Genre: Drama
Premise: A young circus hand befriends the newest addition to the show, a seductive mermaid with a murderous past.
About: This is the runner up script from The A-List, which is not an actual list but a screenwriting contest set up specifically for entertainment assistants. The scripts are judged by the assistants and, in order to prevent any favoritism, have anonymous title pages. If you’re wondering why I picked the number 2 script to review as opposed to number 1, it’s because the number 1 script’s concept sounded like an active attempt to dethrone Unisom as the best prescription sleep-aid on the market.
Writer: Noelle Liljedahl
Details: 110 pages
This contest seems so specific, doesn’t it? Only the personal assistants of the development execs of the writers who have no representation and have only been in Hollywood for more than 13 months but less than 25 months are eligible.
Okay, I kid. It’s not that bad. But still. It’s hard enough to find good scripts when the scope is… EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. So what are the chances we get a good script out of this niche collective of writers?
The one thing these writers have going for them, however, is they read a lot of scripts – which, for some reason, not enough aspiring screenwriters do. The people who visit this site are the most likely to read scripts but even a lot of the Scriptshadow readers I’ve met over the years confess to having read less than five scripts in their life.
I mean, come on people! This is your chosen profession. You want to be an expert at it. One of the easiest ways to improve your writing is to read other scripts. And not scripts of movies you’ve seen. Unproduced scripts that have gotten noticed by the industry.
And here’s a pro-tip. After every five industry scripts you read, read a straight up amateur script – something that got the lowest vote total on Amateur Showdown. You’ll start to see noticeable differences between good and bad writing.
Enough scolding. Let’s dive into this fishy story already.
It’s 1920 and 18 year old Cillian is a — well, there’s no nice way to put it – he’s a sh$% shoveler in a circus. But good times are ahead for our dear protagonist as he’s heading off to college in a few days. Cillian ain’t gonna be shoveling sh$% for long.
Then *she* shows up. *She* is the unicorn of the circus world – a real live mermaid. You have to understand that in the circus community, it’s common to fake mermaids. All you have to do is throw a fake fin around their waist. But this one is REAL.
Cillian, who’s a virgin (although I’m not sure why that’s brought to our attention since it never plays a role in the story), is drawn to this mysterious creature, who’s so cryptic she doesn’t even have a name! She’s just “The Mermaid” in the script. Cillian starts visiting her in her tank on a daily basis and quickly falls in love with her.
There’s only problem. The Mermaid is bad. Without warning, her eyes will go inky black and if there’s anything alive near the top of the tank she’ll snatch it and gut it and eat it for breakfast. A few circus workers find this out the hard way. So even though Cillian and The Mermaid like each other, getting intimate isn’t an option. Intercourse isn’t as fun when you’re dead.
When the owner and ringmaster of the circus, Rolf, finds out that The Mermaid has a crush on Cillian, he demands that Cillian stick around. The Mermaid has proven hard to tame. But if there’s someone around to placate her, things will be easier. Cillian says ‘fine.’ He likes hanging out with the Mermaid anyway. But what he, nor we, have figured out, is whether The Mermaid really likes him… or is just pretending to in order to orchestrate an escape.
The tricky thing with circuses is conceptually they’re great for a movie. It’s the perfect cinematic backdrop. The characters are all weird. You’ve got wild animals in the mix. When you’re thinking in broad terms of a circus movie, it FEELS like a film.
But it’s for that very reason why so many of these scripts (and I’ve read a lot of them) end up being duds. The writer assumed that the circus would do all the work for them. But a circus movie is no different from a small-town coming-of-age movie. You have to find a compelling story within that backdrop that will keep viewers invested.
Does The Mermaid keep us invested?
Somewhat.
Everything rests on how interested you are in this love story between Cillian and The Mermaid. If that’s your jam and you’re at the edge of your seat trying to figure out how their relationship is going to end, you will enjoy this.
But beyond that, there isn’t much of a story. The entire circus backdrop seems to exist solely as a time-filler between Cillian and The Mermaid’s interactions. There are a couple of other decent character storylines, such as the older femme fatale in the circus becoming jealous when Cillian falls for The Mermaid.
But even our villain, the ringmaster, isn’t that villainous. And, if I’m being honest, the script felt too similar to both The Shape of Water and Water for Elephants. It’s almost as if these two films were watched right before writing the movie.
This is a common issue for a lot of screenwriters. I’ve been through the stage myself. We love the movies we love and therefore borrow from them liberally. We can’t help it. But as you gain more experience, you become better at realizing it and actively switching out the characters and plot points from those inspirational movies.
I don’t know about this one. It’s not a bad script. It just didn’t have that extra level that elevates a decent script into a good script. Whether it’s a stand-out character or a big plot twist or a unique new writer’s voice or some next-level imagination — I kept wanting this script to take it up notch but it always seemed content with decent but predictable plot developments. For example, if nothing had happened for a while, I knew it was time for The Mermaid to kill another person. And that’s what happened. It made for a reading experience where I was 30-40 pages ahead of the writer. And that’s something all writers should be actively avoiding. If you think the reader is expecting something, DO NOT give them that something. Give them something else.
I do think there’s a movie in here somewhere. A killer mermaid is a cool idea. But this script needs to be developed into something edgier. It’s too vanilla and predictable in its current incarnation. And not enough happens.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the worst things we can do as writers is become too comfortable within the story universes we create. We’re so proud of ourselves for coming up with the idea that we don’t push ourselves to elevate that idea. When you write that way, you write okay scripts. But you never write good scripts. Or great scripts. After you’ve come up with your idea and started writing the script, you should constantly be asking yourself, “How can I elevate this beyond the expected execution of this concept?” You get the feeling that guys like Tarantino and Fincher and Aronofsky and Cameron are constantly asking themselves that question. Which is why they make unforgettable movies.
