because it actually has consequences. If there are no consequences, there is no laughter.
Bringing this back to The Wrong Missy, the way you’re supposed to construct this plot is to have the out-of-control Missy get in the way of Tim getting the promotion. She should be constantly destroying his chances at every turn, forcing Tim to clean up the mess and try again.
But the writers make the odd decision to have Missy HELP Tim. She puts his boss under hypnosis so that he’ll like Tim, which basically ensures Tim will get the promotion. So if Missy’s outrageous antics aren’t ruining anything, where’s the comedy coming from?
The writers attempt to have it come for Missy’s character. That’s where they’re hoping to get all the laughs. But actors desperately trying to make a character funny when the plot isn’t creating any laughs on its own is the surest way to kill a comedy. And that’s what happens. We’re bored by Missy’s schtick within 15 minutes. Yet we’re still being asked to laugh at it 75 minutes in.
I suppose the writers’ rebuttal would be that the movie isn’t about the promotion. It’s about Tim and Missy and if they’re going to end up together or not (they throw some doubt into this when the GOOD Missy shows up late in the trip).
I understand that argument but my response would be, why only invest in half the movie – the characters – when you can invest in both the characters AND the plot. If they had put more emphasis on the plot to give the story some actual stakes, it wouldn’t have just improved the plot side, it would’ve bolstered the character side too, since now there are some actual consequences to the characters’ actions.
This movie wasn’t bad but it sure as heck highlights our need for a good comedy again. When was the last funny comedy? Five years ago? Ten???
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you’re looking for laughs in a comedy, one of the easiest ways to find them is through an ironic character. The only funny character in The Wrong Missy is the HR Rep. This is the guy who’s supposed to be looking out for each and every employee in the company. Instead, he obsessively looks over all their private e-mails and texts (especially Tim’s) for his own entertainment. These characters are easy to create when you understand irony. Every comedy should have at least one!
You’re going to kill me but I need to push today’s Amateur Showdown review to next Friday. I’ve got too much stuff on my plate. But, in the meantime, I wanted to share this short film with you and I wanted to do so for a few reasons.
I’ve had tons of discussions over the years about what makes a good short film because if you can make a great short film, you can start your career in this industry. What’s so unique about the success of this film is that it does two things that I tell short film writers never to do.
First, keep your short under five minutes. I’m adamant about the fact that people have no time these days. Not only that, but there are so many Youtube videos available that if someone gets bored, they’re moving onto the next video FAST. I’m talking within 30 seconds. Yet here we have a short film that’s twenty minutes long.
The second thing I tell writers never to do is write “two people in a room” short films. “Two people in a room” shorts are the most common shorts out there because they’re the easiest to make. All you need is an apartment and two people. For that reason, they immediately scream out, “Amateur” and “Film School.” It’s hard to do much with two people in a room that we haven’t seen before. Yet here we have a short that has two people in a room.
The film does a THIRD thing I tell short film writers never to do which is to write a drama. It’s so hard to catch people’s interest with only characters saying things to each other. The dialogue has to be great. The actors have to be great. The margin for error is as thin as paper.
Yet here this film does all three of these things and it’s great. Why?
For starters, they’re using professional actors. I’ve seen the wife in this short in multiple recurring TV roles. This wouldn’t have worked if you were using Sara your local librarian who was in a play once in high school. If you’re going to do drama, you BETTER have professional actors or else you have no chance. I can guarantee you that.
But I think the main reason the short works is that it takes the “two people in a room” conceit and adds a little twist to by creating this whole second apartment across the street. By doing this it opens the story up beyond your typical “short that was shot for no money.” It feels bigger. It feels more like a production. And that’s the thing you have to get right in short films. It can’t look like you just shot in your 1932 Franklin Boulevard 3rd story cracks in the wall studio apartment. There needs to be some production value and you see production value all over this short.
Then, as a story, it takes some twists and turns you don’t expect. And THIS I think is essential for short films. You have to throw some curveballs at the viewer to keep them invested. It isn’t just two people crying about a car crash for twenty minutes (I literally watched a short film once where that was the plot). When you’re writing drama, it shouldn’t just be about emotions and monologues and tears and deep thoughts. You have to have some story in there and that’s why The Neighbors’ Window separates itself from all the other drama shorts. It has a story. There are several big plot developments. There is a beginning, middle, and it doesn’t all go as expected.
Curious what you guys think about this little film. I thought it was great.
So I’m sitting down last night and this question keeps circulating through my head. How does a writer like the writer of Resurrection do it? Why is his treatment of this idea so much better than everybody else’s treatment of it?
Cause I’ve read tons of scripts about men threatening women. I would venture to say over 500. What is it that this writer brought to the table that made this script so much better than the others?
Because I want to be a better writer. I want to learn from what Andrew Semans is doing. Even if you didn’t like Resurrection, you have to admit that the writing was a thousand times better than similarly themed Black List scripts like An Aftermath and The Tip.
Whereas Resurrection feels like it’s been written by someone with complete control of his craft, those scripts felt like they were written by 9th graders.
I mean, literally, it feels like they could’ve been written by a freshman in high school. That’s how simplistic the choices were, how basic the writing was. What is it that Andrew Semans is doing that these other writers are not?
The answer is on page 3. That’s the page in the script where I knew this was going to be good. I had a sense after reading this page that this writer was a cut above. So let’s take a closer look at the page and see what we can learn.
Let’s start with this line: “Margaret removes her lab coat, revealing a well-chosen business casual outfit.”
One of the ways I determine good writing is by contrasting what’s written with what could’ve been written. In this case, we’d usually see the line, “Margaret removes her lab coat.” The average writer would not have said anything beyond that. And that’s okay. You don’t have to tell us what the character is wearing under their lab coat. But it’s an opportunity to give us more information about the character. And since it’s early, it’s a good idea to do this.
So we’re told that Margaret is wearing a business casual outfit. On its own, nothing to note. But Semans adds a qualifying detail, that it’s “well-chosen.” Now THIS tells us something about the character. It conveys that she cares about what she wears. A small detail, yes. But already I know more about this character than I do most characters 50 pages into a script.
“She gathers items from her desk, puts them in her purse. She surveys the office: aggressively tidy.”
It’s another small thing. But the office isn’t just “tidy.” It’s “aggressively tidy.” This conveys a certain level of obsessiveness. It is painting a character before our eyes.
“She sees a small COFFEE STAIN on her desk. She licks her thumb and rubs it right out.”
A couple of things to note here. One of the best ways to tell us who a person is is through what they WEAR and what they DO. Semans has told us about the character through what she’s chosen to wear. And here Margaret does something – a small obsessive action – that further gives us insight into what kind of person she is.
“Margaret walks past a row of desks. She carries herself with an air of strength and focus, which seems slightly exaggerated, slightly self-conscious. But only slightly.”
Again, we’re taking a very simple action – walking – that most writers take for granted. To the average writer, walking is walking. To the experienced writer, walking can tell us a whole lot about a person. So I thought it was cool that Semans broke down Margaret’s walk into such specific detail. Even going so far as to point out that the slightly exaggerated self-conscious strength in her walk was only barely perceptible.
Semans is leaving nothing to chance here. He’s channeling as much specificity as the screenwriting medium will allow him. The more specific you can get about what we’re seeing, the more you’re going to channel your voice as a writer.
“They wish Margaret a good evening. She reciprocates warmly.”
Even this line, which seems like a throwaway, gives us some insight into Margaret’s character. A writer could’ve easily stopped at “They wish Margaret a good evening.” Hell, some writers may not have even chosen to tell us that. But that follow-up sentence, again, gives us a little more of a look into her head. The fact that she’s reciprocating warmly says she cares about this job and the people she works with.
“Margaret stands, watching the numbers drop: 12, 11, 10…
At 5, the elevator stops. The doors open. No one waits. Margaret peers into the hallway: empty.
The doors start to close, but stop and open again. Like a ghost is moving in and out. She again checks the hall: no one. An overhead fluorescent flickers out.”
This was a key moment in the script for me. If you think of a script as a cowboy with a lasso, this was the moment the lasso slid around me and tightened. There’s no reason that this moment needs to be in the script. It doesn’t play into the plot at all.
But what it does is it sets an atmospheric tone for the script. That this is going to be something where you don’t feel safe. Where you think you someone might be coming towards you but it’s only your imagination. This is where a writer’s voice can really come out. When they choose to include moments that don’t technically need to be in the script, but they put them in anyway for whatever reason. I can only guess what Semans was thinking here but I believe he wanted to set the tone of feeling vulnerable.
And he does it in such a visual way. It’s hard not to feel like you’re there on the elevator with Margaret with these visuals he keys in on (“peers into the hallway: empty” “The doors start to close, but stop and open again.” “An overhead florescent flickers out.”).
“It’s late rush hour and crowded on the street, but the DIN of the traffic and crowds is soft and muted in that heavy, late summer way.”
This is where Semans really separates himself from other writers in my opinion. He takes a common visual – late rush hour in the city, and paints it in a way that differentiates it from every other rush hour scene we know. He uses contrast to point out that the traffic and crowds are “soft and muted,” and he continues on to clarify that feeling – “in that heavy late summer way.” I don’t know about you. But I don’t know many people who would describe rush hour this way. It takes an acutely aware writer to key in on the subtleties of common practices to write a line like that.
“Margaret’s eyes are active. Taking in the landscape, the details. She’s constantly on alert.”
Again, look at how much Semans is telling us about Margaret in this page. The fact that she’s “constantly on alert” is a huge window into her persona.
“She stops at a light. Something pulls her attention. She looks down the block: TEENAGERS make out shamelessly on a stoop.
The light changes. She walks.”
A lot of writers have gotten lost in this screenwriting rule that you should only write what’s necessary and nothing else. And to an extent, I endorse that rule. But as you can see here, you can use mundane moments to not only tell us about your characters but set an atmospheric tone to the movie. As long as you’re exploring these moments with purpose – in this case to both tell us about our hero and set a tone for the movie – it’s fine to work with these “unimportant” moments.
That’s a big reason why Semans voice stood out from everyone else. Everybody else is following the rules so closely that they all sound exactly like each other. You have to look for places in your writing where you can show off your voice more. Because if you follow every rule to the letter, you’re writing a technically perfect but artistically inert screenplay.
And yes, I realize that how you write will be determined by what you write. You wouldn’t write this way if you were writing an Avengers movie. But if you want to stand out – and standing out is one of best ways to get recognized as an amateur writer – you should take a look at what Semans does with Resurrection.
One of my biggest takeaways from this script is that it’s not what you do with the broad strokes. It’s what you do with the details. It’s what you do in the cracks that separates you from everyone else.
What if I told you that someone just wrote the female version of Joker, and that it’s actually better than that movie?
Genre: F#@%d Up
Premise: A single mother in New York City begins seeing a mysterious older man from her past around town and becomes convinced that he’s come back into her life to kill her daughter.
About: This one finished with 8 votes on last year’s Black List. Writer Andrew Semans has been writing and directing short films as far back as 2000. His only feature is a 2012 movie called “Nancy, Please” about a man who must retrieve a precious book from his former girlfriend.
Writer: Andrew Semans
Details: 110 pages
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I just read.
But I can tell you this. I read from the first to the last page without getting up, without checking e-mail, without going to Youtube, and without checking my phone. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
This script was so freaking weird but simultaneously so amazing!
I don’t know where to start. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before. We’re all trying to answer that everlasting question: What are readers looking for? This is what they’re looking for. Someone with a unique voice. Someone who looks at the world differently, who focuses on things that the average person can’t possibly imagine.
Us readers are so starved for originality that we’re like kids in a candy store when we finally get it.
I have no idea what’s going to come of this script but I can promise you this. A big actress will kill to star in it. This is an actress’s dream role. It has Oscar written all over it. And the writing is so atmospheric and weird (in a good way) that I’m guessing a major director gets involved as well.
I’m reluctant to summarize the script because I want it to be a surprise so why don’t those of you with access to the 2019 Black List scripts (hint hint, check the comments section) go grab this script, read it, then come back.
40-something Margaret works at New York biotech company, Biomatrix. When we first meet Margaret, she seems like a strong, if slightly offbeat, woman. She’s telling her young co-worker, who’s dealing with a controlling boyfriend, how to stand up for herself. How to set boundaries in the relationship.
When Margaret gets home, we learn she has a 17 year old cool daughter, Abbie (When Margaret texts her questions like, “Status,” Abbie texts back, “Shooting heroin”). While there’s nothing overtly dysfunctional about their relationship, we get the sense that Margaret is a bit overprotective.
One day, while on the train to work, Margaret spots a man in his 60s. Overcome with fear, she races out of the train at the next exit. A couple days later, she sees the man again in the park. This is David. Or, as we’ll come to find out, this is who *she thinks* is David, a man she was involved with from the past.
Margaret starts following David around the city and eventually confronts him, tells him to stay away from her daughter. But David, or the man who she thinks is David, says he has no idea who she is.
Margaret’s world begins to crumble. She starts spending more time at home, obsessively keeping an eye on her daughter. She goes to the police to tell them about the man, but they point out that this guy hasn’t called or approached her. There’s nothing they can do.
As time goes on, we learn more about Margaret’s past with this man. When she was 19, she stayed at a remote science lab with her parents. That’s where she met David. He swept her off her feet. But soon, he began making her do things – he called them kindnesses. Small things like not wearing shoes all day. Standing still for an hour. But the kindnesses became more difficult. He kept asking more and more of her.
Margaret eventually got pregnant, and nine months later, had their baby. Her son became her world. Until one day, she came back home to find her baby missing. **And this is where s@#% gets weird** David ate their baby. Not to worry, he says. The baby is still alive, inside of him. If she wants to be with her baby forever, she must stay with him.
But Margaret ran. Ran as far away as she could. Went and had Abbie. And for 20 years, created another life. That is until now. David is back. And he wants to be with Margaret again. He’ll start with a series of small kindnesses. And he’ll go from there…
I KNOW.
It’s weird.
But it’s not the kind of script you can judge from a summary. This script is about its nuances, the cracks and the holes in the wall are where this story lives. It’s so specific and odd and offbeat that you can’t appreciate it unless you read the thing.
I’ll start with the obvious. There’s a sophistication to the way Margaret’s mental state is approached. I see writers trying to write crazy people all the time and they treat crazy like a 10 year old sees crazy. Overly simplistic “crazy” actions like randomly screaming and saying weird stuff.
Movies like Resurrection only work if we believe the craziness. And I knew right away that this writer understood crazy. Margaret obviously has some deep-rooted PTSD that she’s repressed for years and it’s all coming out at once. Her mind is like a popcorn popper. No matter how hard she tries, the kernels keep popping out of her skull.
The thing is, I usually hate scripts about “are they or aren’t they crazy” characters. But when I read a script like Resurrection (which needs to be retitled “Margaret” right away), I’m reminded that a good writer who understands the sophistication behind how people lose their minds, can make it work. It’s that old adage of don’t write something you’re not capable of writing.
I don’t understand the stock market. I’ll never understand it. So if I tried to write a movie about the stock market, it would be terrible. Same thing about mental states. If you don’t truly understand how the mind works, don’t write a crazy character. It never comes off believably. I know this because I read tons of these scripts.
Getting back to Resurrection – this is a script that has a plot. But the real reason we keep reading is the main character. And I think that’s where you find the best scripts. When you’re turning the pages because the character is so interesting and not because you want to find out what the next plot point is.
The specific reason why Margaret is so compelling is because of the contrast in her character. We meet her as this strong, intelligent, determined hard-worker who’s very successful. But, the more we get to know her, the more we realize how fragile she is. That’s where characters come to life – when their external is opposed to their internal. Because that means they’re always going to be in conflict and we’ll want to read to find out how that conflict is resolved.
That’s why I read through this so obsessively. I wanted to know if Margaret was going to fall into insanity or if her external strength was going to pull through.
But don’t get me wrong. The plot was strong as well. We had a clear GSU. The goal was to kill David. The stakes are the safety of Margaret’s daughter. And the urgency is David threatening to kill Abbie soon. So it still works on a basic storytelling level. But the character of Margaret just took this script up 15 levels. She was such a great character. I couldn’t turn away.
If they get the right package of people working on this, this is going to be the first ever Taxi Driver slash Nightcrawler slash Joker with a female lead. And not a lip-service version either. This will stand toe to toe with those movies if it’s done well.
Wow! This was a wonderful surprise.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s something about great screenwriters I haven’t yet been able to quantify. They seem to be able to write weird WITH A PURPOSE. I read a lot of weird scripts. But it’s usually sloppy weird. “All over the place” weird. There’s no rhyme or reason or plan to the weirdness. Whereas with this script, which has a man who claims to be carrying a woman’s child that he ate for the past 20 years in his stomach, the weirdness has purpose. It feels organic to the story. I still don’t know how to explain the difference. All I can tell you is that writers like Semans are able to take offbeat chances and yet back them up with a plan. They’re connected thematically. They’re set up well. They’re paid off well. It isn’t just someone throwing whatever they can think of in the moment at that wall. That’s when weird gets sloppy. So even though you have an “original voice,” that voice is too wild to be taken seriously. You need the ying (structure) with the yang (weirdness).
