Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise: (from writers) After a member of their expedition sustains an open flesh wound, a group of mountaineers find themselves being stalked by a vicious high-altitude Snow Beast.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted.
Writers: Art McLendon & Beau McLendon
Details: 93 pages (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).

First thing’s first. We need to address this logline. You don’t want to be too specific in your logline with a detail that’s ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of your story. In other words, you don’t want to say, “sustains an open flesh would.” If you’re going to get specific, it needs to be about the character or a really important piece of the plot that’s part of the hook. Otherwise, leave it out.

But as far as the idea goes, this is a good one. Being trapped up on a mountain with a giant snow monster hunting you, is not only an idea I can see selling but one of the rare scripts that goes on to get made as well. Who can’t imagine a dozen great moments where a group of climbers is getting hunted by a Yeti?

Now that doesn’t mean you can just throw anything on the page. You still gotta execute. So do Art and Beau execute?

Simon Trudeau is a British Journalist who mysteriously wears a black ski mask when he does his news stories, the latest of which is about a hiking team that disappeared up in the remote Himalayan Mountains a couple of years ago. His cameraman is constantly annoyed by Simon’s insistence on wearing the mask, and its integration into his presentation is a regular point of contention.

Cut to 2 years ago where we meet the team that disappeared. We have Paul Brody, the leader, barrel-chested Gus Osborne, the tomboyish heart and soul of the group Anabell Cross, and her handsome sun-beaten boyfriend Mitch Russell.

The thrill-seekers are trying to hike their way to the peak of the 6th highest mountain in the world, but are upset to find out they’re not getting the Michael Jordan of guides like they expected. Instead, they’re getting new kid on the block, Nima, a 19 year old Tibetan who’s more nervous about screwing up than his group is about making it to the top.

But they’re all big tough guys (and girls) so they shrug it off and start up the mountain. Unfortunately things go wrong quickly. Mitch gets injured, and even though his wound isn’t that bad, it seems to coincide with a series of roars that follows the group up the mountain. Not your typical mountain lion roars either. These roars are decidedly more…angry.

Lima looks skittish, and when the roars get closer he admits that this may be a monster that hangs around on the mountain. His people call it a “Dzu-teh” which is pronounced “Psycho Snow Monster.” Naturally our team is pissed and wants to know why the hell they weren’t told about this BEFORE they went up the mountain. Uh, well duh, because it’s bad for business! (my assessment, not Lima’s)

Eventually, they run into this snow beast, and without hesitation it grabs Mitch and runs off. The group wonders what they should do now and after some heavy discussion, they decide to go after Mitch (I’m sorry but I would’ve been running down that mountain faster than Usain Bolt). Since snow beasts get plucky when you stroll into their lair, this turns out to be a bad idea.

During this time we keep cutting back to our British journalist Simon, who updates us on what they know about the disappearance through hindsight, all the while refusing to take off his ski-mask. Dzu-teh ends up picking off our doomed hikers one by one until there’s only one left – and it becomes a battle to the death.

“Ascent: Day 3” has some intense and really fun action sequences, taking the simplistic “Descent” approach to its story, where a group of adventurous people do something adventurous only to get stuck battling their worst nightmare.

However the Descent approach only works if you have a group of compelling characters and those characters are legitimately stuck, and I’m not sure the characters in “Ascent” are either. In Descent, once they were down there being stalked by these “whatever-they-were,” they had nowhere to go. There only choice was to fight for their survival. In “Ascent,” there seemed to be a lot more choices, since they are out on this huge mountain.

I liked the idea of Mitch getting taken, and the team having to make that decision of whether to save him or head down the mountain and save themselves, but I didn’t know anything about Mitch other than that he was Ana’s boyfriend. So sure, in the story world it makes sense that you’re going after your boyfriend, but to me, the audience, I don’t care about this guy because I know nothing about him.

Contrast that with a movie like Aliens, where when Newt was taken, we know a whole boatload about her situation and her struggle. She may have been annoying at times, but you never questioned Ripley’s desire to save her amidst an almost certain death if she does.

There just needed to be more going on with these characters. The action genre does not give you license to ignore flaws and backstory and personality and secrets and family situation and ideology and motive and everything else that adds to a character’s weight. I brought up Pitch Black in my Ark review and I’ll do it again here. Look at Johns. The guy had a secret (he wasn’t a cop – he was a bounty hunter), he had a past (he’s been chasing Riddick for a long time), he had problems (he was some kind of drug addict). You got the sense that there was really something going on with the guy. Outside of Anabell (and Simon – who I’ll get to in a second) I didn’t see that here.

And even though there *was* something going on with Ana, it didn’t seem to stem from her character. We had this whole backstory about how she always wears a whistle because her sister didn’t have a whistle or something and her sister died because she didn’t have a whistle. It’s there to give the character depth, yet it doesn’t have anything to do with the character. It’s backstory for backstory’s sake.

Good backstory is born from who a character is – and that’s usually identified through her flaw. The character of Lana in Risky Business is a hooker. Her flaw is her inability to trust or get close to people. That’s why she’s a hooker. Because it’s all business. Later, when Joel asks her, “Why did you run away from home?” She just looks at him and says, “Because my stepfather kept hitting on me.” The reason that backstory resonates with us is because it’s born out of her flaw. She doesn’t trust anybody because the person she was supposed to be able to trust the most tried to take advantage of her. So when you’re digging into that backstory moment for your character (which I recommend keeping as short as possible – like Lana did here), make sure it’s born out of your character’s flaw. If you do, your character will feel a lot more authentic.

The other big problem I had was with Simon. This whole idea of him having to wear this mask felt kinda gimmicky and didn’t make a lot of sense. Had he really spent the last couple of years as the masked news reporter? Or was this more recent? If it was recent, and his (spoiler) burn injuries had just happened, why would his cameraman be clueless about them? When a newsperson gets into a horrifying burn accident, people usually find out about it, especially people you work with.

Also, when he takes off the mask at the end, it’s supposed to be this cathartic character transformation but Simon is the least important character in the movie, so it makes no sense that he’s getting the most attention when it comes to a character arc.

In addition, Simon poses problems for the fear-factor of the screenplay. Instead of being stuck up on this mountain with our characters scared out of our wits, we get these nice cushy time outs with Simon that allow us to catch our breath and feel safe. Imagine The Descent or Paranormal Activity with us cutting outside to a news reporter every fifteen minutes. The movies wouldn’t have worked. The whole point is that we’re stuck in the same situation that our characters are stuck in.

I’m being pretty harsh on Ascent but that’s only because I see a lot of potential in the script. I could totally see this as a movie if a few things were changed around and more effort was put into the characters. Yeah this is one of those fun movies you simply sit back and enjoy, but you can’t enjoy a film, no matter how relaxed it is, unless you have that connection with the characters.

So good luck to Art and Beau on the next draft. Hopefully I’ve given them some ideas on how to make Ascent better. :)

Script link: Ascent: Day 3

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: It’s so important to have conflict between your characters in these kinds of films. If everyone likes each other (which seems to be the case in Ascent), you’re going to put the audience to sleep. Remember, it’s not so much the monster that should cause the fear. It’s how the adversity caused by the monster brings out the conflict within the group. Read The Grey to see what I mean.

The other day I was exchanging e-mails with a writer about a couple of scripts of his I had read, which had some good things about them but ultimately weren’t where they needed to be. He was really upset about it, and after hearing his side, I understood why. He had spent the last two years throwing his heart and soul into this craft and he really thought these scripts were it, that he’d finally figured it out. To hear that he hadn’t was a crushing blow. After that moment comes, where you think you’ve hit your peak only to find out you haven’t, what do you do? Where do you go? It’s a helpless feeling because how do you get better when you’ve already done everything you possibly can to succeed?

Well the truth is, you haven’t done it all. There is always something you can work on or do more of in the craft of screenwriting. So for those folks out there who are frustrated as hell and feel like they’ve hit a wall, here are nine things (sorry, I can’t count to ten) that you should be doing to maximize your potential as a screenwriter and cut down the time it takes to break in. These are not things that I’m thinking up off the top of my head. This is advice I’ve watched many others break through with over the last five years.

BE PATIENT
Uhhh, wait a minute. Didn’t I just say this was going to be about speeding things up? Yes, it is, but you have to put things in perspective. Did you know that it takes most screenwriters an average of 7-8 years before they break in? That’s right. 7-8 years. If you think you’re ready for the big leagues after 2 years of scribbling, by that same logic you should be able to apply for the lead heart surgeon job at Cedar-Sinai after two years of undergrad. Get real. People think screenwriting is easy cause they’ve seen a lot bad movies. Think again. There are hundreds of things you have to learn, practice, and perfect before your scripts can stand toe-to-toe with the big boys. That takes time. Did you know that Allan Loeb, the screenwriter who’s making more money than any other screenwriter in the business right now, didn’t sell his first script until his 12th year trying? I’m not saying it’ll take you that long. If you have a great hook and solid execution and you’re in the right spot at the right time, you could sell your script tomorrow. But the point is…don’t put unrealistic expectations on this craft. It’s a lot harder than you think it is. Just keep working at it and when it’s your time, it’s your time.

PICK A GOOD IDEA BEFORE YOU START WRITING
Blake Snyder popularized this approach and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Get approval on your logline from others before writing your next screenplay. Good God please do this. There is nothing worse than spending a year of your life on a script only to find out that no one was interested in the idea in the first place. Yet this is one of the biggest mistakes writers make. Over and over and over again. Even if you’re writing a character piece, make sure it has some kind of hook that an audience would want to pay money to see. To find out if your logline stacks up, simply mix it in with nine other loglines from a pool of recent spec sales, dummy ideas, and misc. loglines, then send that list off to ten friends. Ask them to rank the loglines from their favorite to their least favorite. Where your logline consistently finishes should tell you whether that script’s worth writing or not. (Don’t simply ask your friends if they like an idea. Friends lie to be nice).

READ ALL THE BOOKS
You have to read the major screenwriting books. Even if you think they’re bogus and a sham. Read them. Why? Because I read too many scripts where writers don’t even know the basics of the 3-Act structure. And those are always the worst scripts by a mile. Remember, if you’re pursuing this screenwriting thing, I’m presuming you want to make a career out of it. For that reason, study it just like you’d study for any career. Immerse yourself in it. That includes consuming ideas and theories from people you don’t agree with. Warren Buffet may not believe in short-term investing, but you can bet your ass he’s studied the hell out of it. What I’ve found is that sooner or later, every writer finds an author that they understand, that lays out an approach that works for them. You can’t find that person unless you read everyone. For a list of books I recommend, go here (don’t forget to check out the comments section where other Scriptshadow readers offer suggestions).

JOIN AN ONLINE SCREENWRITING COMMUNTIY
There are several screenwriting communities on the web, a couple of the most popular being Triggerstreet and Done Deal. If you haven’t joined them already, do it now. Read the most popular posts. Get to know the people who know what they’re talking about. Read their posts more closely. Don’t be the guy who has to prove he knows everything. Instead, be nice, be courteous, befriend people. What you’ll receive in return for that friendship is way more important than any satisfaction you’ll receive from proving someone wrong. Read that sentence again. It may be the most important sentence you read in your life. Once inside this community, find people who are at your level. START TRADING YOUR MATERIAL WITH THEM. Give each other feedback. Writers groups are invaluable to helping you improve. On Done Deal, I watched as every couple of months another writer would break through. If you were the nice guy, the one who respected and helped people, there’s a good chance that sooner or later, one of those people you helped is going to be the one that breaks through. And that person very well might be the one who passes your script to their agent and starts your career. I’ve seen it happen before.

ENTER CONTESTS
I used to hate contests. Used to think contests were stupid. Contests are not stupid. They’re invaluable. Why? Not because they give you a chance to win 30,000 dollars. I could care less about that. Because they keep you on track, because they keep you focused, because they give you deadlines, because they chart your progress. The truth is, you’re probably not going to win any of these contests. But when you start getting good, you’ll see your screenplays advance and you’ll start to gain confidence that what you’re doing is working. Some of the best contests include Nicholl, Zoetrope, Austin, Bluecat, Script Pimp, Scriptapalooza, and Amazon. But there are many many more. Check out Moviebytes for a list.

WRITE WITHIN THE GENRES YOU LIKE
If you don’t live and die for movies like Liar Liar and There’s Something About Mary, don’t write goofy high-concept comedies. Your heart won’t be in it. Write the kind of movies you love. Even better, stay within one genre. Live, eat and breathe that genre. Watch every movie in that genre. Read every movie in that genre. Make sure you know it inside out. Then pick an awesome hook, one your friends are excited about, and write it. Sometimes we get great ideas in genres we don’t know very well or aren’t fans of. I’m not saying you should never move outside your comfort zone or experiment, but spend the majority of your time on your meat and potatoes, the genres you know and love. If you ignore this advice, you’re going to find yourself six months down the road with a good idea and a shitty script, desperately trying to work up the enthusiasm to write another scene, mumbling, “Why the hell did I write this thing again? I don’t even like musicals.”

GET YOUR QUERY ON
I see all these writers throwing up their hands claiming that it’s impossible to get their script read. No it isn’t. I know an amateur writer with no contacts who just did an e-mail query blast and got over 30 script requests from bona fide Hollywood agents and managers. How do you do this? Start with the last three Black Lists (you can get them here). After each logline, they list the writer’s manager and agent. Jot down every one of those managers and agents who represent a script similar to your own. Do some good old fashioned googling to get their numbers and e-mails, then contact them with a solid query. Simple as that. If you get no response, it may be that your idea doesn’t have a good hook (see suggestion #2). But it also might mean that you’re aiming too high. Remember, when you’re a minnow, you’re probably not ready to swim with the big fishes. The good news is, there are minnow managers and minnow agents just like there are minnow writers. You’re asking someone to take a chance on you. So you may have to take a chance on someone else. Comb through the names and e-mails of the medium and small-time agencies on http://www.hcdonline.com/ (it comes with a subscription fee) and you’re bound to find people who will read your scripts.

READ SCRIPTS
This advice shouldn’t come as a surprise. You’re on a site about reading scripts. Naturally, I want you to read as many scripts as possible. And I mean AS MANY AS POSSIBLE. Hundreds if you can. I would even recommend taking four months off of writing and just reading scripts. I’m serious. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that has come even remotely close to teaching me screenwriting. It’s so helpful it almost seems like cheating. It’s the reason so many professional readers have gone on to sell screenplays. Yet writers STILL avoid it. It baffles me. Now because things have gotten so crazy lately, you’re probably asking, well where the hell do I find these screenplays? All I can say is they’re out there. I’m sure the commenters will list a few places to look. But if you just want to get started, go over to Simply Scripts and read the amateur as well as professional screenplays on their site (yeah – you have to read the bad ones too). Try to read scripts from which you haven’t seen the movie.

LOWER THE DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
First and foremost, write inside the genres you love and write what moves you. But since this list is written in part to help you cross the finish line sooner, I’m going to give you a tip. If you want to sell a screenplay now, lower your degree of difficulty. A lot of writers I see getting agents and optioning scripts do so with a simple formula: High concept easy-to-understand ideas with a clear objective for the main character. A guy is in a coffin, he needs to get out. A guy is on a train that keeps blowing up, he needs to find the terrorist. A guy is stuck in a building with terrorists, he needs to save his wife. No, this formula doesn’t limit you to thrillers. Your script can be about an over-the-hill fighter who gets a shot at the heavyweight championship (Rocky), a hockey player with anger issues who has to play on the golf tour to save his grandmother’s house (Happy Gilmore) or a college professor who goes on a trek to find the Ark Of The Covenant (Raiders). Simple clean storylines with simple clean objectives that have a strong hook. Don’t try to write Lord of The Rings. Don’t try to write Avatar. Don’t try to write that huge sprawling period epic with fifteen subplots and several main characters (L.A. Confidential). You may love those movies. But those movies are ridiculously hard to pull off and even if you do, execs won’t read them if they’re from an unknown writer. Instead, keep it easy for yourself. You want to write a 1930s period piece? Write about a corrupt 1930s cop who’s got 72 hours to kill his captain. The simplified high concept will get your script way more reads (increasing your chances of selling it) and the simplified plot will provide way less traps for you to fall into. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is that you’ll get to write your weird wily sci-fi fantasy epics once you’re a sold respected screenwriter whose name alone will get your scripts read.

Genre: Indie Dramedy
Premise: After sabotaging another family vacation, a travel agent who’s afraid to fly battles his irrational phobias in order to win back his wife and daughter.
About: Paper Airplane landed in the middle of the pack of the 2010 Black List. Karger has written and directed a few shorts over the last five years, but this is his breakthrough script.
Writer: Sid Karger
Details: 104 pages (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).

If there’s a lesson to be learned from Paper Airplane, it’s in the logline, specifically the easy to identify ironic component: “After sabotaging another family vacation, a travel agent who’s afraid to fly battles his irrational phobias in order to win back his wife and daughter.” Not every story has an ironic hook or character, but I’ve found ones that do get a lot of reads. There’s no guesswork involved because the meat of the conflict is right there for an exec to see.

However as a screenplay, I had some problems with Paper Airplane, and part of that has to do with high expectations. See The Black List is renowned for finding and championing quirky material. You might even call it the preeminent source for doing so. The Beaver finished atop the Black List two years ago. Muppet Man last year. We have The Voices and Butter and Juno and Everything Must Go and Little Miss Sunshine and The Oranges and The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things. These scripts take quirky characters and dysfunctional families to another level. But what’s often forgotten, despite the contradictory nature of the declaration, is that quirky can easily become cliché. And for me, I think that’s what happened here.

Henry Tripp is Mr. Risk Averse. He’s settled into that middle-aged safety-net phase where you’re aware of every possible thing that has the potential to end your life. And for that reason, he avoids it all. There is nothing he avoids more vehemently however, than flying. Getting on one of those long metal tubes and barreling through the air six miles above the earth for hours on end is the equivalent of repeatedly stabbing yourself with a rusty fork as far as Henry is concerned.

And it’s killing him. Or more specifically, it’s killing his family.

His selfish powder-keg of a wife, Joyce, is sick of all the fear. She’s sick of Henry being such a fucking wuss. And his cute but dark 17 year old daughter, Carolyn, has been around this for so long that she’s in danger of actually thinking it’s normal.

So one day, Joyce says she’s had enough and reads a letter to the family explaining that she’s decided to leave. So she takes her things and moves out. Henry and Carolyn are jaws-to-the-floor shocked. Didn’t see that coming. If only that were all they had to worry about.

In one of the more original choices of the screenplay, it turns out that Joyce, the wife, is the one who has the mid-life crisis. In a desperate bid to find that freedom and that happiness she had before her marriage, Joyce makes a play for Ethan, Carolyn’s overly pretentious artsy boyfriend. Ethan, who believes he’s an adult anyway, is all too eager to take Joyce up on the opportunity, and so starts banging his girlfriend’s mom.

In the meantime, Henry believes that if he can just overcome his fears and find the courage to fly, that Joyce will fall back in love with him and he can save the family before it’s too late. So he joins an “afraid to fly” Support Group and makes one last desperate bid to destroy all his phobias.

Paper Airplane plays out as an amalgam of a lot of quirky scripts and movies that you’ve seen before. In fact, it almost feels like it’s competing against them. The problem is, it’s really hard to compete against what came before you. The Monkees never measured up to the Beatles. Remo Williams never measured up to The Karate Kid. And Paper Airplane never quite reaches the heights of its successors, most notably the gold standard in the dysfunctional family genre, and its biggest influence, American Beauty.

Part of my problem with the screenplay is that it’s so….cruel. A mom who steals her daughter’s boyfriend?? I mean how unlikable can you make a character? Even if the point was to make her unlikable, the problem is that the driving force behind the story is Henry trying to get Joyce back. So if we don’t want Henry to achieve that goal because his wife is so despicable, then what’s our incentive to keep reading?

I think I might’ve been able to stomach this if Ethan came on to Joyce first.  But she clearly is the hunter in this scenario.  And the only word I can think of to describe it is…disgusting.  This is your own daughter we’re talking about!  And Carolyn isn’t even the person you have the problem with.  It’s Henry.Why would you hurt her? 

But that’s only part of the problem. The biggest pitfall you can fall into when writing one of these scripts is focusing too much on the quirkiness and dysfunction-ality of the universe and not enough on the reality of the characters. In essence, you say, “Okay, what fucked up thing can I add next?” instead of building your characters from the inside out so that their actions stem from reality as opposed to a need to shock the audience. And I saw too much of that going on in Paper Airplane.

A perfect example (spoiler) was later in the script when Carolyn was spending a lot of time with her girlfriend. And I kept saying to myself, “Please don’t realize you’re a lesbian. Please don’t realize you’re a lesbian.” And sure enough, a few scenes later, a goof-around session results in them making out and Carolyn realizing she’s a lesbian. The problem was, there was nothing previously set up in Carolyn’s character to indicate she had any interest in girls whatsoever. But it was shocking and dysfunctional, so it was used.

Contrast that with a film like “The Kids Are All Right.” Julianne Moore gets absolutely zero positive feedback from her wife. She starts working with Mark Ruffalo and he’s Mr. Positive Feedback, the exact quality that she’s missing from her partner. On top of that, he’s the biological father of their kids. So there’s a natural intrigue and chemistry and connection and curiosity between the two. That way when they start having an affair, it makes sense, because it was born out of character.

Anyway, there were some things here to admire. While I didn’t enjoy the wife storyline, I totally admired Karger for creating such a daring female lead. I’ve definitely never read a character like this in a script before so that was different. And there was something quietly likable about Henry. His dogged determination to get his family back together, no matter how misguided it was, was fun, and slightly inspiring, to watch.

In the end though, this just didn’t do it for me.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: In the eternal struggle to “show” and not “tell” in your screenplays, pictures can be your best friend. Instead of building a whole scene where your characters argue about how good things “used to be,” just show your hero catch a glance of a picture on the fridge showing the family in happier times. In fact, look to use photographs in every aspect of your script to convey quick easy backstory about your characters (i.e. need to convey that one character is adventurous? Show a picture of them rock climbing).

Genre: Rom-Com
Premise: A news anchor who idolizes Audrey Hepburn gets left at the altar, then starts a friendship with her ex-fiancé’s best friend.
About: Ryan Murphy is one of the biggest names in the business right now. The public at large first came to know his work as the series creator of the trashy but yummy Nip/Tuck. He went on to direct the sorta critically acclaimed “Running With Scissors,” and more recently shot to superstardom as the series creator of Glee (he also wrote and directed Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love). What you don’t know about Ryan is that he toiled away for a long time as a writer before he got his break. None other than Steven Spielberg saw Murphy’s talents and ended up buying this script as a result. Murphy recalls the experience: “Well I wrote the script based on a breakup I was going through at the time called Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn? It’s this great soufflé of romantic comedy and it was close to her death, and he bought the script and we worked on it. It never got made. It had every female star in Hollywood attached to it—right before they became big stars. Renee Zellwegger, Jennifer Aniston wanted to do it … Halle Berry wanted to do it. It was thrilling to sit in a room with him and basically have him talk about movies.”
Writer: Ryan Murphy
Details: 113 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 know this is going to be hard for some of you to accept, but I’m not a Gleek. I know Gleeks. I’ve interacted with Gleeks. I’ve just come to the conclusion that we speak a different language. I’m not saying I wouldn’t use song and dance to express reviews here on Scriptshadow if I could. But I am saying that any show that celebrates Britney Spears and Justin Bieber with a badge of pride is not a show for me.

That said I have nothing against Gleekdom. Feel free to Gleek your way through the comments you Gleeks. If you want to tell me to Gleek Off or Gleek a life, I’m all for it. Express your Gleek with pride as I am not a Gleek-a-phobe. Okay, I’m going to stop saying ‘Gleek’ now and start this review.

Oh boy.

Here we go.

Let me get this straight. We have a rom-com where a girl gets left at the altar (barf!). She befriends a “bad boy” player who she hates more than anyone (double barf!). But they end up falling in love (triple barf!) But the original groom realizes he made a mistake and wants her back! (Barftopia!)

Could a romantic comedy be any more formulaic?

No, I’m sorry. It cannot. It is mathematically impossible.

So then explain to me this: Why the hell did I like it?

Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn is, indeed, a mini-tribute to the silver screen goddess who gave us so many memorable performances. The movie starts out with our stylishly attractive female lead, Perry Forman, grabbing her gay best friend Duncan (yes, the token gay best friend – you have to remember though, this was written like 10 years ago – when token gay best friends weren’t token yet) and role-playing the famous scene in Breakfast At Tiffany’s where Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard go inside and buy the cheapest item that Tiffany’s sells, a sterling silver telephone dialer.

They are shocked to find out, unfortunately, that Tiffany’s stopped making the sterling silver telephone dialer over 3 decades ago. Whaaaat???

Anyway, Perry is getting ready for her big wedding with “owlishly handsome” Ross Miller, the seemingly perfect guy. But it turns out Ross isn’t so perfect, because he decides AT THE WEDDING that he wants no part of this “til death do you part” tomfoolery and leaves poor Perry at the altar.

Perry – who’s had her whole life planned out since she was five – has no idea how to process this turn of events, so she does the unthinkable and contacts brash badboy Sam, Ross’s best friend who Perry hates more than anything (the feeling is mutual: he doesn’t like her either) to get some insight on what happened.

While Sam isn’t exactly a Perry fan, he is an Audrey Hepburn fan, and the two’s mutual appreciation for the screen icon bridges an initial gap that would have otherwise remained gaping. The next thing you know, the idiots sleep with each other, and it gets all weird in that When Harry Met Sally way.

Sam is particularly shaken up because he’s screwed over his own best friend, a friend who happens to call him soonafter to tell him that he made a mistake and wants to get back together with Perry! He even lets Sam know what a good friend he’s been by helping Perry through this tough time. Yeah right. Friend now. Maury Pauvich guest tomorrow.

Naturally, things end with a second wedding, and Perry will have to decide who she really loves.

Okay, so I know how cliché and obvious this script sounds, but the thing is, it’s really well-written. Yesterday I made note of the fact that The Ark got boring because I always knew what was going to happen next. Well I pretty much knew what was going to happen here as well, but I was still into it. Why? Simple answer, the characters.

Whereas the characters in The Ark were one-dimensional, Murphy obviously put a lot of work into the people populating his universe. There are lots of ways to make your characters “three-dimensional,” yet strangely many writers avoid them. Start with a job for your hero. Make it a real job. Not something with a suit and an office where the only thing we see your character doing is answering a phone but rather something specific, preferably a job that helps define your character. Perry is an on-air news personality. Then take that a step further. Give them a goal at work, so it seems like there’s something going on in their life. Perry is up for a job at network.

Dig in to your character. Find out that thing that’s holding them back. Perry depends too much on planning. She doesn’t “go with the flow” enough. Then give your hero fears (she’s afraid to be alone) and obsessions (she loves Audrey Hepburn). There are lots of other things you can do (and should do) to flesh out your character but this is where to start and I can tell you this. If you don’t do any of these things? Your hero is going to come off thinner than a coat of paint. You gotta work on them so they feel like real flesh and blood human beings.

I also liked how the dynamics between the characters were maximized to create the most amount of conflict. This is an absolute necessity in rom-coms. Perry and Sam don’t like each other. That’s one source of conflict. Sam is Ross’s best friend. That’s another source of conflict. Perry and Sam have completely different philosophies on life. That’s another source of conflict. All these layers of conflict make Sam and Perry’s interactions interesting. Too many writers worry about making their dialogue “pop.” If you establish layers of conflict, the dialogue will write itself. It will “pop” without you having to try.

If there’s something I didn’t like, it’s that Perry’s flaw is told mainly through dialogue as opposed to action. Again, her flaw is that she’s a planner to a fault. But the only time we see this is when she *says* it. And she says it a lot. This is a lazy way to convey a character’s problem and should always be substituted by action if possible. For example, you might show Perry going to work with her blackberry, studiously checking away every little minor task she finishes – then have someone really important show up to her work unexpected for a meeting, and she’s simply unable to fit him in because it’s unexpected, not part of the “plan.” That’s off the top of my head but you get the idea. Show don’t tell. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR HERO’S CHARACTER FLAW.

This script is good. I probably would’ve rated it even higher if it were just a little more original. But the execution is great. With Ryan Murphy’s heat right now, I don’t understand why this can’t get made. I mean it’s better than 90% of the romantic comedies they’re dumping on us right now. Slap his name on it and you have a hit. What’s the hold up?

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Asked what the best advice he’s ever been given was, Murphy answered: “Two things. One, you know, the people who are successful, particularly in Hollywood are the people who don’t give up. And I think that is really true. And the thing that I know, someone once told me this great thing… it only takes one yes to change your life. And I think that’s been really true for me. The power of one yes. You work for years, and you get all these no’s and one person believes in you and your whole life can turn around. People need to wait for that one yes. And I think this can apply to anybody. My Yes was Steven Spielberg, so it was a big fucking yes. And you get No, you’ve got no talent, and your tone is so weird, and the way you see the world is so weird. And he was like, I like how you see the world, yes. And I have not stopped working since. I think our careers are like that. We do very unusual things that are very specific, but they are so specific that they become universal. A lot of people do things really broad, and I never think that anything I am going to do is going to be successful because it’s so specific but it becomes a success.”

I know this is a weird post, but I’m making a call out to all you Scriptshadow readers to answer a question I’m dying to know.  Last night I was watching Risky Business and realizing what a great movie it was.  Not only is the screenplay incredibly tight but the directing is unique and inventive and captivating – there’s clearly a vision here.  The movie made Tom Cruise a star and yet the director ended up making like 3 more movies, none of which were very memorable, and then disappearing off the face of the earth.  It’s so odd.  Outside of a post on Hollywood Elsewhere, there’s no information on Brickman whatsoever.  Do any of you know what happened to this guy?  I’m dying to find out something – anything.