Genre: Drama with light comedic elements?
Premise: After their friends lose their daughter to a drunk driving accident, a neurotic New York couple find themselves unable to comfort and relate to their pain. But as the pair grapples with their personal inadequacies, their own relationship slowly begins to unravel.
About: Today’s script finished on both The Black List (top 20) and The Hit List (Top 10). The writer, Greg Kalleres, used to write commercials for high profile clients such as ESPN, Nike, Budweiser, Twitter, and Google. He has since segued into playwriting, and now, screenwriting. One of his more recent plays, Honky, is about how a sneaker blows up with young white buyers after a black man is murdered for the sneakers. You can read an interview with Kalleres about the play here.
Writer: Greg Kalleres
Details: 105 pages
It’s always interesting reading screenplays from playwrights because all of the emphasis is on the dialogue. Plays don’t work like cinema does, which is about showing (not telling). With plays, silence is death. Therefore, if actors aren’t talking a lot, something’s wrong. For that reason, it’s more important for playwrights to learn how to write good dialogue. And indeed, the dialogue in Our Condolences is the highlight.
Where playwrights get into trouble is with scope. They’re used to having one location, one stage. And while there are clever ways to switch locations, you’re basically spending long periods of time in the same place. You always see that when playwrights take on features. The stories are limited in scope.
Our Condolences introduces us to a proud liberal easy-going New York couple, James and Liz. James is a movie reviewer who trashes most movies even though he secretly likes them. And Liz works for a giant advertising company.
They’re headed over to Mike (a former SEAL who cashed in on his job by becoming an author) and Christina’s house, who they haven’t spoken to since they lost their young daughter when their car was hit by a drunk driver. On the subway, the two joke around about what it is they’re supposed to say in these situations. “I think maybe we do it right away. You know, just nip it in the bud,” James says. Liz, sarcastic, replies, “So, what, we walk in and immediately say: ”Hi guys, we can’t possibly know what you’re going through?!”” “I thought that was my line.” “Why are you being all Woody Allen about this?”
However, the mood changes when they get there. Mike opens the door, screaming that Christina is in the bathroom, threatening to kill herself. The three race to the bathroom and Liz unloads a line of bullshit about fighting for your life that sounds good in the moment, stopping Christina from going through with it. When they get home later that night, Liz is a wreck. She begins questioning everything – their relationship, their stupid jobs, their purpose on earth. Basically, she feels guilty for not experiencing the pain that Mike and Christina feel.
The next day, Liz goes back to see if everything’s okay but only Mike is there. After talking for awhile, Mike kisses her. Liz is confused but sort of goes with it. Mike makes a play on her, asking if she’s happy with a silly man whose contribution to society is ripping on movies all day. She doesn’t exactly disagree with this assessment.
Meanwhile, James randomly runs into Christina at the movies. After this happens a few more times, he learns that Christina is following the drunk driver who killed her daughter. When it becomes clear that it’s only a matter of time before Christina cracks and kills him, James will have to figure out how to stop her. And he may have to do it without a wife, since every day that goes by, Liz is less and less clear on why she married him.
Our Condolences starts off awesome. Passed my First 10 Pages test with ease.
I love movies that tackle serious subject matter in a humorous way. You’ve got to find the right tone, which is difficult. But if you can pull it off, the movie feels unlike anything else out there. It’s what creates that elusive “fresh voice” that Hollywood keeps asking for but can never define.
To give us a comedic take on a dead child is a brave move. And when you can combine that with easy-breezy dialogue that makes your eyes fly down the page, I was in screenplay heaven for the first 10 pages.
But then the writer began making strange choices. We go from fun and giddy to super serious and sad. Mike is a huge downer and Christina isn’t far behind. Not that I expected them to be happy, obviously. But the tone was set up to be funny. So I didn’t know why we all of a sudden dialed it up to 11 and became suicide central.
I eventually got used to the new tone. But then the characters are given these overtly goofy jobs that implied we were back in comedy land. Mike is a former SEAL who wrote a book that became a best seller for alpha men. Liz was working on an advertising job that revolved around building an 80 foot tall potato chip. James goes and sees silly big-budget movies that he trashes… then goes and sees them again cause he likes them.
At a certain point, I couldn’t lock down what the tone of this movie was! And if I don’t know what universe I’m in, it’s hard to enjoy what I’m watching. In fact, if you were to ask me, “What movie is this most similar to?” I couldn’t give you an answer. And that’s a big deal. Producers and studios are looking for any reason to say No. And if you can’t give them a comparable successful movie, it’s a No before you’ve walked in the door.
To be honest, I think the character jobs are what sunk this script. They feel like made-up movie jobs. These are jobs that are common in La La Land. But in the real world, nobody knows anybody who does this stuff. And the reason that’s important is because you’re writing a movie about real people and real emotions and grief. And if the people involved are doing Three Stooges routines while pitching the merits of an 80 foot tall potato chip in Times Square, it’s hard to take them seriously.
Actually, one of the easiest ways for me to identify newbie screenwriters is made-up movie jobs. Unless these jobs are organic to the characters to the point where nobody is going to question them, you want to use real jobs. The large majority of people have boring real jobs.
Despite that, the dialogue here is strong. There’s a naturalism to the interactions, a nice flow. If I learned any new dialogue tricks, it would be that dialogue works best when you’re playing against the emotion. The best scene in this movie is the first one. That’s because the characters are going to someone’s house who lost a child, yet their dialogue is light and playful and fun. Later on, when the dialogue lines up with the emotion, it’s more on the nose, and therefore not as interesting.
And that would be my big suggestion here. This script should’ve stayed with the tone it started with. Once it got serious, it lost a step.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: After James and Liz jokingly fight each other in that opening scene, we get this line of description: “Suddenly they both begin laughing like idiots. This is the essence of them. This moment. And we can’t help but like it.” Don’t ever write this line! Never! You should never ever tell the reader what to feel. Readers read more stuff than you can imagine. And the one thing they’re never receptive to is being told what to feel or think. Let your writing do that.
