While the world argues over whether Jennifer Lawrence was too beefy for the role of the supposedly starved Katniss, I try and rise above the sensationalistic tabloids and wonder aloud why this movie wasn’t titled “Tree Girl.”

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match.
About: The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Suzanne Collins. The movie came out this past weekend and grossed $152 million dollars domestically, giving it one of the best openings of all time. It’s a confirmation of the way Hollywood seems to be doing business these days with their tentpoles – via book adaptations. After Harry Potter there was Twilight. After Twilight, now, there’s The Hunger Games. Whether this new trend starts to phase out the old trend of superhero movies, we’ll have to see, but it looks like it’s going to be here for awhile until the next unexpected trend hits. Let’s hope that trend is original screenplays from spec screenwriters!
Writer: Suzanne Collins and Gary Ross and Billy Ray (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins)

 

Hunger Games is sweeping the nation. Which means I have no choice but to blog about it. But the truth is, I’ve been interested in this movie for a while, even if it’s geared towards a younger audience (it’s based on a young adult novel). Why? Because I’ve been saying for years they need update Lord Of The Flies. Kids being forced to fight each other for survival always felt like gold to me, so to see Hunger Games find that perfect mix of ingredients for the update was a welcome surprise.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the film, “Games” is about a post-Apocalyptic future where the land has been divided into districts. Every year, each district has to send two members under 18 (or is it 16?) to the main city where they fight to the death against the other 22 district members in a “Battle Royale” contest in the wilderness. Taking its cue from movies like “The Running Man,” the entire world watches the event on TV.

Our heroine, Katniss, is part of the poor mining town of District 12. When her younger sister – sure to be slaughtered if she’s chosen to participate – “wins” the lottery as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers herself instead. She’s accompanied by Peeta, a young man obviously upset that he was named after a bread, and who has had a secret crush on Katniss forever.

The two head into the city where they are paraded around in sort of an America Idol way, then train for two weeks before the big competition. They are mentored by a number of people who critique everything from their fighting skills to their style. Some of the participants take pride in the fact that they represent their districts, while others are terrified, especially the younger kids, who have no shot at winning. As the training goes on, Katniss becomes one of the unexpected favorites to win the competition, while her partner, Peeta Bread, looks like an early exit.

Once they’re finally thrust into the game, we see just how brutal and violent the contest is. 12 of the participants are slaughtered immediately. Katniss is able to get away, however, where she quickly learns of an alliance that the stronger members have put together, specifically to take her out. Most surprising about this alliance is that her district buddy, Peeta, is helping them. Katniss will have to call upon her survival skills – specifically her kick ass bow and arrow expertise – if she’s to have any shot at winning The Hunger Games.

I started assessing the screenwriting in The Hunger Games almost immediately. One thing I’ve noticed in the past is that when you have a main character who’s stuffy or off-putting or reserved or prickly, you’re putting yourself in a huge hole, because chances are, we’re not going to want to follow that character around for 140 minutes (yes, this was one long movie!). I’ve seen so many screenplays sink like The Titanic (to reference another hit film) due to this issue.

But the Hunger Games started combatting the problem immediately. One of the very first scenes was Katniss cradling her younger sister after she’d had a nightmare, singing her back to sleep. When you see somebody love somebody – be protective of somebody – this much, it’s really hard not to like them. On top of that, when her sister gets chosen to be the representative, it’s Katniss who jumps up and volunteers herself instead. This is another device that makes it impossible to dislike a character. Your hero is sacrificing her own life for someone else’s? How can you not like that person?

The trifecta comes when, during the game, Collins gives Katniss another character to love, one of the younger girls in the competition who has no shot. The two have a nice little rapport going and it’s clear that Katniss will do anything to protect her, just like her sister. This protective quality of Katniss overshadows her bitchy/unlikable side, a huge key in getting us to root for her.

Moving forward, I noticed the first big mistake in the script. This whole movie revolves around the emerging relationship between Katniss and Peeta. So why is it we spend the opening of the movie with Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy? Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy obviously have some chemistry, but after their initial scene, we see Good Looking Pointless Guy for a total of 5 seconds for the rest of movie. Which begs the question – why not use this opening to establish the relationship between Katniss and Peeta instead??? Wouldn’t that have been a much better way to utilize the screenplay space?

And to show you how one mistake can lead to others, because they didn’t set up Katniss and Peeta in the opener, they’re forced to explain their relationship through a series of clunky flashbacks instead (showing Peeta come out of his bakery and toss bread to pigs with Katniss looking on – I think hungrily – nearby). Not only is it impossible to understand what any of these flashbacks mean, but they’re just plain clunky.

 

In fact, the flashbacks here should serve as a deterrent to any writers who want to use flashbacks in their scripts. Had they just set up Kaniss and Peeta instead of Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy, the movie would’ve moved along a lot smoother. (And I know somebody is going to say, “But Good Looking Pointless Guy’s really important for the next two movies!” I don’t care. I’m watching *this* movie. All I care about is *this* movie making sense.)

My next problem with the film was the most unique screenwriting problem I’ve ever dealt with. I refer to it as the, “protagonist hides in trees too much” problem. Katniss seems to literally spend tens of minutes during the movie up in trees. Not only does her Tarzaness obsession get weird, but I don’t like any scenario in an action movie where your main character is allowed a big fat “time out.” This is a battle royale!!! It shouldn’t be as easy as hopping onto the nearest Sycamore whenever you need some R&R.

The third big problem, which was almost baffling to me, was that Katniss never had to get out of any tough situations herself. She’s saved every single time by somebody else. It’s like the movie’s one long string of mini-deus-ex-machinas. Katniss will be at death’s door with a girl holding a knife to her throat when, voila, someone else will kill the girl at the last second. Even when she’s up in her favorite place, a tree, she needs to be saved by someone else.

I don’t get why writers keep doing this. Don’t they know that the audience would rather see our hero solve her own problem? Isn’t it so much more satisfying when they escape via their own doing? My theory is that writers take this lazy route simply because it’s easier. Why spend four or five days sweating out a memorable escape scene, like Hannibal slipping away in an ambulance pretending to be a massacred guard, when you can write another character saving them instead (i.e. one of the guards drops a key near the cage)? It’s my opinion that this is what separates the truly great writers from the rest – the ones who are willing to do that extra work.

But maybe I’m being a little harsh. Suzanne Collins did just write a screenplay that made more money in its opening weekend than every other film in history except for two. But if I can’t analyze a screenplay to death then what’s the point of this site? :)

And in the end, I did like this movie. I thought Collins did a tremendous job with the characters (Effie Trinket was great!). There was some clumsy stuff near the middle with the love story, but I definitely loved Katniss and wanted her to succeed. And if you really want the main character to achieve her goal, then the writer’s done her job. Combined with the cool subject matter, I was totally on board with The Hunger Games.

[ ] guaranteed death
[ ] Lousy odds
[x] odds are looking decent
[ ] odds are in your favor
[ ] guaranteed winner

What I learned: The big thing I learned here – or at least was reminded of – was how protectiveness over another individual can make an unlikable character extremely likable. This is a huge advantage when you think about it because lots of stories require you to start with a protagonist who has negative traits. So if you don’t have tools in place to offset those negative traits and make your character likable, chances are we’re going to dislike them and, by association, your story.

The quality of screenplays this week is high. But the important question is, “Can The Hitman’s Bodyguard bring us back to Manville?”

Genre: Action-Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) – The world’s best bodyguard must protect his arch nemesis, the world’s top assassin…so he can testify against a brutal dictator and save his wife.
About: Looks like the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition is becoming the place to get your script noticed. I remember a couple of years back it found the told-backwards tale, Shimmer Lake, one of my favorite scripts of that year. Today’s script, the newest Austin winner, was nabbed by Skydance Productions, the same company that did Mission Impossible: 4. Tom O’Connor, the writer, also wrote Fire with Fire, starring Josh Duhamel and Bruce Willis, which just wrapped. I heard they’re ordering reshoots though and adding more fire. The Hitman’s Bodyguard also finished on last year’s Black List, garnering 7 votes.
Writer: Tom O’Connor
Details: 118 pages – 2/7/11 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

After Monday’s screenplay sucked 43 percent of the testosterone out of my body, leaving me scouring Itunes for downloads of Ally McBeal, I knew I was gonna need a script to bring me back into balance. I’m not going to lie. It’s been fun these last few days. I have a new appreciation for clothes shopping. Dishing gossip with friends is also a pastime I have severely undervalued. But at a certain point, you have to get back to reality. And for me, that meant Manville.

So take my hand fellow xy chromosoners. Follow me back to the other side. The grass may not be greener, but the credit card bills sure are lower.

Michael Bryce is what they call an executive protection agent. Which is a fancy way of saying he’s a bodyguard who wears nice suits. Michael is a little anal, a little uptight. But that’s because his job requires it. If you need to be protected from some of the most well-funded criminal organizations in the world, he’s the guy you want to hire

On the other end of the spectrum is Irish bloke Sean Kiernan. Sean is one of, if not the, best assassin in the world. But right now, he’s jailed in Europe. He’s turned himself in in an attempt to save his wife, who’s been jailed on bogus charges specifically so they could lure in Sean.

They tell Sean that if he testifies against his former boss, an Eastern European crime lord and one of the top terrorists in the world, that his wife will be set free. But in order for that to happen, they need to transfer Sean across the city to the courtroom, a task that’ll be near impossible with crime boss Alexander Demidov commandeering every thug in a 100 mile radius to make sure Sean is dead before he gets there. He’s already taken care of everyone else who can testify against him. Sean is the last name on the list.

True to his reputation, Sean’s van is attacked almost immediately. But while his entire police escort is massacred, Sean is able to get free and get guns. And when Sean has guns, it doesn’t matter how many men you have. You lose. He’s able to kill every last one of the thugs, but does get injured in the process. The lone Interpol agent who survives, a woman named Camelia, takes Sean to her apartment to dress the wound, and in the meantime, calls an old friend.

Michael Bryce.

When Sean and Michael see each other, the guns are up and the safeties are off. These two have been in just about every battle you can imagine between two people. They’ve nearly killed each other a dozen times. Now though, Camelia proposes her idea. They hire Michael to escort Sean to the courtroom. Of course both men balk at this idea, especially Sean, who’s never needed help in his life. But eventually he comes around, only because his wife’s freedom is his priority.

The rest of the movie is pretty much what you’d expect. The two go on the run together, encountering resistance from both Interpol and Demidov every step of the way. Yet they battle each other just as much as they battle everyone else. These alpha dogs can barely go five steps without insulting one another or bringing up some past event that they got the better of the other in. But they’ll have to keep their hatred in check if they’re going to make it to the finish line, because Demidov is dead set on a dead Sean.

If you’re going to pair up two people who know each other, one of the most important things to do is give them some real history together. The more history you can create between the characters, the more conflict and drama you can mine for their present relationship.

I read this screenwriting article awhile back about how you should never bother with backstory. Audiences don’t care. All they care about is what’s happening right now. And to a large extent, that’s true. I read a lot of scripts where writers have their characters droning on about all these past events in their lives. And while it certainly adds more depth to the characters, it halts the CURRENT action of the story. So there’s a huge trade-off to including that depth.

I’ve found, however, that when the backstory has a DIRECT RESULT on the current story, it’s much more welcomed. So here, this relationship works so much better knowing how many dust-ups the two have had with each other. For example, the two keep arguing about this one job where Sean insists he killed one of Michael’s clients and Michael insists he did not. So not only do we get the backstory that adds depth to their relationship, but it fuels the conflict in their current dynamic, a key ingredient to the script being entertaining.

And the script was clever too. Whenever you write a movie about an expert in something, you have to give us scenes that convince us of that expertise. In other words, you can’t get away with someone saying, “That Michael, I heard he’s the best bodyguard in the world!” That isn’t good enough! WE need to SEE IT. You need to SHOW US.

So Hitman starts with Michael escorting a client into a car garage and asking him where his car is. His client points to a car across the way and Michael busts out his infrared vision and notices that there’s a big red blob underneath the car. “Let’s take my car,” he says. “Why?” “Because they put a bomb on yours.” Once they get into Michael’s car, Michael tells his client to put his head down. “Why?” “They put a bomb on my car, too.” And then BOOOOM! The car they’re in BLOWS UP. But when the dust settles, they’re fine. The car is intact. Casually Michael proclaims, “Custom model.” He’d rigged the underside of his car to be bombproof. It was clever moments like this that really made the script stand out.

There are definitely some things you can pick apart though. Sean did take down 20 thugs without much of an effort when his van was attacked. So to think that he’d need a bodyguard, even with his injury…ehhh, is a bit of a stretch.

Then you have the villain, yet another Eastern European thug. These poor Third World Eastern European countries keep getting saddled with the villain roles. It’s getting cliché. Then there’s this iffy middle section of the screenplay where Sean all of a sudden decides he doesn’t have enough evidence and they need to go to another city to get more. Why Demidov’s chief hitman needs more evidence is beyond me. And it turns out they don’t get the extra evidence anyway, confirming the pointlessness of the excursion.

So the script did have some blemishes but hardly enough to place an order for Proactiv. In the end, you don’t get scripts of this quality in this genre very often. So I’ll gladly take this one!

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: That car-bomb scene really taught me something. An easy way to make your character badass at his job is to have something done to him that would’ve tricked any other normal person, yet your character is ready for it. As soon as we see him outsmart the baddies on that car bomb, we know he’s a badass at his profession. And we love him as a result of it. And it isn’t hard to create this effect. Just have the bad guys do something really bad, and have our hero already prepared for it.

Have we just found the next Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Be prepared for a screenplay experience that’ll warp your mind 16 ways to Sunday.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: After an unplanned night of drinking, a man wakes up to realize he’s stuck in a movie.
About: This script finished on the 2009 Black List. The writer, Sam Esmail, had a previously well received script on the 2008 Black List called, Sequels, Remakes, and Adaptations,” which I reviewed here.
Writer: Sam Esmail.
Details: 111 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

 

I was really excited to read this. Sam Esmail is one of those writers who’s never going to give you what you expect. And in a profession where you can practically guarantee the expected, that’s an unexpected surprise.

The thing with these Charlie Kaufman’esque writers, though, is that sometimes their writing can be TOO unique. Sometimes they can take TOO many chances, and in the process lose their story.

Look no further than Charlie Kaufman’s own latest screenplay, Frank or Francis. There’s no doubt that there was some great stuff there, but it pushed against the grain so severely that eventually it just lost itself. So I was interested in what Sam would do with this idea.

The movie starts off with Norm Goldworm, a decidedly average 30 something with no friends and no life to speak of. Adding salt to the wound, he’s deeply in love with a woman named Sally, who has no idea of his true feelings. So he’s decided that tonight, on his birthday, he’s going to invite her out and tell her the truth.

So he goes to the bar but it turns out Sally stands him up. As a result, he gets wasted and starts chatting up a strange woman who refuses to acknowledge his existence. This results in him drinking more, and he ends up getting SO drunk that he passes out right there at the bar.

When he wakes up, he immediately notices something is off. There’s an orchestra-like tune playing in the background and instead of walking from room to room, he just starts appearing in them, like entire seconds have been skipped.

This jumping gets more severe as he goes to work. All of a sudden he’ll be – BAM – inside a crowd of walking New Yorkers then – BAM – inside his office at work. It’s almost like all of the boring parts of his routine are being cut out. And Norm is freaking out about it!

In addition to this, everybody he bumps into is either acting overly-dramatic or really clever. Nobody is acting normal. So he seeks out the one person who’s kind of his friend, the embarrassingly overweight Reynold, who spends most of his days in his pigsty of an apartment watching 90s teen flicks like Bring It On and Can’t Hardly Wait. After some extensive discussion with Reynold, it becomes clear to both of them what’s happened. Norm is stuck in a PG-13 movie.

While Norm thinks this is a disaster, Reynold thinks it’s great. Norm spends his entire life miserable, but now he only has to live the good parts. Instead of being the boring him, he can be the interesting him, the MOVIE him. And since a movie has to end in two hours, he only has to hang around for another 90 minutes before it’s over and he can go back to his normal life.

So Norm decides to do what he was originally going to do anyway, go tell Sally he loves her. But when he finds her, he also finds out she’s getting married to some guy named Tom, who of course he’s never heard of before this moment. So Norm professes his love for her, causing her to realize that she loves him to, and the two make love like they’ve been waiting for it their entire lives (but of course, because it’s a movie, Norm misses the sex, only jumping to afterwards!).

When Norm finally decides to reveal to Sally that the both of them are living in a movie, she freaks out, tells him to leave, and recommits to marrying Tom THIS WEEKEND! But that’s when the real bomb is dropped. Norm and Reynold realize that when the movie is over, they don’t go back to their normal lives, they DIE! Which means they only have an hour left to figure out how to get out of this.

This script was bold.

I mean it took some real chances and just about every one of them paid off. First of all, the script was extremely clever. I kind of feel sorry for this Friday’s amateur effort, Soundtrack, because it tackles some of the same subject matter, and doesn’t explore it nearly as extensively and inventively as Norm The Movie does.

I loved how when Norm was first getting used to the jump-cutting, he would jolt as if being transported into a different world. I loved how when he’s finally going to have sex with the girl of his dreams, he skips to after the sex is over – missing it! I loved Norm discovering a note on his door from Sally and then Sally’s voice reading it, and then him jumping and looking around frantically for Sally, but not finding her, then looking at the note again, and hearing Sally read it again, then jumping up and looking for Sally again, only to eventually realize that it’s a voice over of her voice reading the note. I love how the goal of our hero is to NOT end up at the wedding and TO NOT end up with Sally, so that the movie doesn’t end and he can keep on living. What a perfect way to exploit this premise.

I loved the idea of him discovering a beautiful extra, someone whose only job it was to sit around an office all day typing, then pulling her into his adventure. I loved watching this one-dimensional character being forced to become three-dimensional. I mean if you’re a screenwriter and you don’t love all these little nods to screenwriting, I don’t see how you can like screenwriting. It’s borderline brilliant at times.

One of my newer beliefs is that if you want to make a comedy stand the test of time, you need to add *some* darkness. And this script definitely has darkness. They realize that at the end of the movie they’re going to die. There’s a running commentary about the parallels between real life and movies where people only have certain purposes and how most of them aren’t allowed to move outside of those designated purposes, leading to an unfulfilled life. That part of the script really rang true and it’s a testament to Esmail not being afraid to explore the suckier aspects of this situation, much like Groundhog Day did.

The only issue this script runs into is that it’s similar to two very popular movies, The Truman Show and Stranger Than Fiction. It even, at one point, references The Truman Show, which I thought was a weird choice because you never want to bring up the movie you’re borrowing so heavily from. For that reason, people may be scared to make it. But here’s the thing. This is a better script than either of those scripts. And I know that The Truman Show is considered to be one of the greatest scripts of all time and that a lot was changed when Jim Carrey came on, but I just feel like the imagination and the cleverness here exceed what was done in either of those movies. The question is whether the powers that be care or not. Are they willing to make a movie this similar?

Still, if you liked Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Groundhog Day, The Truman Show, or Stranger Than Fiction, you’re guaranteed to like this screenplay. It’s as good an example as I’ve ever seen of mining a high concept premise. It’s just really well done.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: “Can I come up with something better than this?” – From every scene you write to every line of dialogue you write to every character you write, you need to ask yourself the question “Can I come up with something better than this?” And if your no-bullshit 100 percent real answer is, “No, I can’t. This is the best I can do.” Then great. Keep it. But if the answer is yes, then rewrite it. Because I’ll tell you, from my end, I don’t have time for somebody’s “just good enough.” That’s all I read all day is “Just good enough.” Scenes, characters, ideas, dialogue. They’re all just OKAY. It’s as if the writer wants to be commended for simply coming up with a movie that makes sense from start to finish. The scripts that always stand out are the ones where a writer has clearly gone beyond the call of duty and kept pushing themselves until they came up with the absolute best they could in every single element of their screenplay. I think this is a screenplay that demonstrates that. And I’m hoping that all of you will treat your screenplays the same.

Reese Witherspoon and I invite you to a weekend spa retreat to read her newest project, Rule #1.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When a woman’s husband leaves her because of her severe OCD, she writes down a list of all her tics and tries to conquer them one at a time.
About: I’m not sure if Reese Witherspoon jumped on this project recently or she’s been developing it for a while, but I know she’s planning to star in the film. The writer, Terrel Seltzer (One Fine Day) adapted the screenplay from the book, “Little Beauties.”
Writer: Terrel Seltzer (based on the novel “little beauties” by Kim Addonizio
Details: 114 pages – August 22, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I opened this. All I remember was at the time, I was cooking a pound of steak, watching SportsCenter, practicing my “bro hug,” and cracking open the floors to fix my own plumbing.

I realized that I would have to abandon all of these activities immediately. Out with the steak, in with the ice cream. Off with SportsCenter, on with Real Housewives of Orange County. Out with bro-hugs, in with bubble baths. Adios plumbing. Hello red wine. I had to transform myself into my estrogen equivalent if Rule #1 had any chance of making it to Rule #2 (Carson finishes the screenplay).

So did I make it? In some ways, yes. In others, not really. I learned about a multi-tasking breast pump device which I’m sure I’ll never recover from. Let’s be honest, this is the kind of movie you pray your wife never hears about. The kind of thing you will lie incessantly about if they manage to catch the preview. “Oh yeah, I heard they accidentally killed ten puppies during the making of this movie.” Come on. You’ve all done it. But here’s the thing. Maybe, just maybe, this script is pretty good? Maybe you don’t lose your man card by reading it? Can it be? Is it possible?

Diana, our hero, is just really fucked up. When we meet her, she’s working at a baby store. Our first thought is: “Awwww, she must be so happy!” I mean, what woman doesn’t like looking at cute babies all day? Diana, that’s who. She HATES IT.

It’s not personal or anything. Diana just detests being around anything… filthy. And babies are as filthy as it gets. In fact, after her dress rubs against some stroller marks on the store rug, she’s so disgusted that she pretends to go to Starbucks to get coffee for her boss in order to go home and take a quick shower. Diana actually takes a lot of showers. It’s her sanctuary. The only time she feels at peace.

Anyway, Diana eventually runs into this wreck of a younger girl named Jamie, who’s like a pregnant tattooed version of Audrey Hepburn without the…good parts. When Jamie has her baby, it’s like the coolest experience of her life. Problem is, Jamie doesn’t have a plan in place for the baby. She SAYS her boyfriend (who’s on tour with Cirque De Solei) is coming home soon, but we get the feeling that the old bf’s left her high and dry.

When Diana then learns that Jamie’s been kicked out of her apartment and is living in a motel…WITH HER NEW BABY, that’s the end of the line for her. She can’t handle that thought. So she invites the thrilled Jamie to live with her until her boyfriend “comes home.” She certainly has the space since her husband moved out.

Oh yeah, Diana’s OCD was so bad that her husband left her. Marriages tend to go that way when your wife takes 10 showers a day. Diana (ironically just like Jamie) is under the delusion that her husband is coming back as well. If she can just conquer this OCD, he’ll love her again. So she’s written a list of 40 OCD ticks she must conquer (i.e. “allow someone else in your car.” “don’t clean your towels after every use”) and is crossing them off one at a time.

Well, the list goes through a speed round when Jamie moves in and the baby starts spitting up and bopping around all over the place. Diana must adapt or die. So she chooses to adapt. But will it be enough to win her husband back? And speaking of missing men, is Jamie’s man coming back? Check out the book or the script to find out. If you dare!

I’m surprised I’m gonna say this but this script was pretty good! The thing that really set it apart was the writing. As I’ve mentioned before, my issue with most comedy scripts is that they feel like they were scribbled together over a weekend. No thought has been put into the characters or the story. It’s just a bunch of comedy scenes.

One of the easiest ways to tell if a comedy script (or any script for that matter) has depth, is if the characters feel like they’ve been around before the story started. I could easily imagine the moments that destroyed Diana’s marriage. I imagined the events that led to Diana working at the baby store. I imagined Jamie’s life before this baby came around. It was all alluded to in a non-intrusive way so as to make these characters feel like they’d lived a full life, not just the life of a screenplay!

Once you add a fatal flaw to the mix (Diana’s flaw is about as big as it gets), you have a character who’s bigger than a stack of pages. That’s what people mean when they say “make your characters three-dimensional.” You have the character WE see. You have the character’s past. And then you have the character’s flaw.

And let’s not discount another Scriptshadow truism – You should have a protagonist that a name actor would want to play. And Diana is about as actor-bait as it gets. I’m not even an actor or a woman and I want to play this role! It’s certainly more interesting than the kind of role female actresses usually get offered, which is the wife of a big actor. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that one of the A-list female actresses scrapped this up.

The big fault in the screenplay is the male love interest. You know, it’s funny, because we talk about scripts written by men where the female love interest is underwritten all the time. So it’s kind of surprising to see the opposite going on here. I don’t even remember this guy’s name. I just remember him showing up when nothing else was happening in the story – almost like they decided, “Well, he has to be *somewhere* so let’s throw him in this sequence where Diana’s bored and not doing anything.” Then again, this is a draft from 2010 so maybe they’ve since given him more of a presence.

But yeah, this was a good script. It has good characters (on the female side of things), real depth, and it wasn’t like anything I’d read before. That’s what really stood out about it for me. It wasn’t a romantic comedy. It wasn’t a comedy. And yet it had laughs and it had romance. It was unique. I don’t know if any guys will be able to pull through it without a trip to the liquor store. But if you have some time, pick it up. You might be surprised. And may the odds always be in your favor!

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: There are two types of stakes. There’s the big picture stakes (if they don’t destroy the Death Star, millions of people will die) and there’s personal stakes (if Lester Burnham – American Beauty – doesn’t make a change in his life, he’ll be miserable forever). Character driven stories tend to only have personal stakes. So you have to make sure those stakes are as high as they can possibly be. And that basically comes down to you doing whatever you can to remind the audience how important the protagonist’s goal is. Throughout this script, Diana is constantly pointing out how much she wants her husband back. She’s constantly pointing out that as long as she gets rid of all her tics, her husband is coming for her. The psychiatrist scenes are specifically designed to allow Diana to talk about how much she wants her husband back. Because of this, the personal stakes are EXTREMELY HIGH. A lesser writer might have had a single scene where Diana mentions to one of her friends that she misses her husband then expect *that* to be enough to set up the stakes. It isn’t. You have to convey the importance of the goal in order for the personal stakes to be high.

A long time Scriptshadow reader makes sure we never look at moving companies the same way again…

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A moving company specializes in moving humans.
About: Nick is one of the very first Scriptshadow fans. He’s been here since the beginning. I knew at some point I was going to read one of his scripts. Well, that time has finally come! Nick also went out and had a poster made for his script (which is becoming more and more popular!) utilizing our resident graphic design master, Brian Kelsey.
Writer: Nick Oleksiw
Details: 100 pages

I think this is a GREAT idea for a movie. A kidnapping operation masquerading as a moving company? Human cages in the backs of trucks? I don’t need much more than that. I’m in! BUT, we’re still talking about an amateur writer here. As much as I love Nick, I was worried. Would the script live up to the promise of its premise? Would there be enough here for a feature film?

Hmm, the first page had me concerned. Yes, the very first page! Our main character is introduced…without an age! A page later her sister is introduced…without an age. Now I know some of you think giving characters ages is pointless, and I admit that there are instances where it doesn’t matter. But for the most part, we should know how old your characters are! For example, here, Jessie and Kelly are heading off to college. But is this their freshman year or is this their junior year? That’s a HUGE distinction. If they’re leaving home for the first time in their lives, that’s a different movie than if they’ve done this a few times before. So it was strange that neither of their ages were listed.

Anyway, a little hiccup, but not a dealbreaker. My mind was still open. As we already covered, Jessie and and Kelly are sisters (twins actually) prepping for a roadtrip to their Arizona college. Jessie is the organized one. She’s got the schedule, the plan, and most importantly, her shit together. Kelly is the opposite. You wonder just how this mess of a girl made it into college in the first place. While Jessie is using college to start her life, Kelly’s using it to see how many boyfriends she can tally up.

So off they go, having the kind of arguments you’d expect two sisters on totally opposite ends of the spectrum to have. And when they hit their first pit stop, a motel in the middle of nowhere, Kelly decides to go have some fun at a local biker bar (always a good idea for a lone college girl). Jessie disapproves but she’s out of her jurisdiction on this one. Kelly does what Kelly wants. It isn’t much of a surprise then (to us at least) that Jessie wakes up the next morning minus one sister.

Freaking out, she charges over to the biker bar but details on her sister are scarce. Going to the cops isn’t much help either. Your sister didn’t show up last night. So what? She probably ended up with some dude. But Jessie’s twin powers unite instincts tell her something more is going on here.

Eventually this leads her to the heavy-side-burned Carter, a mover who may or may not have been seen with Kelly last night. Jessie confronts him, demanding to look in his truck, and since a few locals are curious about the uproar, he has no choice but to oblige. But guess what? When he opens it up, it’s just a bunch of moving junk. Total fail.

But Jessie doesn’t give up easily. There’s something suspicious about this moving company, “Mom’s Merry Movers,” so she starts following another one of their trucks. In the meantime, we meet Mary Wells, the rather sinister looking president of this moving operation. When she gets wind that a girl is snooping around her business, she’s not happy, and does a little “moving” herself, as in moving to find this bitch and take her out.

Jessie finally corners another one of these movers, and this is where we learn Jessie isn’t your average Calculus major. Girl’s got some moves on her and is able to take the mover down. She’s then able to get some info about the elusive moving company. And it terrifies her. They don’t move things. They move people. And yes, they moved her sister. The question is where? And how much time does she have left before her sister’s been moved…permanently?

I’m kind of torn on Movers. A part of me loves the idea and the potential for a movie. The other part thinks there’s not enough meat here. At least not yet. You know me. I’m always babbling about how everything I read is too thin. And Movers unfortunately keeps a lot of its story surface-level.

For example, the sister relationship is way too basic. They’re sisters…who don’t see eye to eye. That’s about as generic a treatment as you can give a relationship. And you can’t make the excuse that this is just a fun little movie so it doesn’t matter.  Because it DOES matter.  The entire movie is predicated on one sister trying to save the other. So if we barely know anything about their relationship, why should would care if Jessie saves Kelly or not?

Let’s look at a couple of other key film relationships. In Die Hard, John McClane and his wife weren’t having a run of the mill fight. It was way more complicated than that. She’d taken a work opportunity in another state that he assumed she’d fail at and come back home. But that didn’t happen. She thrived. And now their marriage is on the rocks because he doesn’t want to move and she doesn’t want to move. So it’s a very specific conflict. It’s not just “basic marriage problems.”

Or look at Taken. People say that’s one of the thinnest thrillers out there. But the conflict in the main relationship is actually quite detailed. This is a man who’s put his work above his family his whole life. His family basically gave up on him. Now he’s trying to make amends, moving close to his ex-wife and daughter so he can spend more time with her. When she wants to go on this trip, his instincts tell him it’s a bad idea. But his need to be loved – to make up for not being there before – forces him to give in and let her go, which of course results in the worst situation imaginable. It’s not just “daddy and daughter don’t get along” or “daddy and daughter are happy.” I wanted to see something like that here in Movers. And because I didn’t – because their relationship didn’t feel complicated or authentic – I didn’t really care if Jessie saved her sister or not.

There were definitely some things I liked though. I really liked Mary, the head boss. She was sort of an untraditional villain. And I really liked the scope of the operation. I thought it was neat that there were tiers and that the lowest tier didn’t even know what they were delivering and the successive tiers only had the specific information they needed to do their job. Nobody but the top people understood exactly what was going on.

Having said that, I was a little disappointed in the reveal. (Spoilers) When we find out that this is essentially another organ harvesting operation, my heart kinda sank. I’ve read a lot of “organ harvesting” scripts before, as well as read a couple of books on the subject matter, so to read yet another one was a letdown. I was hoping for something grander and more imaginative, and would actually encourage Nick to rethink his ending as a result. It kinda sucks that the logical choices for these kinds of operations (sex slavery and organ harvesting) have been done to death and are therefore unavailable. But that’s what writing is all about! It’s about going that extra mile, no matter how difficult or headache-inducing it is, and finding that NEW THING that no one’s ever thought of before!

I sat here for a long time wondering what I was going to rate this. I was about to give it a “worth the read” but then I wondered, “Am I just giving this a ‘worth the read’ because it’s better than most of the amateur offerings? Or am I giving it a ‘worth the read’ because it legitimately stacks up with the pro competition?” I felt I was being too generous. Movers has potential – no doubt. And Nick is a writer who can hold his own. But those two big problems I mentioned above need to be shored up before this gets a solid endorsement.

Will be interesting to see if you guys agree!

Script link: Movers

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Guys, your relationships are your movie. Don’t just drop some generic conflict in there and think you can get away with it. Think about all of the things that have happened in your relationships up until this point that have created the unique dynamic that they have. Your relationships need that specificity to truly feel genuine.