Genre: Crime-Thriller
Premise: A former rodeo star turned motel owner helps his town heal after a triple-homicide, having no idea that the killer is one of his customers.
About: This script finished on the 2012 Black List and is just now coming together with one of my favorite actors, Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead). The script was written by Paul China, who hails from the faraway land of Australia. Paul wrote and directed 2011’s crime thriller, Crawl, about a seedy bar owner who hires a mysterious Croatian to commit murder, which likely caught Hollywood’s attention, leading to Sweet Virginia making the Black List. It is rumored that a kangaroo did a dialogue pass on Sweet Virginia.
Writer: Paul China (story by Paul & Benjamin China)
Details: 117 pages – 2011 draft
The other day we were talking about indie ideas and how to turn them into something bigger. Why turn them into something bigger? Well, put yourself in my shoes, or an agent’s shoes, or a producer’s shoes. If a script came across your desk about rodeos and small town trouble, would you race to read it?
Probably not.
So let me take this opportunity to remind you that if you have written a small-scale indie screenplay, it is ESSENTIAL you make it sound as EXCITING AS FUCKING POSSIBLE. Here’s the logline that was given to the Black List for Sweet Virginia: “A former rodeo star unknowingly starts a rapport with a young man who is responsible for all of the violence that has suddenly gripped his small town.”
Holy shit. Are you TRYING to make your script sound boring? Your movie starts with a triple murder and that’s your logline? Talk about burying the lead. Don’t let this happen to you. Get a logline consultation.
E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “LOGLINE CONSULTATION.” They’re cheap and they’re worth it. This script is really fucking good. And 75% of Hollywood ignored it because that logline sounded like a snore-fest.
Anyway, onto today’s script!
Tom, Mitchell, and Lou, three locals living in a small town in Virginia, have gotten together for a weekly poker game at Lou’s bar. When a mysterious customer shows up and Lou tells him they’re closed, the customer shoots them all up.
Cut to Sam, the owner of the town’s lone motel. Sam used to be a rodeo star until a ride gone bad, and now finds himself drifting through the days, his lone focus taking care of his customers. Like everyone in town, he’s shocked by the massacre, and tries to comfort those affected.
Meanwhile, we get a little more backstory on that murder. It turns out that Lila, Mitchell’s wife, paid to have him killed. And ONLY him. However, our killer was supposed to wait until Mitchell left the joint, and when Mitchell didn’t leave when he was told Mitchell would leave, our killer impatiently took matters into his own hands.
That killer is a stone cold sociopath named Elwood, and Elwood wants his payout, which Lila is supposed to receive in her will. However, as you might have guessed, it turns out Mitchell wasn’t the best with finances, and had been lying to Lila about how well off they were.
Lila must now figure out a way to pay an increasingly impatient Elwood, who, at this point, has befriended a clueless Sam back at the motel. Sam’s also got some secrets he’s hiding, and those secrets will collide with Lila’s and Elwood’s in one powerful finale.
Sweet Virginia is a really GOOD script, and like a lot of impressives on this site, it gets there by breaking some rules. As much as I love simple solid storytelling, the truth is that in order to write something great, it has to be so unlike everything out there that you have no choice but to break some rules.
What’s the broken rule here? There’s no goal. Well, that’s not entirely true, but it’s a little harder to find the goal since it isn’t coming from our protagonist, Sam. This is advanced stuff here so pay attention.
The engine driving this screenplay is coming from the villain, Elwood. Elwood wants his money. We know that the story can’t end until he either gets his money or eliminates the person who didn’t give him his money, so that’s the main reason we keep reading. We want to see how that story thread ends.
But that’s not powerful enough to drive a story all by itself, particularly because Elwood isn’t actively pursuing his money. Most of the time, he’s waiting. I always tell you guys, waiting is boring! Your main characters shouldn’t be waiting! So how does Sweet Virginia survive this issue?
Dramatic irony. We know Elwood is the killer, but nobody else does. So when he gets into interactions with others, particularly Sam, whom he befriends, it’s exciting, since there’s so much subtext in every scene. We’re sitting there going, “He’s the killer! He’s the killer! Don’t you realize it!” You may know of another hotel-centric film that utilized this approach.
China also peppers the story with a few subplots. For example (spoiler), Tom is sleeping with the wife of one of the men killed in the massacre, and has been for a long time. She loves him. He cares for her. We want to know if they’re going to end up together, which keeps us reading.
Subplots act as insurance in stories like this that don’t have huge story engines. They give the reader one more reason to keep reading. The more subplots, the more insurance (as long as the subplots are actually, you know, GOOD!).
But the truth is, I knew China knew what he was doing long before we got to the second act. I knew he knew what he was doing from the very first scene because he did something that bad writers don’t do.
That first scene is a really long one – 10 pages – and consists of a group of men sitting around talking. Characters sitting around talking, especially for a long time, is boring as shit.
UNLESS
Unless you create suspense in the scene. And that’s what China did. He mentions a mysterious car parked in the back of the driveway early on in the scene. Remember that all suspense is is implying something bad is going to happen and then drawing it out. We knew that car was bad news, so even though we’re listening to these boring men ramble on, we’re wondering, “Who’s in that car?”
Also cool was how China LAYERED the suspense. So at first, he goes with the fairly innocuous car in the parking lot. Then he brings Elwood into the bar and has him sit down and order. A lesser writer would’ve had Elwood come in and kill everyone right away. No, this is the perfect opportunity to build more suspense!
After the conversation ends, then, and only then, does Elwood kill them. This way, China got the most bang for his buck out of the scene. No pun intended.
Lots of good writing beyond this as well. The character development was top notch. Everybody here felt real. There were none of those tacked on Screenwriting 101 character traits (the character used to be a juggler) as a fake way to add depth. Read this script and tell me you don’t feel Sam’s pain after being a rodeo superstar and now a battered down nobody motel owner. I dare ya.
I would say I’m surprised this movie took so long to get made. But if that’s the logline they went with, I’m actually not. Thank god the script was great!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You know how after a movie is shot, a marketing team comes in and decides what the best way to promote the film is? The same thing goes on after you finish your screenplay. Except you’re the marketing team. You have to come up with the best way to promote your screenplay. A snazzy logline is the billboard that’s going to be on the side of every highway in America. Make sure it’s one hell of a billboard cause if you don’t, ain’t no one showing up to (reading) your flick.
