Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: A heartbroken woman, employed to test men for fidelity by their concerned fiancées, finds her world turned upside down when she falls for her latest target.
About: I continue my reviews of the Top 4 scripts from the Scriptshadow Screenplay Tournament, a tournament that started with a challenge to write a script in three months, resulting in over 500 entries, which I then vetted into 40 scripts to compete in the official tournament. I then let the readers of the site vote on which scripts advanced through each round. Billie’s script here finished in SECOND PLACE. You can read the first two semifinalist reviews here and here. Stay tuned, cause tomorrow I review the winner!
Writer: Billie Bates (story by Michele Mathis & Billie Bates)
Details: 101 pages
When exactly did the romantic comedy die?
I’ll tell you. Because I know exactly when the last true romantic comedy hit occurred. It was 2009. The Proposal. And really, the rom-com was dead way before that. The Proposal was able to squeeze the last remaining juice from an orange that had been dry for a good 5 years.
It was four things that killed the rom-com. The first was Adam Sandler. He dumbed down romantic comedies to a level that they had never been dumbed down to before. And because his brand was so big, he sucked up any opportunities for other rom-coms to break out.
The second was the holiday-themed rom-coms (New Year’s, Mother’s Day, Christmas), which were less stories, and more a marketing gimmick to get a bunch of familiar rom-com faces together in order to get butts in seats. Gone were real concepts. Replaced by a holiday. While some hard-core rom-com lovers bought in. It was a white flag to the casual rom-com client. These movies screamed out, “We’re not trying anymore!”
Then there was Judd Apatow. Apatow found a way to give audiences a little bit of romance wrapped inside a meaty crunchy manosphere container. Once men got a taste of this, they refused to go back to the lighter fluffier rom-coms of old, even if their girlfriends begged them to.
This may seem like I’m burying rom-coms for good, but that’s not the case. Anybody who knows Hollywood knows that everything that’s old becomes new again. Remember the 90s when we were convinced there would never be a big Hollywood musical again? Not long after that, musicals hit a hot streak.
So I know romantic comedies are coming back at some point. The question is, in what form? Will it be the old school way? Or will someone find a clever new angle into the genre?
Michele does the kind of job that most girls would be scared to hire someone to do. She seduces your fiancé. The idea here is that if she can make him cheat, he was never right for you in the first place. In that sense, Michele’s doing a good thing.
Unfortunately, that “good thing” doesn’t pay the bills all the time. So Michele has to do side jobs to pay the rent. On her most recent job, she’s doing the make-up for a modeling shoot when she tells the buff photographer, Brad, that he’s being inappropriate with the models. Brad promptly tells her, “Ya fired.”
Down in the dumps, and down in the finances, Michele’s about to give up until she gets a new Cheat request. A bitchy young woman, Tanya, wants to make sure her fiancé won’t cheat on her. So after the forms are signed, Michele heads off to find her next victim, only to realize it’s… you guessed it, Brad!
The thing is, Brad doesn’t like Michele from the start, which means none of her trusty tricks work. But Michele’s no quitter. She puts everything she’s got into seducing Brad, even if 90% of it fails. Finally, he starts to come around. Which is great, right?? Not exactly. Because it turns out Michele is falling for him as well.
I’ve read four Billie Bates scripts now and I can proudly say that each one has gotten better than the last. The Bait is easily the best script of hers that I’ve read.
There’s a lot of good here. For example, the setup is strong. You have this woman who desperately needs money. She then gets a job where the only way she gets paid is if she succeeds. That stabilizes the stakes for the movie right there.
Then, her job is hampered by the fact that her target hates her. So as an audience membe we’re going, “Oh no. This is the worst possible guy she could’ve been assigned to.” So of course we want to keep watching to see if she can pull this off.
And Billie has one of the cleanest easiest-to-read writing styles on the site. It’s effortless to read through her scripts.
Here’s the thing though. The last reason the rom-com died was because it was the most formulaic genre of them all. And that formula proved to be impossible to break out of. Therefore, no matter how well you wrote a rom-com, it was still constrained by those plot beats that everybody already knew were coming.
And that’s how The Bait played out to me. I was always 30 pages ahead of the story. Which is why it’s imperative that you break formula as opposed to follow it. Because every beat a script hits that’s familiar is one more reason for the reader to start drifting. Why would they continue to pay attention if everything’s playing out exactly like they expect it to?
For example, of course Brad’s going to resist her at first. Of course he’s eventually going to like her. Of course she’s going to fall for him too. Of course she’s going to lose him. It’s a strange thing, screenwriting, because it’s begging you to follow it along the obvious path. That’s because the obvious path makes the most sense.
But the only reason for someone to keep reading a script is because the writer is ahead of you. They’re outthinking you as opposed to you outthinking them. And I didn’t see enough of the writer attempting to outthink me here.
I contend that the solution to bringing the rom-com back is doing something unique. Billie’s shown that she can hit the proper beats here. She’s followed the rules of this genre. Now she needs to write a rom-com where she breaks the rules. Where up is down and left is right. I honestly think it’s the only way to get any attention in these overly sterile genres.
And she can do it. She’s proven that she’s gotten better every time out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A screenplay is like a war between the writer and the reader. The reader comes into the war saying, “I know what you’re doing here. And it ain’t going to fool me.” The writer then says, “You know what? I know exactly what you think I’m going to do. So I’m going to do it differently.” Now the reader’s like, “Hmm, okay, you got me there. That just means I have to pay closer attention. But I’m still smarter than you.” And the writer’s like, “I know you think you’re smarter than me. That’s why I’m going to hit you with the exact opposite of what you thought was going to happen.” And so on and so forth. I’ll give you an example. The Break-Up. I never knew what the hell was going to happen in that movie because everything was reversed. Instead of the couple trying to get together, they were desperately trying to stay apart. The point is, you have to get into the reader’s head and ask what it is they expect to happen. You then need to continuously surprise them with your choices. That’s how you’ll win the war of expectation.
