Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: (from Hit List) On a Chinese holiday that celebrates those who are not in relationships by encouraging pampering, shopping and partying, lives intersect across Shanghai. From Americans on a journey of self-discovery, to old flames reconnect- ing, to an elderly woman reminiscing on the good old days, seemingly disconnected people will come together in moving, funny and surprising ways.
About: This script finished in the Top 10 of last year’s Hit List. The writer was born in China, attended Harvard, and sold the script to New Line. She has worked as a staff writer on the show, Powerless.
Writer: Lillian Yu
Details: 111 pages
If ever there was a combo snapshot of industry trends, yesterday and today on Scriptshadow would be it. Yesterday, we covered the new version of spec scripts – short stories. And today we’ve got an Asian-influenced female-driven romantic comedy (the third I’ve reviewed this year). Now, if someone could just write an Asian-influenced female romantic comedy short story, it would probably get sold before it left the computer.
Let’s be real. There are two ways you can approach this industry. You can write whatever you fancy, hoping the industry likes it. Or you can target what the industry is looking for and write that. The second one is liked by business-minded artists. The first is liked by creative-minded artists. Today’s writer is unapologetically business-minded.
I’m aware that this makes artists’ skin crawl. But if you’re trying to work in this industry, being business-minded is essential. You must have a component of your brain that thinks like a producer. And producers are looking for content people will pay for. Unless you’re an award-winning director with 20 years of experience who cons a streaming service into paying for a vanity project, you have to bring some capitalist tendencies to the table.
The rub for business-minded artists is soul. Is meaning. They’re so consumed with giving studios what they want that they don’t ever ask what they’re trying to say. Which category does Singles Day fall into? Let’s find out.
As the logline says, Singles Day follows several different characters. There’s Amy, a ditzy American lush who just got dumped. There’s Rose and her white boyfriend Chris. Chris has convinced Rose to go to China to find her long lost family. There’s an old woman, Nai Nai, whose husband just died so she never leaves her room. There’s Bingbing, a jaded Shanghai TV newswoman who hates Singles Day. And there’s Bao Bao, a “back of Page 6” billionaire whose entire experience with dating has been through Tinder.
The story takes place in the two weeks leading up to China’s “Single’s Day,” a holiday confusing enough that I’ll let the narrator explain it: “Originally created to celebrate singledom, Singles “Day” is now a monthlong celebration of self-love, self-indulgence, and most importantly, retail therapy. That’s right: Singles Day is the world’s biggest shopping holiday. Need a new laptop? A pizza delivery drone? A fat-freezing machine because you ordered a pizza delivery drone? Singles Day is the day to get it. Black Friday doesn’t hold a candle to the billions Singles Day makes.”
Amy’s storyline is the one that drives the first half of the script. After getting dumped, she reads about Singles Day, becomes convinced it’s how she’ll find love, and drops everything to fly to Shanghai. Unfortunately, every single Chinese man she meets thinks she’s Jennifer Lawrence then walks away when they realize she’s not. Amy bumps into Bingbing, who’s having trouble finding love herself, and the two become temporary friends. Bingbing is very supportive of Amy finding love.
The second half of the script is driven by Bao Bao, whose father is sick of his son being a tabloid punchline. So he tells him that if he doesn’t find a wife by Singles Day, he won’t get any of his inheritance. For the first time in his life, Bao Bao will have to look at a girl as a potential lifelong partner as opposed to a potential one night hookup. Will he be able to do it? What about Amy? Will she be able to find love? Oh, and then there’s a shocking final twist that will bring all of these storylines together. Singles Day indeed!
I was on board with this script initially. The best thing about Hollywood’s rush to embrace diversity is bringing in new stories from other cultures that liven up a stale medium. A brand new Chinese holiday seemed like the perfect vehicle to achieve this.
Unfortunately, that is not this script.
This is the exact same movie as those abysmal holiday-centered rom-coms that, arguably, destroyed the genre in the early 2000s. You know, the ones that all seemed to star Ashton Kutcher?
The second this script died for me was when the “Find a mate in 10 days or you lose your inheritance” plotline was introduced. It took what could’ve been a thoughtful look at a unique holiday and turned it into every lazy rom-com ever. It destroyed any sense of realism the script had. When you introduce unbelievable threads, suspension of disbelief dies. Same thing with the Amy storyline. Amy gets dumped by the love of her life. The man she thought she was marrying. Three days later she’s on a plane to Shanghai looking for love? In what reality does a decision like this exist?
I understand that there’s a wish-fulfillment quality to rom-coms that allows for whimsy. But the best rom-coms always lean towards realistic scenarios, realistic decisions, and realistic characters. One of the reasons Pretty Woman is considered the best rom-com of all time is that it was originally written as a drama. What that did was it established a baseline for realism. The characters didn’t do silly unrealistic things. They made decisions that had to stand up to dramatic scrutiny. One of the things Gary Marshall talked about with Pretty Woman was how extensive the research was that went into Richard Gere’s character’s business deal. Singles Day doesn’t have any of that.
On top of that, if you’re going to make a character driven movie, the characters can’t be fake and unrealistic. A character piece needs to dig deeper. Richard Gere worked because he was an empty vessel who forgot how to enjoy life. That was the flaw he was battling. Julia Roberts was a conflicted person who was struggling with her worth as a human being. Did a hooker deserve a man of this stature? That film explored that question in an honest way. This attention to detail seems to have gotten lost in the romantic comedy.
I remember when I started screenwriting, I’d always hear the advice, “Your story needs a foundation.” And I never knew what that meant. It was such a common tip that I was obsessed with finding the definition for it. It was years later that I learned it means your story must be grounded in a sense of reality that informs your characters choices. Because if your characters don’t exist in a reality, nothing they do will be genuine.
The most blatant example of this is the “Go ahead, shoot me” character. The character who gets a gun shoved in his face and he says, “Go ahead, do it.” Why? Because he doesn’t exist in reality. Reality is a character who values life. Who knows that if he dies, his kids grow up without a father. Who knows that his wife will live the next 50 years in sadness. But it sounds cool to say, “Go ahead, shoot me,” so the writer writes it. It’s disingenuous. The writing in Singles Day isn’t this blatant, but it’s closer to this than it is to being real.
Look, tolerance for realism in comedy is a sliding scale. For some, the broadness of these characters and their choices may be just right. But I believe the best comedy stems from real situations, real characters, and real life. And I didn’t see enough of that here.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If the centerpiece of your story isn’t clear, your script’s got problems. Singles Day begins as a day. But then we learn it’s a month. Then we learn it’s about being proud and single. But actually, it’s about buying as many things as possible for 30 days. But then it’s about people finding love, the exact opposite of what its initial claim was. Is anyone as confused as I am?
