Are you ready for some politics!? Wait. I mean. Are you ready for the Oscars!? The Oscars is still about movie awards, right? I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. Use this thread to make predictions, heap praise upon your favorite films of the year, and wonder out loud why the heck everyone loves that one movie only you seem to know is terrible.
Here is who I’d like to win the major awards (not to be confused with who I think will win the awards)
BEST PICTURE – Three Billboards
LEAD ACTOR – Daniel Day Lewis
LEAD ACTRESS – Francis McDormand
SUPPORTING ACTOR – Sam Rockwell
SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Haven’t seen enough of these to make an educated choice
DIRECTOR – Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk (he won’t win but he definitely did the best job)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – Aaron Sorkin for Molly’s Game
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani for The Big Sick
Genre: College Rom-Com/Heist
Premise: To get the girl of his dreams, a spoiled momma’s boy enlists the help of a feisty cat burglar who needs help blending in with their elitist law-school classmates, but her criminal antics put both of their careers at risk.
Why You Should Read: I like to combine genres that don’t often appear together, and so American Pie and Ocean’s Eleven collide to form The Cat Burglar. I also like to create stories with two polar opposite main characters who require each other’s help in some sort of symbiotic relationship that forces them both to overcome their flaws, so here we have a spoiled timid young man who is too afraid to talk to the girl he likes, and a stubborn female cat burglar who is trying to blend in with the rich and wealthy and funding that lifestyle by stealing from them. He can help her with her problem and she can help him with his, but because of their contrasting personalities there are fireworks and much needed drama. At least that’s the plan! Right now I’d love to hear the wisdom of the SS community. Thanks in advance.
Writer: Paul Clarke
Details: 100 pages
The Rom-Com.
Is it dead?
Most seem to think so.
However, if there is a space for it, this is where it would be, in that 16-22 demographic. Either a rom-com set in high school or a rom-com set in college. And maybe that segment just out of college, since there’s some inherent conflict in dating in the real world for the first time.
Paul Clarke won last week’s Amateur Offerings rather handily and continues to be one of the strongest contenders come Amateur Offerings Weekend. It makes me want to have a Super Amateur Offerings Weekend, where we get the perennial AO All-Stars to all submit their latest script on the same weekend. That could be fun. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in in the comments and maybe we could set it up. Also, who would be in it?
Anyway, how is Paul’s latest? Let’s find out.
19 year-old George isn’t exactly a loser… eh, check that. He is a loser. The Stanford College freshman still lives at home and spends his days climbing the tree in his backyard and taking pervy pictures of his beautiful neighbor Julie, who he used to go to grade school with. While George’s alpha-male father is trying to prep him for a job at his law firm, George would rather become a nature photographer.
Across town we meet Alice, a fellow student at Stanford who doesn’t have the family financial backing that George has. So, being the entrepreneur that she is, she burglarizes homes. And one day, she burglarizes George’s home, stealing that juicy multi-thousand dollar camera he uses. The one that still has a memory chip in it with pictures of Julie. Uh-oh.
When George recognizes Alice at school (through the sounds she made when she robbed him that night), the two face off. Actually, that’s not accurate. George is such a spineless wimp that he lets Alice dictate the negotiation. It starts off as, “I’ll return your stuff and not tell anyone you’re a peeper if you don’t tell anybody what I do,” but later turns into, “I’ll help you get this Julie girl if you get your dad to hire me as an intern at his law firm.”
Alice holds up her end of the bargain, beating George into submission until he asks Julie out. But George’s evil father is a tough nut to crack. He doesn’t hand out favors easily. So George lies to Alice, telling her she’s got the job, despite that not being the case. Meanwhile, George gets a date with Julie to the ball, and Alice convinces George to help her scope out her last big job, the one that’s going to fund the rest of her college. How is this all going to end? Check out the script to find out!
As is always the case, when you read a Paul Clarke script, you know you’re dealing with someone who understands the craft.
The problem is that Paul’s fighting an invisible demon. And he doesn’t know it.
The single biggest issue with romantic comedies is that their structure is too obvious. We’re going down the same beats we’ve seen time and time again. And that was prevalent here. I remember being 60 pages in and thinking, do I even need to finish this? I already know what’s going to happen.
The only way to fight this is through the characters. If the characters are special, the reader doesn’t care as much about the Save The Cat structure. And when you look back at all of your favorite romantic comedies, that’s what sticks out the most. It’s that you loved those characters.
Which leads us to the obvious question – are the characters in The Cat Burglar special? To answer, I’m going to put each character through the Scriptshadow-Special-O-Meter, which rates character specialness from 1-10. Ready? Beep-beep-boooop-chuckuchuchuchchucah…
George: 3 out of 10
Alice: 5 out of 10
Let’s look at each rating in more detail. My big issue with George was that he was suuuuuccchhh a wimp. He was so spineless and so weak and so afraid to do anything… that I didn’t root for him. I was actually thinking, this guy deserves to fail. I mean he doesn’t do ANYTHING. In one of the biggest moments in the plot – him needing to ask Julie out – he doesn’t do it. It’s done off-screen by Alice.
Now it’s true that you usually have to start your rom-com male lead in a place of weakness so that they can arc to a place of greatness. But they can’t have NOTHING going for them. I’ve found that the best way to make a character like this pop is to MAKE THEM FUNNY. You see it with Ben Stiller in There’s Something About Mary. You see it in all the Judd Apatow rom-coms. If they’re not funny, we feel like we wasted our money.
Alice is a much better character. But Paul doesn’t push her enough, and when measured against similar characters, she seems fairly average. I’ll give you an example from Wednesday’s script – June from The Great Nothing. If you go back and read June’s dialogue and you read Alice’s dialogue here, you’ll notice that June’s dialogue is flashier, more clever, more untamed. Alice has some nice lines and moments, but not enough of them. This character type really needs to stand out. And as written, she dances somewhere between okay and good. “Okay” and “Good” are fine for compliments. Not so much for readers wanting to pass on your work.
Also, this script needs to be more populated. It’s too isolated on Alice and George. These two go to a college and yet we never meet anyone from college (save for a professor – sort of). When you do that – when the bulk of your characters’ lives revolve around one place (college) – and yet we never see them engaging with other people from that place, something feels off. It feels like pages are missing. Combine that with the fact that George lives at home, and it’s almost like the whole college thing is a lie. So I would definitely add more college time and more college characters (students or professors) to this.
Finally, the plot points here were too artificial. Whenever you’re resting on the “Let’s make a deal” plot-forwarding technique, you’re asking for trouble. And it seemed like every 20 pages, the two were striking a new “I’ll help you if you help me” deal. I’ll help you get a date if you get me a job. I’ll help you learn how to dance if you help me scope out this place. It’s too contrived.
So when you add all of that up, the script was pleasant and well-written, but it wasn’t pushing the boundaries in any one area. It needed some unexpected plot turns or some wilder characters or for Alice to be a bigger character (crazier maybe). You know what it is. It’s like Paul doesn’t want to be offensive. He wants to write a safe sanitized rom-com. And I don’t think that’s the right way to go. He mentions American Pie as an inspiration. One of the reasons American Pie was a breakout hit was because it pushed boundaries. It was racy for its time. For a movie about stealing, this felt way too safe.
Script link: The Cat Burglar
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I don’t think enough writers ask themselves the question, “Why would STUNNING MODEL GIRL A want to be with LOSER WEAK PATHETIC MALE CHARACTER A?” Cause if you don’t have an answer to that question, then the only reason the girl goes for the guy is because the writer needs it to happen so his story works. I had no idea why Julie was interested in George at all here. It didn’t feel honest. And in a movie about relationships, you have to be honest with why your characters are doing what they’re doing.
If you go back to my Three Billboards script review, you’ll see that I gave it the worst rating on the Scriptshadow scale – the dreaded [x] what the hell did I just read? And I stand by that rating. I honestly had no idea what I’d read. It was a cacophony of bizarre choices surrounding an unlikable hero built on a draft that read like it was written in a week. Things would happen for no rhyme or reason, and the central question posed in the script was never answered.
Let me detail the worst part of the script for you so you understand the depths of my frustration. Deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is a drunk racist cop. There are no moments in the script where racism is a part of the story. So already, his character is confusing. But the one good thing Dixon’s got going for him is that he’s a loose cannon with a mean streak. You get the sense that if this guy ever became Sheriff, everyone in town was in trouble, especially Mildred (Francis McDormand).
Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) committing suicide at the midpoint was a WTF choice in its own right. However, it opened the door up for that Dixon explosion. We were finally going to see what happened when a crazy person who doesn’t play by the rules is in charge of this town. And we get it! In the movie’s best scene, a drunk Dixon, flush with power, charges over to the second floor advertising business that sold Mildred the billboards, beats the salesman senseless, then hurls him out the window, then goes back down to the street, and beats him some more.
This script was about to go LOCO and I was all in.
Then one minute later Dixon gets fired.
Holy shit. Talk about letting the air out of the balloon. Everything that was about to be so awesome had been replaced by a bottle of script poison.
But that’s not all. The guy Dixon is fired by, the new replacement sheriff, is black. So this whole movie you’ve been talking about Dixon’s racism despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the story. Now you FINALLY HAVE A WAY TO MAKE IT PART OF THE STORY! If Dixon doesn’t get fired, he has to serve under a black sheriff. How ironic is that? But no. He’s fired instead and spends the rest of the movie drinking at home. And as for that sheriff? He and Dixon never interact again.
That’s why I despised this script so much. It would make these gigantic crucial story-killing mistakes over and over again.
But then I watched it last night. And lo and behold I was freaking ENTERTAINED. It was a baffling experience as the screenwriting analyst in me was saying, “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” the whole way through, and yet I was engaged. I cared about what was happening. So afterwards I sat back for an extended moment and tried to figure out why I liked the movie. I came up with five reasons. Here they are.
REASON 1 – IT WAS ORIGINAL
I complain about Save the Cat beat sheet page-specific writing all the time. So I have to give props to a script that went against every obvious story beat a script like this would usually take. The story keeps you guessing, and that’s hard to do with the over-saturation of content these days. Everything’s been done already and yet here McDonagh comes along and says, “Has it?” I almost feel like McDonagh initiated a coda to himself before writing this, saying that every time he had an instinct to do something, he was going to do the opposite. Because that’s honestly the way the story plays out.
REASON 2 – MILDRED WENT FROM HATEABLE TO LIKABLE
In the script, the main character is so damn unlikable, it’s nauseating. She’s a bitch. She’s arrogant. She doesn’t listen. She has no empathy for how this affects people. I hated her. However in the movie, I loved her. Frances McDormand did the impossible. She made this character likable. It was the still moments with her that resonated the most. Scenes where Chief Willoughby was stating his case and you could see Mildred (McDormand) actually listening and understanding him. You didn’t see that in the script. I would still implore screenwriters to stay away from writing characters this unlkable in specs. Keep in mind McDonagh is a writer-director and didn’t need to win over any readers. His plan was obviously to find an actress who could offset the unlikability. And for this film, the plan paid off.
REASON 3 – THE HUMOR
I didn’t see any humor in this script. It would’ve been nice if I had because you needed something to offset all the darkness and anger. I don’t know if the humor was always there and I missed it, if it was added in rewrites, or if it was brought out by the actors. But Dixon is fucking hilarious. I definitely didn’t see that in the script. And Mildred is funny too. I mean, there’s this whole scene where she’s wearing bunny slippers and the bunny slippers, getting their own close up, start chatting about the whole billboard fiasco. That was SO ESSENTIAL for this movie because otherwise it would’ve been a huge downer.
REASON 4 – THE CHARACTERS
I always say that if you can write one memorable character in your script, you’ve succeeded. Writing one big memorable character is a huge accomplishment and much more difficult than people know. If you can write two, you’re flying in rare air. And if you can get to three? You’re going to be in the Oscar race. Which is what happened here. It’s the one glimmer of praise I gave the script when I reviewed it: “If the script has a saving grace, it’s that it’s an actors’ wet dream. Whoever plays Mildred gets to act like a crazy lunatic bitch for 2 hours, which should surely earn then an Oscar nom. Someone gets to play a racist cop when racist cops are all the rage in the news. And every character seems to have a larger backstory, some legitimate depth.” I hated the story so much that it trumped the strong character writing. But having seen the movie now, I can say that every time Mildred, Dixon, or Willoughby was onscreen, I was mesmerized. It just goes to show how important focusing on characters is.
REASON 5 – THE SCENE-WRITING
The scene-writing in this movie is OFF THE CHAIN. Yes, I’m bringing back “off the chain.” That’s how impressed I was by the scenes. I mean, there’s got to be 12 great scenes in here. The Dixon window scene. Dixon getting fired. Mildred burning the police station. The guy who threatens Mildred in her store. McDonagh seems to approach his scene-writing like Tarantino, where he makes each scene a mini-movie. As a result, they all have these big beginnings, middles, and ends. It’s funny that he structures his scenes so well when he structures his story so poorly.
Now don’t get me wrong. This didn’t go from worst to first, like the Los Angeles Rams. The choices McDonagh makes lead to a bizarre and unsatisfying ending, one where the characters maybe-sorta want to kill someone who maybe or maybe not raped someone who has nothing to do with Mildred’s daughter. That’s what happens when you stray too far from a structured narrative. But the characters were so great and the scenes were so good that I left this one thinking, “It looks like I was wrong.” It does happen every once in awhile. :)
Let me know what you guys thought of Three Billboards in the comments.
Genre: Dramedy
Premise: (from Black List) A grieving thirteen-year-old girl hires a terminally ill, acerbic philosophy professor to prevent flunking the seventh grade. What begins as a homework assignment blossoms into an unlikely friendship and a new appreciation for life that neither will forget.
About: This script finished with 17 votes on last year’s Black List (which puts it in the Top 10) and ALSO won the 2017 Nicholl Fellowship. Amazingly, English is not the writer’s, Cesar Vitale, first language. He lives in Brazil. But the reason he got so good at it was that he loved screenwriting. He says he used to read Syd Field’s How to Write a Screenplay book for fun. He would later take a screenwriting course at UCLA’s Extension Program. When asked by Scott at Go Into The Story how important mentors and teachers were, Vitale had this to say: “Oh, I think it’s essential. Maybe not for every writer, but, for me, certainly it was essential. The sense of…How do I put this? Just the fact that you have…First of all, you have to force yourself to write new pages every week, because otherwise you don’t have anything to show for in the next class. So you have people to hold you accountable and force you to write every day, or at the very least every week. That’s great if you’re not very organized, like me. Also, you get some outside perspective on your work. I think a lot of amateur writers don’t realize how important feedback is and how it’s easy to get too close to your work to really analyze it objectively. To have someone with experience and someone who has been produced and has been working with this for 20, 30, 40 years, however long, just read your work and give their feedback on it, it makes all the difference in the world. At least it did for me.”
Writer: Cesar Vitale
Details: 109 pages
I’m tempted to not even write a review about this script and just tell you to read it. You won’t want to. Not after reading that logline. I know I didn’t. Not only are these cancer-dying scripts where two people teach each other lessons nauseating to think about, but they have to nail a very specific tone to work. Can’t get too melodramatic. And can’t get too fluffy or heartwarming. Finding that sweet spot is like trying to find the famed Monkey Burger from In and Out, the mythical double cheeseburger stuffed with animal style fries.
But The Great Nothing does it. I mean, I was in tears by the end of this. And I got so lost in the thing, I wasn’t paying attention to why I liked it so much. Which I need to do now if I’m going to pass on the knowledge of what worked in this script to you.
June is a 13 year old spark plug whose photographer mother died in a car crash six months ago. June’s been riding the “dead mommy benefits” train at school for awhile now. But the teachers are starting to toughen up. June’s doing so poorly that there’s a good chance she’ll have to repeat the 7th grade.
Meanwhile, across town, we meet Dan, a Pulitzer prize winning author for his book, “The Great Nothing,” which is basically an ode to Nietzsche and nihilism. Dan is a few months away from dying of cancer and also a prick. The only thing that gets him out of bed every morning is the heroin he buys from his 14 year old neighbor.
Which is the beginning of how these two lives collide. Dan is broke so he can’t buy heroin anymore. In a serendipitous turn, June’s father, Bill, and Dan used to know each other. In fact, June’s parents used to rave about what a genius Dan was. So June gets his info from her dad’s records and heads to Dan’s apartment.
Her plan is simple. I pay you money. You write me papers so I don’t flunk 7th grade. Dan’s annoyed by this presumptive girl, but he needs the money so he agrees. At first, it’s just a business relationship. The problem is that June’s father is in such denial about his wife’s death that he loses all capacity to parent. This leads to June spending more and more time with Dan, and a friendship developing.
Things go smoothly for awhile. But when you have a recently de-mothered 13 year old whose father won’t pay attention to her and a nihilistic heroin-addict with terminal cancer, the road can only stay smooth for so long. When Dan forgets to submit one of her assignments, June’s 7th grade re-do is sealed, and their friendship deteriorates. Can it be fixed before Dan bites it? Only this script can tell.
Let me start by saying that this script nails the most important thing that I keep harping on over and over on this blog. What I believe to be the KEY FACTOR in writing a great script. It keeps. Things. SIMPLE.
KEEP IT SIMPLE! (in case you missed it)
This is a script with five characters. That’s it. Dan, June, the dad, Dan’s pregnant ex, and the 14 year old neighbor. When you keep things simple, you keep the story on point. You don’t get dragged off to all these corners of your vast tapestry of ideas. The goal is simple. Help June pass 7th grade. The stakes are simple. If they fail, she repeats 7th grade. The urgency is simple. The end of the school year is approaching. Boom bam, easy-peazy chicken squeezy.
If I could reach out to all the aspiring screenwriters out there and tell them, “Stop trying to write The Godfather meets 2001,” I would. Maybe you’ll be able to tackle that one day. But today, learn how to write “Character A has a problem and attempts to solve it.” Cause that’s all this is. Joy has a problem. She needs to solve it. Dan is her only option. Boom bam. That’s the movie right there.
As far as this subject matter, something where death is the prominent theme, you’re much better off exploring the story with humor than seriousness. But there is a caveat to that. You have to actually be funny. You have to be good with dialogue. This is another thing I tell you guys. Play to your strengths. Write the kinds of scripts that highlight your best writing features. And Vitale is really funny. The dialogue is kick-ass. June is hilarious. Here’s her first day at Dan’s. She’s trying to make a drink as they chat.
Besides this dialogue popping off the page like Rice Krispies, you can see real skill on display here. Notice that the characters aren’t having one of those “A asks B question. B answers question.” “B then asks A question. A answers question” conversations, which is the kind of dialogue you’ll see in most beginner scripts. June’s not really listening to Dan. Dan’s distracted so he’s less focused on what she’s asking than what’s going on. So the conversation is less stilted. It feels like something more akin to the real world.
And like I said. The dialogue stays humor based so it doesn’t descend into melodrama. Here’s an exchange during June’s second visit. “DAN: I have terminal cancer.” “JUNE: Oh, shit. Really?” Dan sits on the couch. Throws the Ziploc on the coffee table. “JUNE: Like. How terminal?” June sits too, eyes on Dan. “JUNE: Like. Do you have time to finish today’s assignment?”
I love that shit. When these scripts go the opposite way and take themselves too seriously? I’m not saying they always end in disaster. But it’s usually somewhere disaster-adjacent.
If the script has a weakness it’s that June starts to dominate the conversations. It’s weird because it’s also one of the script’s strengths. In a script where dialogue is a featured component, you want contrast between your characters in as many ways as possible. So if June talked a lot and Dan talked a lot also, there’s no contrast there. So Vitale has it so June is the blabbermouth and Dan speaks when he needs to. And it makes sense that a nihilist with terminal cancer probably isn’t going to be a chatterbox. But I wish Vitale would’ve found a way to give Dan a little more talking time. Cause during that second act, he disappears for awhile.
Luckily, the script always stays simple. There are no stupid weird forced plot points, like writers sometimes create when they don’t trust the material. So it survives its few mild hiccups.
I used to think writing these scripts was a waste of time. A script about someone with terminal cancer. A nihilist at that? Talk about bummersville. Who’s going to watch that? But the success of movies like Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl and The Fault in Our Stars prove that if you add comedy and you keep the budget low, someone will finance the script if it’s good. And this isn’t just good. It’s damn good!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Remember how we talked about in Black Panther that at the end of your second act, you want a “lowest point,” or “death” moment? That poses an interesting problem for this script, doesn’t it? How do you incorporate a lowest-point death moment at the end of the second act when your movie is built to end with the main character’s death? You can’t kill him off or your third act is going to be hella-boring. So the way Vitale did it is he created the death of the friendship. Very clever!
Genre: Crime – Contained Thriller
Premise: In downtown Los Angeles, a hospital for high-level criminals masquerades as an old hotel.
About: Hotel Artemis comes from writer Drew Pearce, who wrote Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Keep in mind that both of those films were directed by writers (Shane Black and Christopher McQuarrie respectively). So I’m thinking he was heavily rewritten, particularly by Black, which is a good thing, since Iron Man 3 is terrible. Hotel Artemis, which is in post-production stars some seasoned talent (Jodie Foster and Jeff Goldblum) as well as up-and-coming thespians (Sterling K. Brown, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista). Pearce directed from his own script, which made the 2016 Black List. This is his first directing gig.
Writer: Drew Pearce
Details: 103 pages
The purpose of every script is to be turned into a movie. So the goal is always to find a way to get that done, which is difficult in a competitive market, where only 1 in some 20,000 scripts gets made (if you’re including all the newbie writers out there). So you have to have a plan. The most basic plan, and the one that’s been used the longest, is “Come up with a cool idea.” If your idea is cool enough, your project will find its way into production.
But that’s not the only way to get your script made. Another thing you have at your disposal is actors. If a good enough actor likes your script and wants to play a role, it gains traction and has a good chance of getting made. So if you’re smart, you’ll ask the question, ‘How can I create roles in my script that actors will want to play?’ The thing that’s always worked in the past is to write a male main character, between the ages of 30-45, so a movie star can play him. Movie stars get movies made.
But that’s not the only way. You can be cleverer. A juicy role for actors who don’t usually get offered flashy parts is another option. So a strategy might be to target that overlooked demo for your hero, your villain, or your main supporting role. Which brings us to Hotel Artemis. This is a dream role for a 50-65 year old actress. A role like this comes around once a year. And so Jodie Foster, who’s notoriously picky, signed on. And once you have that, there isn’t an actor in Hollywood who doesn’t want to play opposite a legend like Foster. Which means the cast rounds out quickly, the project gains steam, and the next thing you know, the movie’s getting made.
The point I’m making is your script is just as much a strategy as it is a story. I’m not saying you can’t write a great story and let the chips fall where they may. But it doesn’t hurt to have a more sophisticated plan. Everyone’s trying to game the system. So if you can figure out a way to get something made that someone else hasn’t thought of, you have a leg up.
Hotel Artemis slams into us with a man who’s been shot up. His name is Honolulu. Well, not really. All of the characters here have names representing the themed rooms they’re staying in. I should explain that as well. Hotel Artemis isn’t really a hotel. It’s a secret hospital inside of what looks like a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The reason it’s secret is because it only caters to criminals.
So Honolulu and his brother, Waikiki, are raced up into the a room by THE NURSE, the 64 year old woman who runs this place. The Nurse has been here for 30 years. Helping criminals is all she knows. And she’s better at it than anyone in town.
A normal night at Hotel Artemis is manageable. But tonight is different. There are major riots going on throughout the city. So everyone’s getting shot up.
Anyway, there are strict rules. You have to be a member to get in. And membership price is STEEP. So there aren’t any low-level gangbangers that get Artemis access. You’re not allowed to bring in weapons. And no cops. By the end of the night, all of these rules will be broken.
Waikiki waits impatiently as his banged-up brother plays hide and seek with a flatline. He bides his time by talking to Nice, a beautiful Russian assassin, who’s reeling after a failed kill. This was supposed to be the job that allowed her to spend the rest of her life in, ironically, Honolulu. Then there’s Acapulco, a first class businessman asshole who may have killed a woman tonight and is getting treated for the injuries he sustained from her fighting back.
As the riots get rowdier, two huge problems pop up. One, a woman from the Nurse’s past arrives shot up and borderline unconscious outside. The issue? She’s a cop. And then the original founder of the hotel, a dangerous Russian gangster, is arriving later, bringing an entire mob of Russian thugs with him.
When the riots result in the power being cut, The Nurse will be tested like never before, rushing back and forth between all of these high-level clients, trying to keep all of them happy so they keep coming back. But what she doesn’t know is that one of her clients is here under false-pretenses. And that they have a plan that could do Hotel Artemis in for good.
This is such a clever idea.
Usually, when I read contained thrillers, they’re a family or a group of people in a basement, with either monsters, zombies, nuclear fallout, or vampires outside. This redefines the genre. A contained thriller about a hospital? I’ve never seen that before. And this is what I always tell you guys. If you can come up with an original idea, then nearly every scene you write will feel original because its happening within an unfamiliar construct. The reason so many script reads are boring is because they set up a familiar scenario and then go through the same beats everyone else writes. Hotel Artemis wasn’t like that at all.
And it wasn’t just the concept that was great, it was the mythology, it was the characters, it was the hero, it was the plotting – the way all the storylines came together in the end. I love smart plotting. When a writer can keep the coals hot the whole walk through because they’re constantly infusing new plot points that are all interesting? That’s when a script is cooking, man.
For example, the arrival of the female cop. That’s one of the rules of the hotel. No cops. But this was a personal friend of the Nurse’s. She couldn’t turn her away. The reason all these criminals pay so much money for membership to this place is because they’re safe here. They don’t have to worry about the cops. So you have this whole section where our hero is sneaking the cop in, treating her, and trying to get her out without anyone noticing. It was great.
I also loved the fact that the founder – the Russian Gangster – showed up. But Pearce did something clever with this that I don’t think a lot of writers would’ve thought of. He has the Gangster’s son show up outside, call The Nurse, and say that his dad is going to be here in 50 minutes. What this does is it creates plot multi-threading. So we have the plot threads that are going on right in front of us, like The Nurse trying to put out fires. But in the back of our mind, we know that the Gangster is coming. So there’s this ongoing anticipation and worry that’s working on our nerves. That’s good writing.
Probably the best plot point (SPOILERS!) is when we find out that Nice didn’t fail at her early assassination attempt after all. Her mark is the Russian Gangster. So she’s waiting for him to come here so she can kill him. Clearly this script was really well thought-through.
And what brings it all together is the mythology. This isn’t John Wick mythology here, where they thought of a couple of neato ideas and scribbled them on a napkin. You can tell that Pearce sketched this whole hotel out. From the rooms, to the rules, to the history, to the secret tunnels that lead out to secret entrances… it all feels rich.
This is a risky cast. It’s a group that’s on the cusp of not being big enough. But there are enough new faces – Brown, Slate, Bautista – that maybe it triggers some buzz. It’s worth keeping an eye on.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Multi-threading plotlines. Have a lingering plot going on underneath whatever’s happening on the screen (the lingering wait for the Russian Gangster here). Think of it like audio or video editing, where you have multiple tracks. When you’re putting a song together, you don’t have just one track. You have the vocals. Underneath that an instrument. Underneath that the backup singers. That’s kind of how you want to imagine your script. It needs multiple tracks going on at the same time. If you want to see what happens if you DON’T multi-thread, go watch the “horror” movie “Open House” on Netflix. Everything you see on the screen is all that’s happening. There’s zero going on underneath the main thread. Note how bored you get during the film. The lack of multi-layered plot threads is a big reason why.