Genre: Psychological Thriller
Premise: A corporate spy poses as a personal chef to the disgraced founder of a neuroprosthetics firm in order to steal his seismic-shifting new invention from his secluded villa in Greece.
About: This script finished number FOUR on the most recent Black List, a list of the best scripts in Hollywood. Unlike a lot of the Black List writers, Colin Liddle does have a produced credit to his name. He penned an episode of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.
Writer: Colin Liddle
Details: 117 pages
I’m not sure what you’d call this sub-genre but I know it’s growing in popularity. The idea is to send a “normal” person into the home/compound of a much more powerful person and then explore the dynamic between the two in an entertaining way.
This was the setup for Ex Machina. It was also the setup for two of last year’s Black List scripts, one where a rookie quarterback goes to train with a Tom Brady-like character and another where a nanny goes to work for a female CEO on her remote island home.
I like the setup but both that Tom Brady and Nanny script showed me that it’s harder to pull off than you think. Both those scripts limped to the finish line. Ex Machina had a few extra elements in its arsenal to play with, which is why it was able to finish strong.
Let’s see how Head Games finishes.
Jacob Dalton is in his late 20s and is an impeccable rising chef. In fact, he just got invited to work with a world-renowned chef, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But then tech billionaire Graham Caldwell, one of Dalton’s customers at his cafe, offers him a job to be his private chef in his Greek villa. The money is too big to turn down so Jacob says yes.
But just as we arrive in the villa, we’re given shocking information. Jacob is secretly working for Niles Caldwell, Graham’s son, who runs his own tech company. Graham, apparently, is working on some game-changing brain tech and Niles wants Jacob to steal it. It turns out they’ve been working on this plan for months. Jacob went off and learned how to be a great chef then got hired at the one cafe Niles knew his father went to. After months of Jacob blowing Graham away with his cooking, Graham decided to hire him, setting the rest of the plan in motion.
Once at Graham’s villa, Jacob realizes his job is going to be a lot more complicated than he thought. There are cameras everywhere so he can’t just sneak into Graham’s office and swipe a jump drive. He’s going to have to build more trust with Graham and look for another way in.
As this trust-tree process is happening, Jacob learns more about what Graham is working on. Graham has created a way to physically experience memories. So instead of just remembering that great date you had, Graham can make it seem like you are right back in that moment. When Graham shows Jacob the power of this by allowing him to relive a moment with his deceased father, Jacob is shocked.
But it turns out that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The technology can be used for much more nefarious purposes, such as mind-control. You think you see things. You think you’re doing things. But it’s all just manipulation by a puppeteer. When Jacob becomes hip to the likelihood that Graham is controlling him, he has to do the impossible: get out of here despite someone controlling his every thought.
Not long ago, I consulted on an amateur screenplay that had a very distinct issue. It made you work too hard for your meal. It wasn’t a bad screenplay by any means. But the amount of description and setup you had to push through in order to get to the payoffs, get to the good scenes, get to the meat and the climax, was A LOT. This script felt similar to that.
It’s a fun premise. But there are too many scenes describing character actions and listening to characters talk to each other… that don’t push the story forward enough. This is a little-talked about aspect of screenwriting. One of the first things we learn is that every scene must PUSH THE STORY FORWARD. Wherever the characters are trying to go, at the end of the scene, we should feel closer to that destination.
But what nobody talks about is that a scene can push the story forward 3 feet or 3 inches. If your scene is only pushing the story forward 3 inches, it’s not doing enough to keep the narrative active. It’s better than not moving the story forward at all but I read too many scenes in this script with Jacob and Graham talking to each other where, after the scene was over, it felt like we’d barely moved
[example pages removed at request]
This is what I mean when I say, you’re making us do a lot of work for not a lot of reward. The reader needs to be rewarded to want to keep reading. If you’re not consistently providing us with captivating mysteries, interesting unresolved relationships, and satisfying payoffs to earlier setups, we’re going to get restless.
What’s odd about this script is that it should still work better than it does despite these issues. It has a classic dramatically ironic setup at its core. Our hero is going into a scenario undercover to steal something. We know this. And we also know that the antagonist, Graham, *doesn’t* know this. This means we have superior knowledge over Graham, which should provide a level of suspense every time the two chat.
The thing about dramatic irony is it always works better when we know that the hero is in trouble but the hero doesn’t know this (think John McClane when he runs into Hans at the top of the building in Die Hard). In Head Games, it’s the antagonist who’s “in trouble.” So we don’t feel that same worry as we do when it’s the hero in danger.
Dramatically ironic antagonist situations can work but they often require our hero to still be in danger if discovered. For example, if we’re following an FBI agent who infiltrates a gang – that’s a situation where if he gets found out, he’s dead. So the stakes are much higher. Here, if Jacob is found out, it feels like he’s going to get a very angry scolding. That changes *a little bit* in the third act when major reveals up the ante. But it’s too little too late.
A few of you probably spotted some other issues as well, such as the fact that what our hero had to do to get into Graham’s home was mimic a world-class chef. As if learning how to cook Michelin-star-level meals was easy. Pretty sure it takes most chefs 15 years before they can cook a meal that blows the most discerning people in the world away. Also, building a plan around hoping someone hires you to be their personal chef is not a very good plan.
In the end, this script reminded me of a very specific movie, the 2001 film, “Antitrust,” starring Ryan Phillipe and Tim Robbins. It had the same young-old cat-and-mouse technological slant to it. But just like that movie, it never did anything strong enough to grab you and pull you in. It was all just a little too light and airy. For that reason, this wasn’t for me.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you come up with your hero’s plan, you don’t want that plan to contain parts that rest on SOMEONE ELSE doing something YOUR HERO HAS NO CONTROL OVER. That’s why the “Graham hires Jacob as his personal chef” part doesn’t ring true. Nobody in the real world would build a plan around that cause they have no control over it. In general, your hero should control their own destiny – or at least be attempting to. If they’re ever hoping for a coincidence in order to succeed, you haven’t constructed their plan correctly.
