Genre: War Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
About: After Interstellar, people were wondering if Christopher Nolan had lost his mojo. So the film-loving Netflix-hating secretive director decided to reinvent himself by writing his first war movie. It’s been awhile since anyone opened a big-budget serious film during the summer months, making a July release for Dunkirk a bit of a gamble. But the flick made 50 million dollars over the weekend. Not bad for a movie with zero superheroes.
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Details: 1 hour and 45 minute running time

Remember Lessthanstellar, Christopher Nolan’s last film?

I do. It was a messy sci-fi catastophe that fell apart the further into its 8 hour running time it got.

And it’s responsible for teaching us today’s first screenwriting lesson.

Movies work better with tighter timeframes.

Without getting into specifics, the longer your timeframe is, the more room there is to screw things up.

This is why Dunkirk is a masterpiece compared to Nolan’s last film. By focusing on a brief timeframe of only one week, the story is able to charge forward and tell a tense tight story. Now Nolan plays around with that timeframe, which is something we’ll get into. But if you guys leave this review with anything, leave knowing that a tight timeframe improves your chances of writing a good movie.

For those of you who have no intention of seeing Dunkirk, I’ll summarize it for you. It’s about a famous moment in World War 2 where 400,000 (mostly British) Allied troops were stuck on a French (?) beach waiting for extraction. The problem was, supply ships and army vehicles were stretched thin, leaving these soldiers sitting ducks for enemy planes to swoop in and bomb them.

Nolan divides his focus into three storylines. There’s the soldiers on the beach, represented by baby-faced soldier Tommy, who attempts to get off the beach by any means possible. There’s three fighter pilots, led by Farrier, doing whatever they can to keep enemy airplanes from bombing the beach. And there’s a civilian ship that’s aiding the rescue mission, led by old-timer Mr. Dawson.

But Dunkirk is no straight-forward mission. Farrier’s storyline starts 1 hour before the rescue. Mr. Dawson’s storyline starts 1 day before the rescue. And Tommy’s storyline starts 1 week before the rescue. Nolan then cuts these storylines up non-linearly. For example, Mr. Dawson will save a soldier from a sunken boat, only for us to see that same soldier a few scenes later, getting onto that boat before it sank.

If you’re looking for ammunition to attack Dunkirk, that would be where you’d start. The other day we were talking about taking chances. One of the options, I explained, was playing with time. And Nolan’s done that here. The question is, did he need to? Would the movie have played the same, or better, had he told it linearly?

Nolan is notorious for something I’m going to call the “binary viewing experience.” He believes that a straight-forward story is boring. For a story to work, your mind should be working on two different levels. Here we have the story of soldiers trying to get off a beach before being massacred. But while this is happening, our brain is ALSO attempting to re-order the out-of-order narrative.

I was against this choice at first and I’ll tell you why with an analogy. In football, when the other team starts using trick plays, it means they don’t believe they’re good enough to beat you straight up.

The same can be said with storytelling. Once the writer starts trying to do all this weird tricky shit, it’s an indication that they don’t think the story is good enough to work on its own.

The one amendment to this is when the writer has a specific reason for why they’re incorporating trickery. 500 Days of Summer, for example, used its time-jumpy format to draw attention to the chaos of relationships. By showing us a perfect date (Day 30 of the relationship) mashed up against a brutal fight (Day 230 of the relationship), we were able to look at relationships in a way that wouldn’t have been the same had we traversed the 200 days between those two moments.

So I was trying to figure out if Nolan was trying to distract us from a story that would’ve been boring otherwise, or if there was a method to the madness.

I’m still not sure what the answer is. I suppose the jumping around makes the story slightly more interesting than it would’ve been otherwise. But I’m not convinced it was necessary. At no point did I think, “Oh, there’s NO WAY this movie works if you don’t tell it out of order.” And if that’s the case, then why tell it out of order?

While time-manipulation may be the major geek talking point of Dunkirk, I was far more interested in the sparse storytelling and lack of traditional character development.

Nolan ONLY has his characters speak when they have to, leaving large swaths of his canvas dialogue-free. And I thought it was great.

We’ve become way too dialogue-dependent as an industry and that’s because it’s easier! It’s easy to patch in some on-the-nose conversation to move the story along. It’s MUCH HARDER to figure out how to get through a potentially confusing section with images and actions alone. Which is why writers avoid it.

For example, Tommy and another soldier, Gibson, run into each other at the beginning of the story near a dead soldier’s body. This is followed by a bombing scene, a bunch of soldiers on the beach getting injured, and then those injured soldiers getting priority evac onto the only ship leaving the beach at the moment.

We then see Tommy and Gibson carrying their “injured” soldier in order to cut through the lines and get onto that ship. There is never a word spoken between the two about their plan. We experience it dialogue-free.

Had this been any other script, I assure you we would’ve gotten a scene – maybe even two – with Tommy and Gibson discussing their plan. “I have an idea.” “What?” “We can cut through the lines if we pretend he’s injured.” “But what if they catch us?” “Who’s going to check?”

Also, when you don’t do dialogue, you force yourself to build characters through actions and choices, which is always the most effective way to do so. Consider Tommy, who’s willing to pretend a dead man is injured to cut his fellow soldiers and get out on that first boat. That tells us so much about the character without saying a word.

With that said, dialogue-free scenes should be saved for situation-dependent scenarios. For example, when a group of guys needs to escape a building that’s being bombed, you don’t need dialogue for that scene. But when it comes to large plot points, going dialogue-free doesn’t make sense.

And that was my one big beef with Dunkirk.

I didn’t understand, for example, why they were on this beach. Had they just won a battle? Had they just retreated from a battle? I didn’t even know what country they were in, to be honest. I also didn’t understand why, if they were “surrounded” like the flyers said, that the Germans didn’t attack. There’s a throwaway line from one of the generals explaining, “Why waste tanks and troops when they can just shoot fish in a barrel with their planes?” Okay, that would make sense… IF THERE WERE MORE THAN 3 PLANES!

The clever thing that Nolan does though – and I don’t know if this was intentional or not – is create a non-stop scramble so intense, we stop thinking about the bigger questions. We just want these individual characters we’ve met to get out alive.

In the end, that relentless energy is what kept me so engaged. So despite the gripes I mentioned above, I would easily put this in the “must see in the theater” category. It’s an unusual movie that gets a lot right and puts Nolan back on the map as a filmmaker.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: It’s always a more powerful viewing experience when the audience gets to add things up themselves. When the writer does the work for them, it’s not as fun. For example, that scene I mentioned above about Tommy and Gibson carrying the fake-injured soldier onto the boat – me figuring out what they were doing without being told made the moment much richer because I felt rewarded for my work.

The fact that the two scripts I reviewed this week both took major chances got me thinking – How the hell do you take chances in a screenplay? What’s the protocol?

Before we get to that, we must first establish what “not taking a chance” looks like. Believe it or not, it’s possible to write a good movie without taking chances. Rocky’s a straight-forward underdog-rises-to-fame movie. And it’s pretty damn good. The same could be said for straight-forward flicks John Wick, Finding Nemo, and Neighbors.

But more often than not, not taking chances leads to scripts that feel safe, sterile, boring, and worst of all: PREDICTABLE. Office Christmas Party. Assassin’s Creed. Jurassic World. These are all predictable movies that didn’t take any chances.

I’ve found that chances can be broken down into two categories: Before and during. There’s the chance you take in conceiving the idea and the chances you take within the screenplay itself. We’re going to explore both today.

I should also point out that not every chance you take will be good. With chances come risk. And, to be honest, I’d say most chances don’t pan out. However, when you take a big risk and it works? It’s the difference between your script being awesome or forgettable.

In analyzing chances, I’ve noticed a trend. Good chances are unexpected but work because they feel like part of a bigger plan. Bad chances are likewise unexpected but don’t work because they were created for the wrong reasons – as gimmicks or tricks used to shock the audience. They rarely have the bigger picture in mind.

For example, in the short movie, Fool’s Day, a group of 4th graders accidentally blow up the head of their teacher. It’s a HUGE CHANCE. I mean, it had never been done in any movie before. But there was clearly a plan afterwards. The movie becomes about covering up the crime. If you look at Will Smith’s, Hancock, however, the revelation that Charlize Theron’s character is also a superhero comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit into the rest of the story thematically or narratively. That’s a chance that was designed for the wrong reasons.

With that in mind, let’s look at 10 ways you can take chances in your writing.

1) CONCEPT

The biggest chance you can take in a script is in the concept itself because the concept affects everything that comes after it. Taking a chance with your concept means giving us something unconventional that has never been done before. Swiss Army Man, Passengers, Colossal, Being John Malkovich. Be brave, be different, be daring.

2) HEAVY TONAL SHIFTS

It’s mega-dangerous to shift tones during a screenplay because you risk looking like you’re unsure what your movie is about. It often looks sloppy. However, it does make your movie unique. The Netflix film, Okja, shifts between a serious drama, an intense action film, and a kooky comedy. Indeed, it feels unlike any other film out there.

3) PLOT REBOOTING

Plot rebooting is when the story starts off about one thing, then at some point during the script, it reboots so it’s now about something else, and maybe even reboots again so it’s about something else. Monday’s script, Courage, was a rebooter. It was about living in a future city protected from aliens. Then it was about being chased by aliens in space. Then it was about the making of a 1970s science-fiction film. I didn’t like the script but holy shit did the writer take chances.

4) MAJOR TWISTS THAT CHANGE THE STORY

One of the most well-known chances you can take as a writer is introducing a big twist after the first act. It’s when this twist changes the nature of the story itself that it’s the most impactful. Psycho (the main character is killed and replaced by the villain). Allied (the woman the hero married turns out to be a German spy). Gone Girl (the wife faked her demise to incriminate her husband). The reason this is so risky is that you’re often changing the nature of what drew the audience in in the first place. It’s like playing a song everyone loves then stopping it and saying, “But wait, I have a song that’s even better!”

5) PLAY AGAINST THE CHARACTER

This is a chance I wish more writers would take. Basically, it’s taking a character archetype we all know well – the roguish Han Solo, for example – and playing it in a completely different way. A Godfather-like mob boss who’s effeminate, for example. Or a Die-Hard like action hero who’s neurotic, which is kind of what they did in The Accountant. A wisecracking superhero (Deadpool). An underrated version of this is what they did in The Intern. That movie was set up to have DeNiro’s aging intern play the zany “ZOINKS! WHAT’S SNAPCHAT??” role. But instead the character was played more intelligently, picking up his duties quickly and being more of a fatherly presence to the employees. If your character is being played exactly like these types of characters have always been played, you’re probably boring the audience.

6) ZERO CONCERN FOR COMMERCIAL APPEAL

This is one of the biggest chances you can take, completely ignoring commercial appeal. Look no further than the Coen Brothers, who do this often. A movie about a failed folk singer who loses a cat. Fitness trainers who get mixed up in a CIA plot. A 1930s treasure-seeking musical. Just here on Scriptshadow I reviewed the now infamous Eskimo period piece script that includes an old woman giving a 12 year old boy a handjob. The great thing about not giving a shit about commercial appeal is you can write without having to worry about what audiences will think. But buyer beware. This is one of the riskiest routes you can take!

7) PUSHING BOUNDARIES

If you really want to push yourself, write about the stuff you don’t want people to know you think about. Push the boundaries of what is acceptable. We’ve seen this in movies like Deliverance and Straw Dogs, but boundary-pushing can include race, violence, murder, pedophilia, cannibalism, and plenty more. Ideally, you don’t want to push boundaries just to push them. You want it to be an organic part of your story. Check out the French film “Raw” to see the latest movie to receive a lot of press for pushing boundaries.

8) PLAYING WITH TIME


One of the most common ways to take chances is through playing with time. From Memento to Edge of Tomorrow to 500 Days of Summer to Eternal Sunshine to this weekend’s Dunkirk, playing with time rearranges the narrative in an unconventional way that almost universally leads to an unpredictable story. And since the whole purpose of taking chances is to give the viewer something they haven’t experienced before, this is a time-honored way to do so.

9) PLAY AGAINST THE GENRE

Playing against the genre is similar to playing against a character, however it affects more of the story. A recent example of this is Sausage Party, an R-rated animated film about food that gets slaughtered. Not what you expect when you walk into a cartoon! On the script side is Brian Duffield’s, “Vivian Hasn’t Been Herself Lately.” The genre is technically “Possession.” But it isn’t played like any conventional possession film. Instead, the story is an intense drama about a failing marriage, a totally unexpected choice. You can see how this would open up all sorts of unique avenues as a writer. A Western that’s actually a romantic comedy. A musical that’s actual a zombie film. Some huge chances can be taken here.

10) GOING AGAINST CONVENTION

Every time you write a fifteen minute scene, you’re taking a chance. Every time you write a script that takes place in a single location, you’re taking a chance. Every time you ignore the 3-act structure, you take a chance. Every time you make your main character an unlikable asshole, you take a chance. Every time you change theme mid-script, you take a chance. Every time you go off on a non-sequitur subplot, you take a chance. I watched Personal Shopper recently. It starts off as a supernatural drama about a girl trying to make contact with her dead brother. It later evolves into a texting thriller with a mysterious person texting our heroine throughout the second half of the movie. Later still, it turns into a murder-mystery. These convention-busting choices are available to you. But like every artistic choice, they come with the risk of people saying, “What the fuck were you thinking there?” So make sure you have a reason for making the choice.

I’ll finish by saying taking chances boils down to giving the audience the unexpected. If your entire script goes as expected, it’s probably not going to be very memorable.

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations, which go for $25 a piece of 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!

This might be the craziest sci-fi script I’ve ever read.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: In a future where oceans have risen and mind-controlling aliens have taken over, a psychiatrist fights to save his family, a task that gets progressively harder when he realizes that nothing is as it seems.
About: This is a rarity these days. A big sci-fi spec sale. It comes from the writer of Oblivion, which was a cool flick that could’ve been awesome if it had a bigger sandbox to play in.
Writer: Karl Gajdusek
Details: 121 pages (8/24/16 draft)

Chris Pine for Jake??

Yaaaay!

I’m in sci-fi heaven. Not only do I get Valerian in three days but I also get to read a big sci-fi spec sale today!

And for all you Valerian pre-haters, let me just say… uh, 68% Rotten Tomatoes!

What now?

Mic drop.

BOGHHHSHAFSSHSH! (explosion sound)

Valerian for life.

Valerian is actually the appropriate movie to be talking about in regards to Courage because both screenplays appear to be batshit crazy. But could Courage actually be crazier?

Courage opens up in a future Chicago that seems to be run like 1960s East Germany. People walk around in colorless clothes, don’t look each other in the eye, and signs like, “Remember. Two is a conversation. Three is a conspiracy,” are posted everywhere.

Jake Phobetor is a psychiatrist with a dying marriage trying to help people get through these troubling times, and after a few scenes, we learn just how troubling those times are. Chicago, it turns out, is encased in a giant glass dome that keeps out the swelling oceans which have risen due to the melting of the ice caps.

And, oh yeah, there are giant sea aliens known as the “Talis” trying to break in so they can kill everybody. Which is why there is an “Ark” spaceship that everyone’s trying to win the lottery to get on. Jake knows he’s not going to be picked, but he rigs the system to get his 8 year old son, Tash, on.

Right when they get to the ship, however, the dome breaks, and a 100 foot wall of water shoots at them. Too late for Jake and his son. Except that we CUT TO BLACK and Jake wakes up in a cryo chamber on that Ark 2 years later.

What Jake learns is that he was dreaming. Well, sort of. The Talis are real, but he and his family escaped. The reason Jake is being woken up now is because the Talis are on their tale. Their ship chased the Ark and have finally caught up. The woman who woke up Jake needs his help to pull a maneuver that will destroy the approaching Talisians.

Jake has no idea what’s going on but does the best he can, only to black out and wake up… AGAIN. Except this time he’s on a 1976 science-fiction movie set and he’s the star of the movie. It turns out that the science-fiction story wasn’t real. He’s just playing a part. Or is he?

Jake, convinced that his family is still in danger, convinces the writer to tell him how to save his wife and son, then goes back into the Ark ship to finish what he started.

One of the most important qualities a writer can have is the courage to TAKE CHANCES. If you’re not taking chances somewhere, your writing isn’t going to be very compelling.

When I used to compete in tennis, the thing that often separated the good players from the great ones was fearlessness, the ability to let loose and take chances. Go for an inside-out forehand winner when you’re down match point instead of gently pushing the ball back and hoping the other guy makes a mistake.

But here’s the thing about letting loose and ripping forehands. They don’t always go in.

And as much as I admire the hell out of this screenplay, I don’t think it lands inside the court.

It’s just too freaking crazy.

Don’t get me wrong. I was rooting for it. You guys know me and sci-fi. I’m dying for the next great sci-fi movie that’s not one of these studio assembly line doohickies. But if I’m being a fair chair umpire, I have to be honest and say this one was “out.”

In attempting to figure out where the script lost me, I’d have to say when we showed up on a movie set. As a writer, you want to be aware of the audience’s expectation. Once you set an expectation, you don’t want to betray that. In other words, you don’t want to promise an intense drama and then when people show up to see your movie, give them a romantic comedy. They’re going to be disappointed.

And this script is set up as heavy imaginative alien science-fiction. That’s the expectation I’m working with. So when we then end up on a 1976 science-fiction film set? I’m like, hmmmm. This is a huge tonal and subject matter shift. As much as I was trying to, I couldn’t get on board with it.

And that’s too bad because, structurally, the script is pretty sound. It utilizes a mystery approach in the beginning. We’re living in this strange city with strange rules and we’re trying to catch up with what’s going on. Then, right when we do, we’re thrust into this race to escape the chaos. And that’s followed by us waking up on the ship and needing to take out an imminent alien attack. So we move from mystery (what’s going on?) to a goal (get my son out on the Ark) to urgency (hurry and kill the approaching alien ship) through the first half of the screenplay and it’s all good.

But when the movie set arrives, we switch from the intensity of a man trying to save his family to problems like: How tough it is to be a movie star. It’s too radical a shift, way lower stakes, and, quite frankly, not as interesting.

Now we do jump back into Jake’s pursuit to save his family but something about knowing this is all tied to a fake movie production lessens the desire to see Jake succeed.

Also, there’s too much going on here. One of the temptations of science-fiction is to go nuts. Is to include every wild idea you have. But when there’s already a lot going on, adding more eventually leads to the law of diminishing returns.

For example, a lot of time is spent early on setting up this idea that not only are these sea aliens attempting to break through the water bubble dome, but they also have some mind-melding power where they can telepathically destroy your brain so you’re a vegetable. Even more time is put into explaining that this takes extra energy from the aliens and it will take them longer to break through the dome as long as they keep trying to destroy random human brains…

But ultimately, it’s not important. The more pressing story is a guy trying to save his family amidst an alien attack. That’s what the audience is emotionally attached to and therefore things like mind-melding brain attacks are distractions. The point is, you want to be creative and have fun in your sci-fi universe. But at a certain point you have to say, “This is the cut off point. I’m not going to keep adding more shit.”

And hey, I’m not going to pretend like it’s easy to know where that line is. It’s often a feel thing. But my recommendation to all sci-fi writers out there, is “When in doubt, cut it out.” I’m telling you, you’re going to reap the most benefits from keeping your sci-fi story as simple as possible.

With all that said, I give Gudjesek credit. This is unlike ANYTHING I’ve read all year. If you like weird sci-fi and like to be surprised, you’ll definitely want to check Courage out. I just think it’s trying to juggle too many balls at once. And for that reason, it wasn’t for me.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Improve upon sci-fi tropes – A great way to up your sci-fi game is to take a sci-fi trope and ELEVATE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL. For example, in Courage, we have a city under a dome. We’ve seen that, right? However, Gajdusek one-ups the trope by melting the polar ice caps and having 100 feet of water on all sides of the dome. I’d never seen that before. It’s these things that give your sci-fi script a unique feel.

“I’m sorry. My box office percentage drop was how much??”

We live in a Narrative Society. We need NARRATIVES to help us understand the world. If something doesn’t fit into a narrative, it’s so confusing to us that we discard it – throw it in the trash bin so we don’t have to consider what it means. How dare the world be messy. It must be clear! It must be clean!

This weekend’s box office is the perfect example of a confused narrative. Last week we had the Hollywood darling, Spider-Man: Homecoming, winning the weekend in triumphant fashion. The film also received a stellar endorsement from critics, with a 92% Rotten Tomato score. That typically means good word-of-mouth and strong box-office holds.

But Spider-Man dipped a full 61% from last weekend to this, which is closer to a Transformers film than a well-received comic-book movie. For example, Wonder Woman only dipped 43%!

Now, normally when this happens, it’s because some behemoth of a movie came along and stole away all of the film’s box office. But that wasn’t the case. The weekend’s big new entry, War of the Planet of the Apes, only took in 56 million bucks.

What’s funny about that is that it ALSO doesn’t fit into a narrative. As much as everyone wants to say what a triumph this is, the reality is that the last Apes film brought in 72 million dollars its opening weekend. So this is a huge dip.

This leaves us with a very confused weekend where nobody knows how to summarize it. “Um, Apes beat Spider-Man! Even though it… um… did a lot worse than the previous Apes.” What’s the angle here? No idea. Sometimes box office results don’t fit into a narrative and that’s fine.

Meanwhile, I am SO PUMPED for Valerian. Both from a creative and business point of view, this movie is fascinating. It’s the biggest independent production ever, so it didn’t need to adhere to any studio notes. For that reason, it should feel unlike any big movie Hollywood has released.

However, I was also talking to someone who once worked with Luc Besson and they said that Besson is used to getting no notes on his scripts. He writes them and whatever he comes up with, that’s the movie. While that works with Taken-like movies, this is a big sprawling epic adventure where the screenplay will be key. And, from what I’m hearing, that screenplay is kind of a mess. Just goes to show how important feedback is! With that said, I can’t wait to see the film. Good, bad, or ugly, it’s going to be a unique experience.

And if it wasn’t cool enough that we get something from one visionary director next weekend, we’ve also got A NEW CHRISTOPHER NOLAN FLICK to watch! I mean, does it get any better? Luc Besson and Christopher Nolan in the same weekend. This may be the first double-feature I’ve done in over a decade. I’m probably going to review the movies back to back next Monday and Tuesday. I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, another big movie news story is that Disney just held their annual D23 convention or whatever it is. And something… really horrifying came out of it. I’m talking about this Wrinkle in Time trailer. Uhhhhh, what is going on here? This looks like the worst movie ever. I have to admit that I don’t know much about the source material. I suppose if it’s meant for kids between the ages of 4-6, it’s fine. But if this is made for anyone older than 7, it’s in a lot of trouble. Wow. Oprah. I mean. No.

And what’s up with Star Wars! They showed another one of those pseudo-behind-the-scenes movie trailers of The Last Jedi. I’m having a hard time getting up for this one, guys. There were a couple of cool aliens in there. But I was already swindled when the Rogue One behind-the-scenes trailer promised Snow Monkey as a featured character only for him to get 10 seconds in the final film. I wanted more Snow Monkey!

They’re going to need a marketing angle here to get people excited. This movie is feeling very bland. Maybe get in touch with Connor McGregor. He knows how to sell an event. With that said, at least the director didn’t get fired from this one. That’s got to be an endorsement, right?

Are you ready… for Die Hard with a 9 year old girl?

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: After witnessing the murder of her daddy, nine-year-old Becky and her dog set out to teach the scumbags responsible that Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off little girl with nothing to lose.
Why You Should Read: It’s my belief that somewhere deep within the human psyche there exists a zone of intense fury that, thankfully for most of us, will never manifest itself. A level of rage that can only be triggered by a morally reprehensible and personal transgression – like the murder of a loved one. That’s the core idea that kept insisting I write this script. And the most compelling perspective I could think of to explore that idea from was that of a young kid. So I knew going in that it could be polarizing and striking the right tone would be tricky. But I’m very pleased with how it’s come together and would really love to hear the thoughts of the ScriptShadow community. Thanks for looking!
Writer: Nick Morris
Details: 93 pages

A long long time ago I remember seeing a trailer for a movie called “Blue Streak.” It starred the great one himself, “Big Momma’s House” actor Martin Lawrence. The setup for the movie was: Martin Lawrence’s criminal protagonist knows the police are about to catch him for stealing a diamond, so he hides the diamond in the ceiling of a building under construction. He’s later caught and sent to prison. Two years later he gets out and comes back to retrieve the diamond. Only now the building is… a police precinct. So Martin Lawrence must pose as a cop to retrieve the diamond.

When I saw that trailer, I thought to myself, “That has to be the greatest setup for a movie ever!” I mean, what a clever concept. Now since then, I no longer believe it’s the best idea ever. But it’s still a damn crafty idea. As a plot device, it’s as clean a setup as you’re going to get. Someone has to ditch something illegal then come back to get it later, except now the conditions aren’t ideal for retrieval.

That’s the setup for today’s script. But the question we’re all wondering is, can it survive without a role for Martin Lawrence?

Jeff is driving his 9 year-old daughter, Becky, up to their cottage with their two dobermans, Diego and Dora. Becky’s still reeling after the death of her mother and is furious that Jeff is bringing up a new woman for Becky to meet, Kelly. Jeff assures Becky that no one can ever replace mom, but to please give Kelly and her 5 year-old son, Ty, a chance.

Becky’s not having it, storming off to her tree-house after Kelly and Ty arrive. Little does Becky know, her tantrum may have saved her life. Four escaped convicts, leader Dominick, muscle Apex, pervert Cole, and pedophile Hammond, descend upon the house looking for a key Dominick hid there ten years ago.

The four rough up Jeff, Kelly, and the kid, asking for the key, before Dominick realizes a young girl is out there, and she may hold the literal key he’s been looking for. So Dominick sends his boys out to go look for her, but Becky quickly outsmarts them. And when she gets Cole in a compromising position, she slams a broken wine-glass handle through his eye, killing him. It’s on!

(spoiler) Unfortunately for Becky, Dominick blows Jeff’s head off, which technically makes Becky an orphan. It also makes her pissed. So while Dominick’s men run around the property in search of that key, Becky runs around in search of revenge. And she’ll use any graphically violent means possible to get it!

One of the things we talk about here is irony. A big tough muscular guy working as a bouncer is expected. A small weasly geek with glasses working as a bouncer, and being good at it, is ironic. You’re looking to add irony wherever possible in a screenplay because it’s one of those things that, when done well, works like a charm.

Nick took that route here. Instead of a tough-as-nails New York Cop running around a property killing bad guys, Nick inserts a clever 9 year-old girl. It’s ironic, so it’s good, right?

Well, the thing with screenwriting is that sometimes rules collide. Something you’re told you should do overlaps with something you’re told you should never do, and a judgement call needs to be made. You can make the argument that There Was A Little Girl violates one of the most important rules in screenwriting: suspension of disbelief.

Is it believable that a 9 year-old girl could take down a group of big burly criminals in a non-comedic setting? I’d have a tough time believing that 9 year-old girl would have the strength to even stab someone with a wine glass handle.

However, there may be a solution to this. One thing I could buy into was a 9 year old girl with two full-grown trained Dobermans killing a group of men. If you kept both dogs alive and she used them for the bulk of her attacks, I might be able to buy into that. Maybe they were even fight dogs that Jeff rescued. So they have killing in their DNA.

The thing I’m more concerned with in There Was A Little Girl, though, is the dialogue. It lacks color. Throughout the first half the script, almost every line of dialogue is very basic, one or two lines. There’s zero spice. Here’s an example. Jeff greets Kelly when she arrives…

“Man, I have been waiting for this.” “Me too (looks around) Wow, you weren’t lying. This is beautiful!” “Thanks. You found it no problem?” “Yeah, well, I found it. Your sketchy-ass directions were no help. Thank God for GPS.”

‘Sketchy-ass directions’ is as colorful as the phrasing gets in this script. And it’s rare.

Look, dialogue has always been a weakness of mine. I’m aware of how difficult it is to write. But you at least have to try. Add some color SOMEWHERE. Here’s Dominick’s longest chunk of dialogue in the script: “Christ. I do not need this shit right now, Apex. Okay? There’s no time. There’s just no fucking time. I’ve been here too long already. They’ll be out searching by now. Door to door. Even if they don’t remember this place, they’re still gonna eventually show up here. Right?!”

The sentences are all very short, very to-the-point. There’s zero color. Check out Tommy Lee Jones’s famous line in The Fugitive: “Alright, listen up, ladies and gentlemen, our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles-per-hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive’s name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him.”

Is it fair to compare Dominick’s line to one of the most popular movie lines in history? No. But I’m trying to make a point. You need to do more with dialogue than just keep the plot moving. Especially in a script like this where you have criminals. Criminals are ideal vessels for spouting colorful dialogue. That’s the first thing I’d tell Nick to do here – do a dialogue pass and FIND THESE CHARACTERS’ VOICES!

Lastly, the plot is too predictable. I was way ahead of the script, often waiting for the writer to catch up to me. (spoiler) Jeff’s death might have been a surprise had I not read the logline. But that was it.

I’ve found that you can sometimes get away with a predictable plot. But only when the character development is strong. In other words, you’ve got to give us one of the other. You can’t give us neither. And There Was a Little Girl had neither. Apex’s conscience was the closest thing we got to a character arc. We needed more.

This is the second amateur script I’ve read in a row (not last Friday’s script, but a consultation) where the writer could’ve benefited from more time with the characters before the inciting incident. That would’ve allowed us to give the characters clearer flaws so we knew what they needed to work on. I know everyone’s afraid that if they start the script too slow that the reader will get bored. But if you give us a teaser that rocks our world (and There Was a Little Girl had a pretty good teaser), you can take your time setting up the characters before the inciting incident occurs. I barely knew Kelly before Dominick showed up. And since she’s the one who survives between her and Jeff, that was a problem, since I could care less about a woman I barely knew.

I like the marketing image of a girl (who will need to be older) with two vicious dobermans staring into a house at night. But this is a tricky one. Will people buy tickets to a movie with this young of a lead that’s this violent?

Script link: There Was A Little Girl

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: How do you add color to dialogue? Here’s a trick. Think of all the people in your life, past and present, who have weird/unique/fun/interesting ideas/thoughts/speech-patterns/obsessions. Find one that’s similar to your character and write the character the way that person speaks. I was briefly friends with a guy who’d spent a year in China. All he could talk about when you brought up anything was how differently they “did it in China.” It became so annoying that I Peking ducked out of that friendship. However, those are the types of people you’re looking to for inspiration if you want to add color to dialogue.