Eighth Grade meets Little Miss Sunshine meets Euphoria in today’s screenplay!
Genre: Comedy
Premise: After witnessing a drug deal gone wrong, thirteen-year-old (and exceptionally awkward) Beatrice accidentally finds herself in the middle of an underground drug ring…and on the perfect route to having a proper hot girl summer.
About: Michelle Askew was born in Staten Island and graduated from USC’s screenwriting program. She’s currently repped at UTA. This is her first big script, which landed on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Michelle Askew
Details: 105 pages
This is the first image that popped up when I googled, “Hot Girl Summer.”
I don’t know what a hot girl summer is.
I’ve heard of it before. But I have never gone so far as to ask someone what it means. I know what the Summer of George is. Lana Del Ray taught me what summertime sadness was. My buddy, Shakey, introduced me to midsummer nights.
But I do not know what a hot girl summer is.
I assumed it meant something sexual, which is why I’ve always been confused by this logline. The main character’s age didn’t seem to fit the title.
I finally decided to read the script and figure out, once and for all, what a “hot girl summer” was, so that I could, in turn, teach all of you what it was. I never want a Scriptshadow reader to be caught in a position of ignorance should someone mention they’re in the midst of a hot girl summer. I want them to be able to respond, “God speed to you and your hot girl summer activities, of which I am familiar with.”
Our main character is a 13 year old girl named Beatrice. Beatrice has a little extra weight on her. Which is ruining the game she’s running on the boys. To put it nicely, no dudes are interested in Beatrice.
Beatrice, however, is very interested in Ben, the hot high school life guard. Ben is the Chris Hemsworth of Staten Island and yet, for some reason, call it blind ignorance, Beatrice thinks she has a shot with him. Since she’s not going to be able to depend on her looks, she comes up with another plan.
DRUGS.
Beatrice knows this slimy 28 year old guy, Ray. If she can score some weed from him, it might just give her that “cool” glow she needs to make Ben notice her. When she makes her proposition to Ray, he laughs at her. But then he gets an idea. Cops would never suspect that a 13 year old girl would deal drugs, so what if he uses her as a mule?
Soon, Beatrice is transporting “pixie” (a cool new drug) around New York. And, wouldn’t you know it, Ben finds out. He approaches Beatrice and asks her if he can score some of that pixie. Ecstatic, she says sure. Come to my party this weekend, he says. And just like that, Beatrice’s dreams are about to come true.
Except that when you’re only 13 years old and dealing drugs and trying to date guys 5 years older than you and you’re not exactly a looker… well, let’s just say those stories don’t end well. And this one doesn’t either. When the fallout arrives, it will be up to Beatrice to mitigate the damage as much as possible – damage that could follow her for the rest of her life.
To answer the question I posed at the beginning of this review, it appears that a hot girl summer is any summer where a girl decides to do whatever she wants. Although anecdotal evidence was weak, it appears that you don’t have to actually be hot to experience a hot girl summer. I think that the summer itself is the hot part. So, in retrospect, it probably should’ve been called Hot Summer… Girl… Adventure?
Anyway…
Like any good comedy, Hot Girl Summer injects a healthy dose of irony into the concept.
A 13 year old should not be worried about partying and scoring drugs and having sex. That’s where all the laughs come from. This protagonist is way too young to be in all of the scenarios she finds herself in. And that ‘fish out of water’ element is what makes it so funny.
I think I learned a new screenwriting lesson today. Which is that there’s something extra-likable about a character who has no reason to be big and bold and open and active, but yet who is all of those things. It’s the exact same thing that made Little Miss Sunshine work. That girl was not a looker. She had no business thinking she should be winning beauty contests. Yet she was unfazed and charged forward optimistically.
We like this because most people are the opposite. If they have even the slightest reason to doubt themselves, they curl up in a ball and stay hidden from the world. It’s inspiring when someone doesn’t follow that path.
I also enjoy non-traditional role model relationships in movies. Ray, the 28 year old drug dealer, acts as a surrogate father to Beatrice in the movie. 100% we should not be rooting for any drug dealer who’s sending a girl into the heart of New York City by herself to deal drugs. And yet we do.
Part of the reason we do is because the writer isn’t writing what they’re supposed to write. They’re not writing Ray as this big bad terrible villain. They’re writing him with more subtlety and it creates a much more complex and interesting relationship. It reminded me a lot of the screenplay, “Bad Words,” which also leaned into the negative role model.
This is probably the funniest comedy I’ve read all year. And that comes down to the writer being naturally funny. I always tell writers who are thinking of writing a comedy – MAKE SURE YOU’RE FUNNY. People who are not your friends or family need to have told you you’re funny. Whenever you write something comedic, people need to be telling you it was hilarious. Because comedy is the one thing in all of writing you can’t learn. As much as I love Leonardo DiCaprio, he’s never going to star in a comedy cause he doesn’t have the comedy gene in him.
Michelle Askew definitely has that gene:
This is a really fun script. Fun main character. Well-executed plot. Never slowed down. If you want to be a professional screenwriter, this is how you do it!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When describing a scene, lean heavily into sights and sounds. Play to the senses. The more specific you can be, the better. Here’s a description of the pool club early in the script: “The pool club oozes with screaming children and mothers with wine coolers in their hands, wearing oversized FDNY t-shirts and slides.” “Screaming children” – sound. “Mothers with wine coolers in their hands” – sight. “Oversized FDNY t-shirts” – sight.
