Genre: Drama
Premise: An alcoholic who’s been told that his liver is about to give out must move in with the family he’s ignored his entire adult life.
About: “George” finished high up on the 2012 Black List. The writer, Jeff Shakoor, will get his first big-time TV writing credit when Netlfix premieres its show, “Bloodline,” about a rich family with some dark secrets. Shakoor wrote the second episode in the series. You can check out my review of that pilot here.
Writer: Jeff Shakoor
Details: 117 pages
Michael Keaton for George?
Jon Favreau brought up a good point in that Hollywood Reporter Roundtable I linked to the other day. He said studios always want that likable main character driving the story. As you can imagine, the table bristled at the mention of the word “likable.” Ooh, that evil word. “Likable.”
Favreau pointed out that the very idea of a likable protagonist didn’t fit the hero journey template. In the hero’s journey, a character must have a flaw that they overcome over the course of the story. In most cases, that means starting in an “unlikable” place. The “likable” part only comes once the character transforms.
It’s an age-old problem. And while not every flaw must include an aspect of “likability” (your character’s flaw can be, for example, “not believing in one’s self,” a la Rocky), some of the more interesting flaws, such as selfishness, fall squarely in the path of the adjective.
What writers often forget, however, is the notion of balance. If you’re going to make your hero selfish, and therefore, “unlikable,” you need to establish an equity line of “likability” to balance it out. However, a lot of writers get so angry at the notion of Hollywood telling them they have to make their hero likable, they go in the opposite direction, making their character the embodiment of evil as a “fuck you” to the industry. That seems (to me at least) how we got our lead character in “George.”
60-something George’s alcoholism is so bad, that even when he’s told by his doctor that his liver will cease functioning and he’ll be dead in six months, George still wants a drink. It’s been this way for George’s entire adult life. All he cares about is his next beer, his next shot, his next bottle of Jack.
He figures he’ll spend his last days where he’s most comfortable. The bar. But there’s a problem with that. George is broke. He used to be able to get past that hiccup with his good looks and charm. But George is now in his 60s with that aging alcoholic’s face. Good looks and charm are no longer in his repetoire.
So George is forced to call his ex-wife, Myra, whom he, of course, asks for money. She tells him to fuck off. She’ll give him a place to stay until he dies. But the last thing she’s doing is giving him a stack of cash so he can end his life a couple months early.
Going back home means meeting his now-adult children for, really, the first time, since he was out drinking throughout their entire childhood. The idea is for George to foster some sort of late-life relationships with them, but George has never been the sentimental type. He’s not above asking his grandkids for money so he can secure his next drink.
Of course, George is pulled into his family members’ lives merely by being around (such as when he catches his teenage grandson partaking in a homosexual act) and while he’s far from helpful in these situations, he’ll offer guidance if it involves some level of amusement for himself. Will George finally change before he dies? Will he realize what truly matters in life? Only one way to find out.
I love the whole “unlikable” debate. I think it’s the most fascinating argument in screenwriting. Because Favreau is right. You have to start your hero in a negative place if you want to arc them to a positive place. Nobody arcs from positive to positive. And yet attempts to utilize unlikable characters almost always end in bad screenplays (you guys tend to see all the professional scripts where this works. I see the hundreds of amateur scripts where it doesn’t). It’s hard to root for anybody you hate.
I think there are two types of selfish. There’s fun selfish, a la Bill Murray’s character in “St. Vincent” (spraying water at the neighbors) And then there’s mean selfish, which can probably be equated to a character like Melvin Udall from “As Good As It Gets” (telling people their lives are miserable). Obviously, the “mean selfish” character is a lot harder to pull off. And I’m still not sure how they did it in “As Good As It Gets.”
But they tried it here, and I’m afraid it didn’t work. Shakoor doesn’t even try and build up any “likable equity” with George. George grabs the breasts of his nurses, telling them how hard he would’ve nailed them in his heyday, then goes to the bar, drinks 5 shots in a row, and laughs at the bartender when he tells him he can’t pay for them. It’s pretty brutal.
The first “nice” moment in “George” doesn’t come until page 50 or so, when he helps his grandson, Michael, go find a hooker to see if he’s gay or straight. That’s a long time to wait until the very first nice thing your character does.
I was re-watching Frozen the other day – one might say the “anti-George” – and I realized that if you establish a likability IMMEDIATELY with your characters, you can get away with a lot later on. We establish sisters Anna and Elsa lovingly playing with one another, then harshly broken apart, then pining for one another again, and it pretty much allows them to do whatever they want with Elsa , the Ice Queen” moving forward. We saw how sweet she was capable of being. We pine to see that sweetness again.
It would make sense then, that the opposite would hold true. If you make us dislike your character right away, that feeling is probably going to follow the character throughout the movie.
From a technical standpoint, “George” never quite resonated either. The script is jam-packed with dialogue, which is fine. But 90 percent of it is George insulting people. I’ve said this before. You need to add variety to your dialogue. We all have our patterns, the things we like to do with dialogue. But if you ONLY do that, you’ll tire the reader out. 50 insults in and we were only on page 20 – I needed more variety than that.
So why did this script end up on the Black List? Well, The Black List likes to celebrate scripts that take chances – particularly scripts with unabashedly dark characters (even better if they’re dying – another Black List favorite). Everything from St. Vincent to Cake to Bad Words to The Social Network. If you’ve got a meanie main character, this is where you’re hoping to showcase it.
So by no means am I telling you never to write an unlikable main character. There are plenty of anti-establishment Hollywood folks who will give you the thumbs up for giving them something different. Just keep in mind that it’s always a tough balancing act and if you don’t get it just right, people are going to dismiss it out of hand.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Pay very close attention to what you’re doing with your main character early. Every little thing they do is affecting how we see them. We don’t know this person yet, so their actions are very powerful. They don’t tip, we see them as cheap. They hold the door open for the person behind them, we see them as thoughtful. Your character’s actions are more powerful than you think. Use them wisely.
