Genre: Comedy/Sci-fi
Premise: A pregnant woman’s world is turned upside-down when a group of hungry aliens invade her suburb.
About: “The Shower” finished with 10 votes on last year’s Black List and just recently got everyone’s favorite thespian, Anne Hathaway, to sign onto the flick. While screenwriter Jac Schaffer may not be a well-known commodity to most, her first film, Timer, which she wrote and directed, became a surprise hit on Netflix. This put her on the Hollywood map, getting her more reads for her next script (this one), which helped get her on the Black List, which helped get her script in front of Hathaway. Which is what turned this into a Go Picture. That’s how you do it, boys and girls!
Writer: Jac Schaffer
Details: 102 pages (March 26, 2014 draft)
Are writers even allowed to write male-driven comedies anymore? It seems like the unofficial rule is that if it’s a comedy, it needs to star women. And hey, why not. We have 75 years of comedies starring men and, to be honest, we haven’t broken a lot of new ground lately.
But here’s my beef with this trend. I don’t like it when studios make female-driven comedies just to make female-driven comedies. Like this Ghostbusters thing. There is NO STORY REASON to make all the Ghostbusters women. It’s a straight-up lazy choice brought on for no other reason than to have an all-female cast.
At least with The Shower, the concept is female-specific. It’s about a pregnant woman in the midst of a baby shower she never asked for. You can’t do that with men. But does this make the script any better? That’s a question I’ll be answering after the commercial break.
30 year-old Mary Kopecki is 32 weeks pregnant, which I guess in the female world means she’s due for a baby shower. Ironically, Mary is the last person who wants a part of this shower. Her pregnancy is a unique one, in that after her divorce, she decided to go the whole artificial insemination route.
It’s her best friend Erin, married and BABY-LESS, actually, who’s the most excited about this shower. You can tell that Erin is dying for her husband Chuck to impregnate her so they can start a family herself. The only problem is that Chuck is the world’s biggest asshole, and everyone seems to know this EXCEPT for Erin.
Rounding out the 3-chick crew is Liv, who’s described as, “if Bill Murray were trapped in the body of a hot girl in a leather jacket.” Liv is the most progressive in the group, and you get the feeling that if Liv found out she was menopausal tomorrow, she’d do some blow, some shots, and wake up the next day with a smile on her face.
The three friends are performing typical shower duties when all of a sudden, boom goes the dynamite. A meteorite lands in the backyard, and when Erin’s dog inhales its gases, it turns into a hulking crazed killer dog-alien that starts chomping off chunks of shower guests’s flesh.
The girls jump in their car and try and drive away, only to find these meteorites crashing all over the place. While Erin tries to find her husband, Chuck (who ends up being at a strip bar – surprise surprise), they realize that the alien gases infect women, who then pass the gas off to men, who then turn into hulking alien creatures, who in turn kill anyone they can find.
For a woman who’s already having doubts, this event puts a lot of stress on Mary, who must come to terms with whether she’s really ready to have a child or not.
The Shower reminded me just what a coup Bridesmaids was. Because here’s what I learned reading this script. When a script is TOO female-specific, it alienates the male audience. While I’m sure women find something relatable about pregnant women always having to pee, or that they poop during delivery, those experiences are a bit foreign to me as a male (not to mention, disgusting), and therefore not exactly funny.
With Bridesmaids, they took a female-specific experience (that of being bridesmaids) and still created comedy that appealed to both men and women. Everyone can relate to the half-crazy weirdo friend (Melissa McCarthy’s character) who is socially unaware on every level. That’s funny no matter what sex you are. I’m not sure ankle swelling jokes are going to do it for most male audience members.
Speaking of the female slant here, there’s a bit of man-bashing in The Shower. The most dominant male character is Chuck, Erin’s husband, and he is literally the worst human being on the planet. He’s a total fucking dickhead. And the only other male, who’s actually nice, is a stripper! Believe me, I’m sick of reading tons of male-authored scripts where NO EFFORT was given to building depth into the female characters. But it doesn’t make female writers look good when they do the same thing.
That’s not to say I’m shower bashing here. There were some things I liked about the script. We always talk about the importance of creating UNRESOLVED REALTIONSHIPS in your screenplay. Unresolved relationships not only infuse conflict (the life-source of drama) into the script, but also drive your second act. You’ll find your script dying quickly in Act 2 if you don’t have plenty of unresolved relationships to explore.
But what I really love is when writers get creative in this area. Which is why I loved that Schaffer created an unresolved relationship with a character who wasn’t even born yet! Yes, one of the critical relationships in the script is the relationship between Mary and her unborn baby. It’s clear that she’s not ready to have this child, and watching her battle those feelings was one of the high points of the story.
And it was a brave move! This is a wacky sci-fi comedy you’re writing here. Yet you have the balls to suggest that our main character is disgusted by the child growing inside of her? That’s kind of badass.
Schaffer also included a clever little twist in how she constructed the aliens. It’s actually the women who exhale the alien gas into the men’s mouths, making the men “pregnant,” which is how the aliens are born. A script always looks better when you can tell the writer went that extra mile and thought about their concept. That addition proved to me that Schaffer wasn’t throwing random shit on paper here.
In the end though, despite really wanting to, I couldn’t get into this. That was mainly due to the humor being heavily slanted towards women. But also, the jokes weren’t that sharp on a general level. But this should appeal to the xy crowd. And Hathaway is a good choice to play Mary.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Pregnancies are number 2 on the “perfect ticking time bombs for movies” list, right behind weddings. Make a key female character ready to pop and you have your timeline built into the story for you, which should give your script lots of urgency. I know writers are terrified to include either of these options, less their script be considered “cliche,” but in a comedy, where the plot usually isn’t the star of the script, readers won’t bat an eye at either of these options being used.
