Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: When her childhood best friend returns from abroad with his new fiance, a lonely med school dropout must figure out how to tell him that she’s in love with him.
About: Today’s script finished number 2 on the Hit List. It was also a semi-finalist in the Nicholl. It was written by Tisch School of Arts graduate, Lauren Minnerath. For those wondering how to get your scripts read, do what Minnerath did. Enter every major writing competition and fellowship there is. For example, Minnerath was also a 2017 HBO Access Writing Fellowship finalist.
Writer: Lauren Minnerath
Details: 108 pages
After the disaster that was yesterday’s short story, it’s nice to be reintroduced to a writer who can actually write. And in the romantic comedy genre, no less, a genre that was so dead at one point that the go-to leading man was Jason Segal.
But thanks to the Romcom Resurgence, led by Netflix, we can rejoice in the revival of these fluffy equivalents to reading tabloid magazines in the supermarket line. It’s easy to understand why romcoms were once at the top of the spec mountain. They’re all dialogue. The stories are easy to follow. And because description is minimal, you can barrel through them in less than 60 minutes. From someone who just read a 130 page screenplay with 40+ characters set in Russia during World War 1, you can imagine how welcome this is.
But the defining reason today’s screenplay stands out is that it does what no other romcom screenplay has been able to do in 30 years. I’m going to tell you what that is in a minute. But first, let me tell you what “Everything Happens” is about.
Like a lot of New Yorkers in their 20s, Leah’s trying to figure her life out. After failing out of med school, a secret she keeps from everyone, Leah spends most of her time waiting tables and playing The Sims. “I’ve removed all doors, toilets, and sources of food and happiness from the house and now I’m watching as my Sims slowly degrade into starvation, uncleanliness, and death,” she tells her friend.
Leah’s best friend since junior high school is Mitch, a handsome money manager who’s finally making the move back to the US from England. Leah’s happy to hear that Mitch is breaking up with his gorgeous perfect English girlfriend, Charlotte, because, you guessed it, Leah’s secretly in love with Mitch! Except when Mitch arrives, he’s brought a surprise with him. Charlotte! “We changed our minds. We’re getting married!” he tells Leah. yaaaaaay.
Leah hates Charlotte in all of her pretentiousness and thinks she’s totally wrong for Mitch, but when the two grab some drinks, she warms up to her. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD). But apparently Leah doesn’t know where the warm-up line ends, because that night she goes back to Charlotte’s apartment and they make out.
Feeling all the guilt in the world, Leah is horrified at what she’s done. But pretty soon Charlotte is pursuing her morning, day, and night. This perfect woman is too much for an ordinary New York girl to resist so Leah begins a “We shouldn’t be doing this but we’re still doing it anyway” affair with her. When Mitch returns from a work vacation, it’s time for Leah to sort things out and figure out what she wants to do. But when all of their secrets come tumbling into the open, Leah will need to decide if Charlotte is worth losing her best friend over.
For those of you freaking out about the First Ten Pages Challenge – thinking it’s an impossible standard to live up to, you’ll be happy to note that today’s script starts with a video chat. If you were to tell me that you were voluntarily starting your screenplay with a video chat, I would come to your house, knock on your door, take your hand, lead you to the Uber in your driveway that I ordered, hand you a plane ticket, and tell you to leave Los Angeles forever. So the fact that the number 2 script on the Hit List did this is an indication that First Ten Pages perfection is not required in all circumstances.
With that said, the pages were still light and easy to read. So even if I wasn’t bowled over by the content, it cost me little to keep reading. And you can’t forget that this script is accompanied by a “second best spec script of 2018” tag, something that gives it more leeway than a random spec script from a writer you’ve never heard. So make decisions like this at your own risk.
Now I bet you’re all wondering what I was chirping about earlier – how this romcom excels where so many others fail. Well, gather round cause I’m about to tell’ya. The main thing that killed the romcom was predictability. It was the single easiest genre to predict. Guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back. For awhile, people defended this. “But,” they said, “It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey!” While there’s some truth to that statement, let’s be honest, the predictability of these movies became unbearable.
What “Everything Happens” manages to pull off is, for once, you don’t know how things are going to end. That’s because Minnerath cleverly constructs a scenario that doesn’t have a simple solution. Leah falls for her best friend’s fiance. On the one hand, you’re thinking she could end up with Charlotte. But then would she really do that to her best friend? Conversely, once she sleeps with Charlotte, you can’t imagine any scenario where Mitch would find out about this and want to be with Leah.
To convey just how clever this is, consider the alternative, which is what I usually end up reading. Leah meets Charlotte who, in this version, is engaged to a random guy Leah doesn’t know. If Charlotte were to have an affair with Leah under those circumstances, is there any doubt they would end up together? Of course not. It’s the best friend thing that has us stumped. And when you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you’re way more invested in the story. Which is why this was such a good read.
And for those of you hemming and hawing about how dare I suggest you can’t predict a romcom, put your money where you mouth is (or at least your internet dignity). Based on my plot summary, comment what you think happens at the end. Post it. Then go check and see if you’re right. You weren’t, were you? That’s good writing.
On top of this, I liked that Minnerath took chances. A lot of writers would resist a choice that has their main character betray their best friend. How is anyone going to root for that character, would be the argument. As such, they’d shy away from the choice and instead write something safer. But it’s that risk that makes this screenplay so compelling. You don’t have a script if you’re not wondering how Leah is going to navigate this.
The execution of “Everything Happens” is as good as you’re going to get in this genre. If you’re wondering how Minnerath pulled that off, it comes down to making a bold choice at the midpoint. That’s when Leah and Charlotte are first with one another. The screenplay went from a fun harmless romcom to something darker, more daring, and unpredictable. If you write in the comedy or romcom genres, you’ll definitely want to check this one out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Have things tugging at your character. “Tugs” add depth and, more importantly, character realism. Here, Leah has her MCAT test tugging at her. Her mom keeps reminding her about it. Mitch reminds her. Her sucky days at work remind her. These tiny slices of real life annoyance can make even the simplest characters feel real.
