Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: A young diver heads deep into the ocean to try and retrieve his diver-father’s remains but in the process gets swallowed up by a whale and has the time it takes for his air to run out (roughly 2 hours) to escape.
About: The rights to this novel sold to Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard) earlier this year. Novelist Daniel Kraus is best known for writing the novelization of “The Shape of Water,” which would go on to win Best Film, after helping del Toro come up with the original concept for his movie. Kraus has a keen eye for picking ideas that both have a level of depth to them but also contain the marketable elements that Hollywood likes. Maybe the coolest thing he did was, after George Romero’s death, completed his unfinished zombie book, “The Living Dead.”
Writer: Daniel Kraus
Details: about 50,000 words (roughly half of most novels)
When I first saw this sale, I thought, “This is the kind of project that would’ve sold as a spec script back in 2004.” It has that “strange attractor” (a man being swallowed by a whale with only 2 hours of air). It fits inside a cost-efficient marketable genre – contained thriller. And it’s not like anything else out there. It’s almost like the Gen-Z version of Moby Dick.
But, unfortunately, these days, if you want to sell something like this, you gotta write it as a book or a short story (ironically, “Whalefall” is both).
The book poses a unique adaptation challenge in that, despite this being a wacky idea, the setting is decidedly tame – we’re inside a stomach the whole movie. I like to place myself in the producer’s stomach for purchases like this and try and figure out what their plan is. Do they stay true to the contained nature of the story and keep it in the whale’s stomach the entire time? Or do they take advantage of the illustrious and unique setting, occasionally taking us outside the whale?
Jay is 17 years old when he loses his father, Mitt. But don’t feel bad for Jay. Jay haaaaaaaaat-ed his father. His dad was a diver and a drunk. He was one of those crusty opinionated dudes who was friends with everyone but would also get into a fight with those friends at the drop of a hat. And he wasn’t a good father. The few times he did pay attention to Jay, it was usually to scold him for being girly or weak.
Mitt got cancer and, instead of fighting it to the bitter end, he took a trip out to where he felt most comfortable – the sea – and simply plunged off the back of the boat, sinking to his demise.
For reasons Jay isn’t even sure of, he decides that he’s going to dive into that same area and retrieve his father’s remains. Jay is not as good of a diver as his dad. But because his dad forced him into so many dives as a kid, he’s good enough. So away he goes, with about 2 hours of air, all by himself. Not advised, by the way.
Not long after he starts diving, Jay sees a fantastical sight. A sperm whale attacks a giant squid! The sperm whale only has one animal it is predator to and that is the giant squid. The squid tries to get away and, in the process, grabs onto Jay. The whale then eats the squid and, with it, Jay.
Jay soon finds himself in one of the whale’s three stomachs. Luckily, the squid gets sucked into another stomach. But it leaves a trail of bioluminescence, which lights up the stomach he’s in. Thank god cause I don’t know how they were going to light this movie otherwise (quick movie fact: The flashlights in Titanic were the sole historically inaccurate element but James Cameron used them because there was no other way he could think of to light the final rescue scene).
As the whale dives deeper into the ocean, Jay must figure out how he’s going to get out of here before his air runs out. Along the way, he develops a close bond with the whale, who is dying himself. Jay begins to see some similarities between the whale and his father, which will allow him, should he not survive this, to at least find closure with his father.
I gotta say: this was one weird book!
For starters, every chapter was 1 and a half pages. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with chapters that short. It made for a faster read (almost like a screenplay) but it led to an unfamiliar rhythm that I had trouble adjusting to.
One thing I liked, though, was it placed the amount of air (psi) at the top of every chapter. So it starts out as “3000” and then, with each successive chapter, it goes down. So we know exactly how much air he had left.
I bring that up because sometimes writers will assume that the reader knows things that they don’t know. I’ve read versions of stories like this where the writer didn’t give any indication at all of how much air was left, clearly assuming we knew. So you wouldn’t know if the character was totally safe or at the precipice of dying. I always have to remind writers: “If you don’t tell us, we won’t know.” All the better if you tell us in a creative way, which Kraus does.
Kraus also knows he’s battling his own whale here in that the location is limited. So almost every other chapter is a flashback to some moment in Jay and Mitt’s life. There isn’t any real story to these flashbacks. They’re just meant to fill us in – hopefully create a better understanding of their relationship so that we care more about it being resolved.
The author additionally understands that, even in book form, where it’s easier to ignore dialogue, that he needs some sort of interaction in the stomach. So he creates the voice of the whale, who starts talking to Jay. The whale is the most interesting character in the book. There was something very sad about the fact that it was dying and knew it.
That connection Kraus builds between us and the whale helps lead to the book’s best scene, when a group of orcas attack the whale. They know it’s old. They know it’s dying. So they go after it. But we never see it. We only hear it from Jay’s point-of-view. And then, what happens, is this really cool rescue operation by a group of other whales.
Unfortunately, outside of that great scene (and the initial whale-squid attack scene), there isn’t a whole lot here. I’m not even sure if the setup makes sense. First, you establish that this kid hated his dad. So why does he want to find his remains? And second, what are the chances of diving into the ocean and finding the remains of your father? 1 in 500 million? That never made sense to me.
Kraus is clearly searching for this deeper emotional connection between Jay, Mitt’s death, and the whale, but, if I’m being honest, it’s hackneyed. At first, the whale starts talking to Jay. But then, the implication is that it’s not really the whale who’s talking. It’s Mitt. But then there are clearly times where it’s the whale again. It all just felt very convenient. It was Mitt when the author needed it to be. It was the whale when he needed it to be. Readers and audiences don’t respond well to writing conveniences. It may make your writing easier. But it almost always makes the story worse.
Kraus also tries to shove in an environmental theme. It was actually interesting learning about how much plastic whales inhale because of all the litter in the ocean. But we’re already focused on this whole other storyline so it didn’t feel organic at all and seemed to support the idea that Kraus was never really sure what he was writing about.
We all have this issue in the early drafts of our scripts. You’re not quite sure what your screenplay is about yet so you add a bunch of ideas and a bunch of themes. But that’s what rewrites are for, to weed out the stuff that is no longer relevant. I suspect that because this novel is so short as is that Kraus didn’t have the option to get rid of the environmental stuff because he couldn’t afford to. It would’ve made a miniature novel even shorter.
Regardless of the fact that I didn’t love the execution here, I’m still intrigued to see what they do with the movie. It’s too unique of an idea for me not to be curious. Best case scenario, we could be looking at the next Life of Pi, which was a good movie.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You have a couple of options when you do the death of a loved one in a story. Option 1 is that they really loved each other. Option 2 is that they had a contentious relationship. In my experience, option 2 is the better way to go, as was the case in this book. For whatever reason, if your two characters loved each other, it feels too much like a love-fest and therefore inauthentic, potentially even melodramatic. Whereas, if there was contentiousness between them, it feels more like real life. Also, there are more complex emotions involved in option 2, which tends to make the character who matters (our protagonist) more interesting. If our hero loved the person who died with all their heart, and that person loved them, then it’s just straight sad. There’s not a whole lot to do with “straight sad.” I’ve seen option 1 work well for secondary characters, like Sean in Good Will Hunting. But not with primary characters.
Today’s script uses one of my favorite framing devices in all of screenwriting. Oh, and Andrew Kevin Walker is back!
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: After one of the world’s best assassins fails to kill his latest target, he must endure the devastating repercussions from his handlers… unless he fights back.
About: It’s finally here! This was the re-team-up I’ve been waiting for. Andrew Kevin Walker, the writer of “Seven,” and David Fincher, arguably the best director in the world. The film debuted this weekend on Netflix.
Writer: Andrew Kevin Walker
Details: about two hours long
No, it was not on my 2023 movie bingo card that David Fincher’s next movie was going to be his take on John Wick.
You know, sometimes you cry out to the screenwriting gods and you ask them, “Why do you not giveth in 2023? Why do you only taketh away?” And the movie gods came back and they say, “I’m sorry. I’ve been preoccupied up here. We had a writer’s strike. We had an actor’s strike. I’m still hung over from that whole Covid thing. I haven’t been at my best. I read Scriptshadow every day, Carson. I understand how upset you are. So as a token of my appreciation, and as a big apology, I give you, The Killer.”
I was nervous going into this one. David Fincher lost his way with whatever that movie was he made a couple of years ago. Pretty sure Mank will be used by future psychiatrists to study the long-term effects of boredom.
So I didn’t know if Fincher just didn’t care about entertaining audiences anymore or he spent a night reading 1078 positive reviews of his movies in a row and became convinced he could make anything work, even a wandering narrative about a house.
Also, this project had next to zero promotion behind it. I don’t understand how the re-teaming of David Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker has a zero dollar marketing campaign while that monstrosity of Marvel underachievement is blanketing every inch of ad space on my computer screen. I’m just gonna blame Netflix for that. They still don’t seem to know what a marketing campaign is!
Ironically, that helped my viewing experience. Because I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this film. Due to preconceived notions, I actually thought it was a movie about a serial killer. I figured if Andrew Kevin Walker wrote it and David Fincher directed it and the movie was called The Killer, it had to be about a serial killer. But it was not about that. It was about a hitman. And I would go so far as to say it’s the best hitman film made in the past decade.
We start out with our hero (“The Killer”) in an empty apartment in France keeping tabs on an apartment across the street. A rich businessman lives there. Over the next 20 minutes, The Killer takes us into his assassination routine, which basically amounts to: stay patient. Wait for your opportunity. And when the time comes: strike. Oh, and listen to good music along the way.
There’s only one problem. The Killer screws up and accidentally shoots the wrong person. This is the first time this has ever happened to him so he isn’t sure what to do. But he knows that it’d be better to figure it out while running. So that’s what he does.
Cut to Brazil, where The Killer heads to his wife’s house. But when he gets there, he finds out that she was attacked. Luckily, she survived and is in the hospital. He knows the truth. They came for him and when he wasn’t there, they tried to make it hurt. The Killer gets from his wife what little she knows about the attackers and then a different kind of killing begins – personal killing.
He heads out to different parts of the world – first to attack his boss, the man who ordered the hit, then to find the cab driver who drove his wife’s attackers to his home, then to the two attackers (a crazy scary roid-rage dude and a mysterious woman whose hair reminded the driver of a “a q-tip”). Each sequence is its own little mini-movie. And each one carries an intense determination. For the Killer wants to make sure that nobody – and he means nobody – ever gets a chance to kill his wife again.
So, what is this framing device I alluded to in the byline? A framing device is just a way to frame the story you’re telling. One of the most common framing devices is real time. It just means you set your story in real time. Since movies are generally two hours long, you’ve created a frame by which your story will take place in two hours time.
Today’s framing device is a little more complex. I call it the vignette framing device. It’s the device that Quentin Tarantino popularized. Instead of telling one long movie, you break your movie up into vignettes. The vignettes can be as long or as short as you want them to be. The reason it works so well is because it breaks your story down into more manageable chunks. Instead of having one long two hour movie, you have six 20 minute movies, as is the case here. And then, within each of those 20 minute chunks, you tell a more manageable story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
The way that Andrew Kevin Walker does it is by isolating each vignette to a new city. So then, within each city, we got a new story. It’s like getting six movies for the price of one.
I loved the way Walker worked within these vignettes. Each one has a similar structure. He sets up a goal – usually an assassination. And then he builds up to that moment. This is an important part of maximizing any story you tell. You want to establish the goal and then build up to it. The build up portion is most effective when you utilize suspense.
Walker establishes this in the very first sequence. We see our hitman in an apartment across the street from his target and so we know what his ultimate goal is. But if he just shoots his target a second later, you wasted all of that potential suspense. By building up to that moment over time – and if you’re like Walker, and really know how to milk suspense, you can expand that time out for 15, even 20 minutes – you build a need within the reader to see them do the job.
Because you’re isolating the goal to the vignette, you can build suspense into the sequence itself. Contrast this with, say, a heist. If this same character wanted to rob a bank and the robbing of the bank occurred in the third act, you’re asking for a ton of investment from the reader without giving them much in return. There’s only so much you can do to keep a reader satisfied over 90 minutes without a payoff. But, like I said, if you’re using the vignette framing device, you can give them that payoff much sooner.
Now, it’s important that when you’re using the vignette system, you vary the vignettes. If each vignette is the main character sitting in a building across from another building, waiting for the opportunity to shoot his target, we’re going to get bored. So you just find different goals and different situations you can tell these individual stories in.
(Spoilers follow) For example, one of the vignettes has The Killer locate the cab driver who drove the attackers to and from his wife’s place. The Killer then gets into the cab, pretending he’s a passenger, and only once they’re on the move does he reveal who he really is. And now you have this vignette where he extracts information from the driver.
Later still, there’s a scene where he locates one of the passengers who attacked his wife and he simply shows up at a dinner she’s having and sits down across from her. The entire vignette is the buildup to him killing her. But unlike the other scenes, this one feels different because it’s taking place in a public setting with a character who is perfectly aware that he is here to kill her.
One thing this movie made me realize was that when David Fincher signs on to your script, that must be the single greatest feeling a screenwriter can have. Because his directing is so amazing that he makes every inch of the script 100 times better. I was watching this and listening to certain lines of dialogue and noted how if that line was in a different movie with a different director it probably wouldn’t work. But in a David Fincher-directed project, the line sounds amazing because his directing style is so impactful that you’re pulled all the way into every single moment and believe it no matter what.
Case in point, one of the hardest things to do as a screenwriter is write a fight scene that works great on the page. Every fight scene reads generically. I’m guessing that the fight scene written in this script was similar. But the way Fincher directed it was amazing. It reminded me of a much darker more artsy version of that Terminator fight between the Terminator and the T-1000 when they first battle at the mall. It had that same gravitas. Every throw seemed to move the frame. Every fist that landed felt like an earthquake. And my TV doesn’t even have good sound! I would go so far as to say this fight was better than any fight in any of the four John Wick movies. It hit me harder for some reason. It felt so real.
Back to the screenwriting. One thing that Walker did really well here was he made you wonder what was going to happen at the end of each vignette. Remember that if you build up to a moment for a very long time and that moment goes exactly how we thought it would, we’re going to be unsatisfied. So what Walker does is clever. In that opening sequence, after 20 minutes of our killer meticulously taking us through his perfected system of executing a kill, he screws up and misses his target.
Why is this so critical? Not only is it a surprise that creates a dramatic impact in the moment, but it now means that in every vignette going forward, we’re going to be unsure what will happen. We think he’s going to do his job, but since the writer has established that he can fail, we know that’s a possibility too. And when you have that dichotomy stuck in the reader’s head, your suspense works like gangbusters, because we truly don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of the sequence.
I was thinking all weekend about my Thursday article. I realized that I forgot one of the reasons screenwriting has dropped off and that’s that writers aren’t spending as much time on their scripts as they used to.
Remember, back in the day, any movie you saw had to go through an excruciating process of being vetted by dozens of people, all of whom expressed some level of doubt in the project. The script would then go back into the system to address those doubts and come back stronger. It was only once the script addressed the large majority of these issues that it was allowed to get a green light and get made.
These days, the need for product is so high, especially with all these streamers desperate for content, scripts aren’t being vetted and challenged as much. So we keep getting these “third-draft” movies. And believe me, they feel like third drafts.
This is the first script in a while where I can tell the writer put a maximum amount of effort into it. This feels like a screenplay that has been vetted. It feels like a screenplay that went through a lot of pushback before coming back better. And boy did it make a difference.
All of that leads to one of my favorite movies of the year!
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The Vignette Approach is not all that different from the Sequence Approach. The Sequence Approach breaks your script down into eight mini stories, as opposed to one giant story. The difference with the Vignette Approach is that it’s less about blending each storyline in with each other. Which means it’s easier to do, because with the Sequence Approach, there is the additional challenge of making it not look like a Sequence Approach. You don’t have to hide the fact that your script is a series of vignettes and therefore you can just focus on making each vignette as good as it can possibly be.
It’s been many moons since I’ve last been enamored by a script. Or a movie, for that matter. It’s led me to question what the issue is. Is it everybody else? Do people simply not know how to write anymore? Or is it me? Have my standards become too high?
I’ll tell you what I’m scared of. I’m scared of becoming that Scriptshadow commenter who hates every movie. If I can no longer enjoy the movies I watch or the screenplays I read, then there’s no incentive for me to continue doing this. I’m not interested in having a website that craps on everybody. I want to spread LOVE! Not be a hater-potater.
And yet Hollywood is doing everything in its power to lure me into a hate cocoon. I commend the Marvel marketing team for their Herculean effort to convince people that The Marvels is actually good. I’m assuming they sent Chris Hemsworth out to spend a day with every critic who gave this film a fresh score on Rotten Tomatotes. But come on, Marvel has known for a year that they’re dealing the cinematic equivlanet of fentynal. It’s insulting to sell us that this movie is actually watchable.
Then we get this new Ghostbusters trailer. What is going on here?? It’s a movie about an ice villain??? Did they accidentally swap with one of Marvel’s scripts? We’ll find out a year from now when Marvel releases Ghost Thor: Who Ya Gonna Call.
I haven’t even enjoyed the Star Wars offerings. You know what’s sad (or awesome, depending on your point of view0? One of the ways I wind down is watching Youtube videos of people watching the original Star Wars for the first time. It’s so addictive seeing them experience this wondorous perfect movie for the first time ever. And every time, without fail, they always get excited at the right moments. They laugh in all the right places. In a way, it’s like I’m watching Star Wars for the first time as well.
But these days, the serious Star Wars TV shows (Andor) don’t work for me. The silly ones (Ahsoka) don’t work for me. That Madalorian episode with Lizzo and Jack Black very well may have heisted my soul and sold it on ebay for Yoda earings.
I haven’t even been able to enjoy the Oscar-hopefuls – Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie – which are supposed to be the projects that actually put time and effort into their screenplays.
So I think about this question a lot. Are my standards for screenwriting so high, at this point, that they can no longer be met? I’m biased but I don’t think they are. Still, several things have happened in the industry that have really hurt screenwriting in the past decade.
One of the issues is we don’t have that central screenwriting teacher anymore. In the 80s and 90s, it was Syd Field. In the 2000s, it was Blake Snyder. But once the internet popped up, writers stopped reading complete books on how to write screenplays and, instead, piecemealed their screenwriting education together through online screenwriting articles. So they know certain things (add conflict to your dialogue!) yet are totally clueless to others (how to build a compelling second act).
In addition to this, feature screenwriting moved away from singular protagonists trying to achieve a goal – the purest form of storytelling – to the “Marvel Ensemble” model where the writer is juggling 10 different protagonists and their subsequent storylines. Which isn’t normal! That’s not a typical story anyone would tell.
Then you have the rise of golden era television, with 1000 shows on TV, so that’s where all the writers went. And what does television promote? The never-ending story. There is no climax, which teaches screenwriters terrible habits. Cause if you don’t have to end your story, you never have to think about where your characters are going. And when those writers dip their toes back in the feature space, they bring that issue with them. Their narratives seem flighty and aimless because that’s the only kind of story they’ve had to write!
In other words, NOBODY KNOWS THE BASICS ANYMORE. They’re just making sh*t up as they go along. Yesterday’s script, which barely BARELY got a “worth the read,” is a good example. The theme of the script is messiness. The messier the better. That’s not good screenwriting. Good screenwriting requires focus and structure and planning.
So what I thought I’d do as we head into the weekend is remind writers of the basics. It’s not that hard. It really isn’t. But if you’ve never learned these things, then you’re probably writing a lot of weak-sauce material.
1 – Give us a likable character. Introduce your character in a way where we like him or her. Or, at the very least, sympathize with them. For example, if a woman’s husband of 20 years just blindsided her with divorce papers, we will sympathize with her. The reason this is so important is because nothing you do after your protagonist’s introduction will matter if we’re not rooting for them.
2 – Create a problem. A story cannot start until there’s a problem. This is the thing that jolts our protagonist into action. Think about it. If there’s nothing that forces your character to do anything, then they won’t do anything! You don’t have a movie if your main character isn’t doing anything. In one of my favorite movies from recent years, Parasite, the “problem” is very simple. The family is broke. They have no money. They need a solution.
3 – The problem introduces the goal. Once you introduce a problem into your hero’s life, you’ve created the all important GOAL. Cause now your hero has to SOLVE THE PROBLEM. And needing to solve a problem is a goal. To use Parasite as an example again, the goal is to take over the rich family’s home.
4 – The goal gives you your stakes. The reason the goal is so important is because it needs to power you through your second act. If the goal is minor or flimsy, it won’t be able to achieve this. This is where STAKES come in. We have to feel like everything is on the line for your hero. If you succeed, you get everything. If you fail, you lose everything. In other words, the bigger the problem, the more impressive the goal, which means higher stakes, which means you have more power to drive the second act. And just to remind you, NONE OF THIS MATTERS IF WE DON’T LIKE YOUR HERO. Which is why getting number 1 right is so important.
5 – Throw obstacles in front of the goal – A goal, in and of itself, is boring. Where the excitement happens is when that goal is challenged. So you want to think of your second act as the “Goal-Challenging Section.” You want to throw a bunch of things at the hero so it’s hard for them to achieve the goal. The harder it is, the more we’ll enjoy ourselves. Cause think about it: how exciting is it to watch someone try to achieve their goal with only minor pushback? To use Parasite as an example again, the midpoint has this crazy psycho dude secretly living in the basement. Talk about a challenge. How do you take over a house when you have this other guy already living there?
6 – A challenged goal makes your hero stronger – The bonus of challenging your hero in their pursuit of a goal is that it BUILDS CHARACTER every time they overcome one of these challenges. And each time that happens, assuming you got the number 1 rule right, we will like your character even more. Cause we like people who take on obstacles and overcome them. You know your second act is working when our love for your protagonist is growing.
7 – Endings aren’t as hard as you think – A good ending is less about some inventive never-before-seen plot twist and more about your hero facing their flaw head on and overcoming it. The endings that stick with us have some sort of emotional catharsis. Again, you got to get number one right or NOTHING YOU DO in the third act will matter. But, if we like your hero, and we’ve seen them struggle throughout the second act, and they overcome their flaw in the climax (Rocky overcomes his self-doubt to go the distance in the championship match), that goosebump-laced rush will shoot through the reader. Always try and think of your climax as an emotional catharsis and not as the final piece to a plot puzzle.
These tips don’t cover everything, obviously. You still have to surprise us, make interesting creative choices, write good dialogue, have a couple of stand-out characters besides your hero. You’d also like to execute your story with a unique voice or a fresh angle in order to stand out from the pack. But if you follow the above seven tips, it’s really hard NOT to write a good screenplay.
As for whether I’m still capable of being impressed anymore, I already have 10 movies that are going to make my Best Movies of 2023 list. I already have 10 scripts that are going to make my Best Scripts of 2023 list. That’s 20 stories right there. Should I really be asking for more than that in one year? I don’t think so. That’s plenty. I guess I was hoping for more stuff to blow me away this year. But maybe that’ll come in 2024.
I offer feature screenplay and pilot script consultations – the best notes in the business. If you mention this article, I will give you a $150 discount. Your script doesn’t have to be ready yet to secure the discount. You can send it in at a later date. Just e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com. Can’t wait to read your script!
Genre: Holiday/Horror
Premise: A family’s Christmas dinner goes awry when a xenomorphic demon starts to duplicate and imitate each member of the family. What does it want? To show them their greatest fears.
About: This script made it onto last year’s Black List. The writer wrote ten episodes of the Black-ish spinoff, Grown-ish.
Writer: Kyle Dew
Details: 105 pages
Marcus Scribner from Grown’ish for Bryan?
Confession time!
I’m not a holiday-horror mash-up guy.
I know, I know.
LAAAAAAME!
Lame, Carson.
Everyone who’s anyone loves holiday-horror mash-ups cause they’re geek-chic, dude. Who doesn’t want to see Santa’s chief elf slaughter a dozen coeds in Dustin Coyle’s, “Psychotic Elf Sorority Massacre 5?” I’ve already got the first murder scene: A half-naked sorority chick with 37 candy canes plunged into her. The elf even left a post-it note on her desk: “Ho ho ho.”
Contrary to popular belief, I’m a softie. I’m more pillow than anvil. When Christmas comes around, I want to feel the warm loving embrace of George Bailey running down the street and screaming, “Merrrry Christmas everybody!” I don’t want to get stabbed by 37 candy canes.
BUT…
I love this title.
And I have never wavered from my belief that a good writer can make any concept work. Actually, I think that’s the first time I’ve said that. Therefore it might be a lie. Regardless, it’s a million times more fun to read a good script than a bad one so let’s hold hands before we take part in this script feast and say a Christmas prayer – Thout shall giveth us a great reading experience…
20-something Bryan and his girlfriend, Michaela, are flying back from LA to Chicago for Christmas. Michaela seems unsatisfied in the relationship and forces Bryan into a ton of therapy to fix it.
They get to the house where matriarch, and lawyer, Ida, is cooking up Christmas dinner. She’s with her brother, Bryan’s crazy Uncle James (who Bryan got into a physical fight with the year before). Bryan’s sister Ciarra has brought with her her very white boyfriend, Alex. Also at the dinner is Bryan’s childhood best friend, Dame.
We cut away to meet a cop named Brooklyn who gets called to their house later that night. When he gets there, we find out that Bryan has hanged himself. He’s dead. After Brooklyn asks everyone how this happened, Bryan shows up in the doorway, alive again. Naturally, everybody freaks out. Some are happy. Some are mad, cause they think he played a trick on them. But Bryan has no memory of any of this. So he thinks they’re all crazy.
This provokes a second investigation into whether Bryan is lying or not. And during this investigation, a second Brooklyn appears. When the two Brooklyns confront each other, the family tries to figure out who the imposter is. Once they do, Imposter Brooklyn cuts open his insides and starts eating his own guts until he perishes. This confirms that we have a demon in the house.
But if the demon is no longer inside Fake Brooklyn, then where is he? And what does he want? Due to an intense snowstorm, the family can’t go anywhere. So they’ll be forced to figure out where (as well as who) the demon is, and then eliminate him.
Back in Chicago, we had this theme park called, “Six Flags Great America.” It had all these great rollercoasters. But the one I liked best was “The Demon.” The thing looked like a giant spider that had been twisted and contorted into an unrecognizable maze of metal. The Demon roller coaster is apropos for today because we’re dealing with a literal demon AND this script read like I was riding on a roller coaster. It starts out sloooooow, but then it gets fun, the next second it coasted, then it was fun again, then we’d get to the corkscrews, which are never as dramatic as the loops.
I was ready to tap out after the first act. There were a lot of character introductions. A lot of dialogue that, because there was so much setup, was boring to read. I was worried this was going to be one of those scripts where we sit at a table the whole time and engage in endless dialogue.
But then Bryan commits suicide. Which is followed by him coming back to life. And, all of a sudden, I found myself turning the pages with more energy. I wanted to know exactly what the family wanted to know, which was: How is Bryan alive again? Solving that mystery was compelling enough to grab my attention.
And then when there were two Brooklyn’s, I distinctly remember thinking, “Okay, this might actually be a movie now.” Cause I didn’t think it was a movie before.
Look, I think a lot of screenwriters, deep down, want to be John Hughes or Richard Linklater or Martin McDonagh, where we craft an entire screenplay around dialogue and dialogue alone. It’s the sexiest component of screenwriting and, therefore, if you can master that part of the craft, you are seen as a screenwriting god.
But today’s script reminds us that, as lovely as that would be, you need plot. You need stuff to hook us. Cause the second we had a dead body here, my interest tripled. And then when he came back to life, it went up again. These are plot developments and we can bring them into our story at any moment to juice things up.
With that said, you still have to judge this story on its comedic dialogue since that’s such a big part of the script. On that end, the writer could’ve done better.
One of the things I’ve always found frustrating about comedy is that sometimes being cliché hurts you but other times it helps. We’ve all seen the swearing grandma archetype. That’s such a cliche low-hanging fruit character that it rarely works. At the same time, comedic archetypes can help you!
The character I laughed the most at was Uncle James. Uncle James leaned heavily into the “Crazy opinionated Uncle at holiday gatherings” archetype. Because I understood exactly who he was, his jokes always made me giggle.
Whereas with the rest of these characters, I didn’t know what their archetype was so I struggled to figure out where their jokes were supposed to come from. Because when you don’t have clear archetypes, you don’t know whose mouths to place the jokes in. As a result, you end up randomizing them. Except a line that would typically come from Roman (Succession) doesn’t work if it comes out of Tom’s mouth.
The script doesn’t stick the landing. It was more corkscrew than giant loop. But it kind of won me over by that point. It’s like a holiday horror version of The Thing. I know that will intrigue a few of you. And it’s enough for me to recommend the script.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Some of these characters get capitalized intros and some don’t. That’s a big problem in a screenplay, even though it feels like a small one. Because if you introduce a character un-capitalized, that’s an indication to the reader that they’ve already been introduced. This isn’t a huge problem if the introductions are happening on page 3. But if they happen on page 15 or later, the reader’s going to question why they don’t remember this character who’s “already been introduced.” When they take the time to look the introduction up and find out the character hasn’t been introduced but, rather, the writer made a mistake, you’ve lost a ton of screenwriting credit with the reader. Since you’re an unknown, you don’t get that much credit to begin with. So losing that credit could be the difference between the reader continuing to read with focus or going into skim-mode. Their attitude becomes: “If the writer isn’t going to try, then why should I?”
Genre: Holiday
Premise: At the height of the holiday season, two strangers team up to rob one of New York’s most famous department stores while accidentally falling in love.
About: Today’s script finished high on last year’s Black List, with an ornament-busting 12 votes (“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 12 votes on the Black List…”). The writer, Abby McDonald, has one writing credit. But it’s a big one. She was a staff writer on the mega-successful Netflix show, Bridgerton.
Writer: Abby McDonald
Details: 110 pages
Somehow. Some way. The holidays are upon us.
I like what McDonald is going for here. The holidays have been overwhelmed by the Hallmarking of movies. McDonald is adding a real genre to her Christmas concept. We have a heist film on the most wonderful day of the year.
28 year old New Yorker, Sofia, is scoping out one of the city’s most opulent department stores, Sterling & Co. As she scans the place, she runs into 32 year old Nick, a charming fellow who seems to be doing the same thing. And Nick doesn’t like that.
So tells Sofia to leave the store and stop thinking of doing whatever she’s thinking of. We follow Nick home and find a bunch of goons waiting for him. Nick owes these men a lot of money. Which is why he’s planning to rob Sterling & Co. on Christmas Eve, when they’re going to have alllllllll that holiday money in their safe.
Back to Sofia, who’s visiting her mother at the hospital. Her mom, who used to work for Sterling & Co. for 20 years as a cleaner, had a stroke on the job. But the evil company claim they fired her a day earlier to avoid paying her medical costs. This is why Sofia wants that safe money – to pay her mom’s medical bills AND stick it to the man!
Eventually, Nick learns about Sofia’s mom, which means he could have access to 20 years of experience in this department store. He’ll know every unlocked door, every corner out of camera sight. He may just be able to pull this thing off! But that means, unfortunately, teaming up with Sofia. Seeing as the two kind of hate each other (but kind of love each other too), it’s a dangerous move. But it’s the only move he’s got!
Whenever you write a script, you’re trying to create the best version of that script-type that you can. If you’re writing a horror script, you gotta give us some of the best scares we’ve ever seen. If you’re writing a comedy, you gotta give us some of the funniest scenes we’ve ever watched. And when you’re writing a con man/con woman heist script, you gotta give us amazing quick dialogue and incredibly clever moments.
What most writers will do, and what I’d argue today’s writer does, is give you just enough but nothing more. So, here, we have an early exchange where Sofia and Nick engage in some witty banter at the department store. Nick looks like he came out on top. Then, several scenes later, Nick checks his pocket and instead of finding the security pass that he took from Sofia, he finds Sofia’s library card instead. Zoinks! She lifted it from him.
I’ve probably read somewhere in the vicinity of 250 of these sexy heist team-up scripts and this exact moment was in 240 of them. That’s when you lose me. The goal when writing any script should not be to meet the standard. The goal should be to exceed the standard. You may not have the chops to exceed the standard, but you should always try. Especially when it comes to those things that are important to that genre.
Dialogue is so important to this genre. It’s got to be sexy and biting and quick and clever. If it’s ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT, your script is toast.
I was just telling a writer this the other day. Every time you read through your script, whether it be to spell check or look for plot holes or see if your characters are working, improve three to four lines of dialogue. Most writers will read through a script 200 times before they send it out into the world. If you’re improving 3 to 4 lines of dialogue every one of those read-throughs, you’re gonna have some really good dialogue when it’s all said and done. If you don’t do this, you’re going to have average dialogue.
On the plus side, I liked how McDonald understood that a straight heist wasn’t going to be enough. This is true for all heist scripts. You can’t put the heist in the third act and spend the entire second act preparing for it. You need to create some additional plot threads, and McDonald does that here.
For example, they want access to the key codes that are going to get them through all of the doors in the store. So they try and steal them from the store president’s soon to be ex-wife. But then the wife catches them and wants in. So now, they need to steal an additional thing for her along with the original loot. This additional object is then used as a way to create double crosses and plot surprises later on.
Another thing I give McDonald credit for is that these characters become more likable as the script goes on. This happens to me ALL THE TIME. Every time I read one of these scripts, I initially find the main characters too polished and too slick. There’s no authenticity in their interactions. It’s more about saying the too-cool-for-school line. But once the plot kicks in and the characters actually have something to do besides talk, they grow on me. Maybe this is yet another example of the power of SHOWING NOT TELLING. It’s the characters having to act that pulls me in. So by the time these two were in the heist, I was engaged. Just not engaged ENOUGH.
My advice if you’re going to write a heist screenplay is to stay away from a straight, sexy thriller, unless you’re one of the best dialogue writers in the world. Because these movies are all about the banter between the two main characters, as well as the sexual tension underneath that banter. You can’t control the latter, because that will be up to who they cast. But you can control the former.
If you’re not great at dialogue but you still want to write a team up heist screenplay, I would suggest going in one of two directions. One, come up with a clever setup. Bad Santa comes to mind. Bad Santa is the same movie as this, but it has the more clever set up of a guy dressing up as Santa Claus to work department stores specifically so he can rob them.
Two, come at the genre in a unique way. Try to find an angle that hasn’t been done before. Parasite comes to mind. Parasite is a heist film about a family who steals a home from another family. We’ve never seen anything like that before so it’s a really interesting way to play with the genre.
You can certainly play it straight like this script. And, in McDonald’s defense, this is the most marketable of those three movies I just mentioned. But it’s also the variation that’s most susceptible to cliché and that’s where the majority of this script exists – in cliche.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Prioritize the things that are important to the genre of script you’re working in. We all have a finite amount of time. We can’t work on a script forever. Which means you’ll have to prioritize what, in your script rewrites, to focus your time on. Your priority should always be the elements that are particular to that genre. So if you’re writing a comedy, spend 80% of your time improving your jokes. If you’re writing a horror script, spend 80% of the time trying to make it scarier. If you’re writing an action movie, spend 80% of your time on your action set pieces. And if you’re writing a sexy heist thriller, make sure the dialogue is electric, that we love both of the leads, and we’re desperate to see them get together.
