Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) Behind the walls of a maximum security prison, a naive teenage inmate and a rookie correctional officer are forced into a drug- smuggling operation, while a looming conflict between rival gang members threatens to boil over.
About: Today’s script finished number 8 on the 2017 Black List. The Danish writer, Federick Skov, made a documentary about boxing before this, but this is his breakthrough script. Shout out to all of you non U.S. natives who think you can’t break into Hollywood!
Writer: Frederik With-Seidelin Skov
Details: 117 pages
I’m going to throw a new term at you today. “Subject matter bias.” Everyone’s guilty of it. We’re drawn to certain topics and subjects. We’re resistant to others. It’s why when someone loves a movie (say, a YA novel adaptation) but hates another (a superhero film) despite them being virtually identical in all other areas, subject matter bias will usually be the reason.
I don’t like prison movies. I just don’t. I think they’re obvious. I think they rarely do anything unique. So I have fairly high subject matter bias against them. HOWEVER, it should be noted that just like any other perceived weakness in a script, subject matter bias can be overcome. One of my favorite movies ever is a prison movie (Shawshank Redemption). It can be argued that the greatest achievement for a screenwriter is to make someone who usually hates a movie like yours, love it. Let’s see if that’s the case with Sleep Well.
Elias Hernandez is 17 years old when he’s sent to maximum security prison. Poor Elias hit and killed a young girl, then hopped out of the car and fled the scene. Elias arrives at the prison on the same day as Victor Carrier, a 23 year-old aspiring lawyer who’s celebrating his first day as a correctional officer. Whereas Elias’ arrow is pointing down, Victor’s is pointing sky high.
Elias is hit almost immediately with the realities of his new life. As a half-white, half-Latino man, he can’t even find a proper gang to affiliate with for protection. Lucky for Elias, he becomes friends with his cell mate, “Spring,” a worldly dude in his 50s who has the respect of everyone in the prison, even the officers.
But Spring can’t protect Elias from everything, and soon prison yard bullies are poking him for money, threatening to do terrible things to his mother if he doesn’t pay up. Elias has no choice but to start working for one of the big dogs in the prison, Spectro, who uses Elias to distribute drugs to the other prisoners.
Ironically, Victor is faced with the same predicament. Even though he’s supposed to be the good guy, his boss tells him he needs to join the same distribution chain, collecting the drugs (smuggled inside phones) as they come in from the outside.
The story follows each of the characters separately as they fall further and further into the corruption. But when Elias is told he has to kill a man that he’s friendly with, that’s when shit gets very real. Meanwhile, Victor has had enough, and must decide whether he’s going to snitch on the entire prison staff. Both he and Elias will need to decide soon since time is running out.
One of my prerequisites for a movie like this is: Be an expert in the subject matter. If I know more than the writer does about the subject matter he’s writing about, he’s failed. I’m happy to report that Skov knows the prison world. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s spent some time in prison. We learn about stuff like ‘lockdown pay’ and that ‘Ad-Seg’ yard is a different yard from the general population yard. This guys knows his shit.
However, that’s the given stuff. A good script needs to have four other things going for it. One, a fresh way into the idea. Two, an original execution. Three, a good plot. Four, good characters. Let’s take a look at how Sleep Well rates in each of these categories.
FRESH WAY INTO THE IDEA
Sleep Well’s “strange attractor” is that it’s following two characters on each side of the prison system, a prisoner and a guard. That’s better than had they only followed the prisoner. But is it fresh enough? Maybe my subject matter bias is creeping in here, but I need more to move the needle.
ORIGINAL EXECUTION
This is where Sleep Well really suffered. We have a prison movie… about smuggling drugs into prison? We have a major plot beat revolving around… needing to shiv someone? Aren’t both of these things in every prison movie ever? For us subject matter bias readers to be turned, we need something different. Neither of these things were.
A GOOD PLOT
I spent too long trying to figure out what the plot was here. I wanted that big plot point to emerge, but instead was served a lot of tapas sized plot points, such as needing to pay off bullies, and learning to smuggle drugs in. A good plot has an end point in sight and I was never given that. In fact, the drug smuggling stuff was so understated, I assumed it was just one of what would eventually be other, bigger plot points. It wasn’t until the final 30 pages, when the drug smuggling plan started to unravel that I thought, “Okay, I finally know where the story is headed.”
GOOD CHARACTERS
The characters here were pretty good. Elias was easy to root for (a 17 year old kid in a man’s prison – perfect underdog scenario). Spring stuck out as well. But there weren’t any scene-stealers. I suppose some of that can be solved with casting, but I’m a huge proponent of solving as much as you can on the page.
My honest opinion of Sleep Well is that if you have a familiar generic setting – like a prison, or a hospital, or a police precinct – and your script is built mostly around characters as opposed to plot? You should be writing a TV show. Unless Skov is also the director of this movie (which he might be, I don’t know), they don’t make these movies based off specs anymore. A movie needs a flashier and/or bigger plot, it needs higher stakes, it needs more of an ‘event-like’ feel.
For example, if this was about a young prisoner on his first day who gets wrapped up in a touchy prison turf-war where both sides want to kill him and he needs to survive the day before he’s transferred to another prison tomorrow, then you have yourself a movie. But if you’re going to draw the timeline out and meet and focus on the subtleties of the characters and their relationships, why not turn it into a TV show? Not only is that easier to sell these days but it’s going to make you a hell of a lot more money.
I’d be curious to see what prison-movie geeks think of Sleep Well, those of you who have subject matter bias FOR this subject matter. I’m always trying to figure out why people like things that don’t have that flashy component that sticks out and sets the project apart (people who liked Spotlight, for example, which I thought was insanely boring). Let me know what you think in the comments.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re someone who cares more about character than plot, you should be writing television. Movies are not the best place for character development. I would even argue that features actively work against the creation of compelling characters. I mean who develops a fully-rounded captivating character in two hours? It’s really hard. Whereas when you have the 50-100 hours of story time in a TV show, it’s easy.
