Reservoir Dogs (1992)

I just saw Tarantino’s first film the other day. It was a lot of fun. Immersing almost from beginning to end. This is a heist movie where you don’t actually see the heist. So let’s talk about it.

Tarantino shows his great writing abilities in this movie. He starts by showing us the group’s relationship, witty, close, almost like a friendship. Then he cuts to where the movie really starts: Mr. Orange bleeding out while Mr. White drives him to the rendezvous. Now, I really like this about Tarantino. He throws us into a messy, confuse situation where we have no idea what’s going on. This forces us to (and makes us want to) give him our whole attention. Then, he gradually releases bits and bits of information to us until the end of the film.

The key in this movie, what it is about, is the question ‘who set the group up?’. In retrospect, the guilty one always had to be one of the first three we meet in the beginning: either Orange, White or Pink. This makes the revelation more emotional and powerful, because it’s a character we’ve know the whole movie. But we don’t know that yet.

On our way to the revelation, conflicts between the group arise. The conflict in the story flows very naturally. We can all understand the feeling of not knowing what’s going on or who we can trust. The climax is great: a four-way Mexican standoff that builds up until the moment where the four characters pull the trigger. We can feel the pain when White sacrifices himself defending Mr. Orange, only to find out he was, in fact, a cop all this time. So then, he shoots him and they all die, save for Mr. Pink, the most professional of them all. The coldest, most insensitive one. The perfect man for the job.

The movie intertwines the post-heist with backstory scenes, explaining us how it all started, a little background for the characters. Now, I’m no one to criticize Tarantino. He’s one of the most successful writers and directors in history. However, there’s one thing I didn’t like about this movie. Eight minutes, to be more precise. Mr. Blonde’s backstory felt, for me, dull. The point of it is making us aware that Mr. Blonde has a close relationship with Joe and Nice Guy Eddie, that he just got released from prison and that he can be trusted. But the film takes full eight minutes of pure exposition and no conflict at all, to give us that small piece of information. And, even worse, does this in the middle of a very exciting moment, when, in the post-heist, we had seen that the criminals had a hostage cop to question him. So, for me, this particular scene is added in an unfavorable moment, and is bad for five reasons: slows down the pace, cuts the action of the post-heist, lacks conflict, is pure exposition and is way too long.

Overall, watching the film was a great experience. Save for the eight minutes mentioned before, there’s non-stop action, rising conflict and a compelling set of characters and situation that you just can’t stop watching.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

Writing character: VICE (2018) vs Captain Marvel (2019)

Marvel (2019) / Annapurna Pictures (2018)

I just finished reading VICE’s screenplay. I didn’t have the chance the watch the movie, since it was in theaters for a very short period of time in my country. However, it caught my attention something that was present in VICE and wasn’t in the last film I saw, Captain Marvel. And that is: empathy for the characters.

So, to recap. VICE is the story of Dick Cheney, a manipulative politician, who is, overall, a greedy person that wants power. Captain Marvel is the story of Carol Danvers, a superhero who stops bad people from getting away with their plans. It’s very clear that Carol is the one audiences should empathize more with and would want her to win more, right? Well, not for me.

One of the fundamentals in writing characters of any kind, is to give the audience opportunities to build empathy with him/her. Blake Snyder called it the “Save the Cat” scene. In Eric Edson’s “The Story Solution” and Karl Iglesias’ “Writing for Emotional Impact” , it is not one simple moment or scene, but many different moments in which you show the best of your character to the audience. These empathy-generating techniques go from showing your character risking himself for others, giving them desirable characteristics (power, charisma, leadership, making them the best at what they do), show them acting in nurturing ways, being persistent, regretting their mistakes, having a change of heart or loving other people.

Let’s review what each script tells us about their very opposite characters. In VICE, we know early-on that Dick loves his wife and his children. He starts as a drunken, irresponsible man, but is willing to change his way of living for the woman he loves. (change of heart, loving other people). We’re also shown he accepts his daughter’s sexual preferences, even when he’s been pushing conservative politics (he risks his political career by accepting his daughter’s preferences, he acts in a nurturing way). He’s the best in what he does, which is manipulating people and situations to his favor. He’s got power, charisma and leadership. He’s very intelligent, even if it’s in a perverse way.

Now, let’s see which of these techniques are used for Carol in Captain Marvel. She has mighty powers, granted, but she doesn’t even uses them that much until the third act. One might argue she’s witty with her dialogue, but it comes more as arrogant. She has very minor set-backs, if any, so it’s hard to actually consider her a persistent character. There’s a couple scenes in which I’ll admit she has empathy-building moments: one, when she decides to go back to save Nick Fury, instead of leaving in the Pegasus facilities. However, I don’t feel this moment is given the importance it deserves, and, as a consequence, we don’t feel this is an important moment. Two, the moment where she defeats the Supreme Intelligence at the beginning of Act Three. As I mentioned in my Captain Marvel review, it’s the most powerful scene in the film, precisely because we see her finally fighting against the odds, finally vulnerable, and we’re finally allowed to build some empathy with her. Sadly, it’s too little too late.

Karl Iglesias makes, in page 67 of his book, a very interesting statement: “The second a character shows up on screen, we start building an opinion about that character […] This is why you want empathy as soon as possible.”

If I were to describe each character, I’d say Dick is persistent, very intelligent and powerful. He’s a leader, people follow him everywhere, and he has charisma. He’s perverse and manipulative, but he loves his family to the point where he’s willing to change his entire way of living and risking his very own political career for them. To describe Carol, I’d say she’s very powerful and slightly arrogant. So, it’s not only that we don’t know many good traits about Carol, but that we don’t know much about her character at all. We get to know a character by the decisions he or she makes. Carol makes very few decisions in the script. Dick has plenty of different moments to prove his character by making decisions, whether good or bad.

Character is very important because story is following character. If we don’t care about who the story is about, we simply don’t care about the story. Period.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

Love Actually (2003)

My favorite movie of all time is About Time (2013). If you haven’t, you should watch it. And if you have, you should rewatch it. Seriously. It will change your life. Anyway, that film was written and directed by Richard Curtis, the same man behind Love Actually, so my hopes were high on this one.

The film is an ensemble. I love this kind of movies, because a character that would be a support character in another film, gets his own main plot in these films. I also like them because they show how the world is a small place, and how everyone, one way or another, is related with each other. I think those are the two basic elements an ensemble has to fulfill. Love Actually does. It has a ton lot of plots. And here’s where I think it fails. Writing an ensemble film is no easy task. You have to give each character roughly the same importance, each of the plots must be equally strong, and you have limited screentime to do it. Having so many characters, forced Curtis to cut short some of the plots, omit important beats or end them too early/fast, which makes it feel incompletely. For example, the plot about the Portuguese lady and Colin Firth (Kingsman: The Secret Service), feels forced. The characters can’t understand each other and, even then, they fall in love. Other example, the ginger guy who travels to America to meet girls. He succeeds with no trouble whatsoever, which makes this plot feel like a waste of time, since it adds nothing to the plot or characters. A special case is the plot of Sarah. She sacrifices love for her brother. This plot ends on a low note, which is not bad. However, it ends way too early in the film (At 1h 36m of runtime, where there are still 38 minutes to go). And this brings me to a subpoint of the last statement: The script ends some of the plots in a harsh, hurried way. Alan Rickman’s subplot, where he kind of cheats on his wife, ends with a simple, bland recognition that he’s been stupid and a reunion at the airport. I also had a lot of trouble processing the end of the film, the scene in the airport, where I couldn’t understand how some characters know each other. This might be only me, but I felt it wasn’t showed properly and screenwriter Richard Curtis just wanted to save that explosion of reveals ’til the end.

Of course, the movie is by no means bad. The good things exceed the bad ones. The comedy is good, specially in the porn/relationship plot with Martin Freeman. The conflict is good, specially when revelations are added to it. For example, when Colin Firth finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother, the scene doesn’t upfront tells us that’s his brother. Instead, it gradually shows us that there might be some cheating going on, and then it presents us with subtext that implies they’re brothers. Other example is when the guy in love with his best friend’s wife tries to hide this fact. We know he’s hiding a secret on his video recordings, but when Keira Knightly’s character finds out, it is a compelling and tense moment. The plots of Hugh Grant and Liam Neeson’s characters are both emotionally satisfying. Also, Rowan Atkinson’s couple cameos steal the scenes. He’s brilliant as ever.

Overall, the film fulfills the basic expectations one would have of an ensemble. It’s a good film that entertains and has some powerful plots (The Liam Neeson/his stepson one was the most satisfactory for me). However, I think it needed more time or fewer plots to be able to go the extra mile. It just feels too crowded and that affects most of the plots’ quality. I think a film that better expresses this feeling is Crazy Stupid Love.

As always, thanks for reading.
The Screenplayer.

Confessions of a shopaholic (2009)

I’m studying finances in college. I was looking for a light film that wouldn’t demand much effort from me, to pass a couple hours. Combining theses two things is how I ended up watching Confessions of a shopaholic, with very low expectations. The truth is, the film knows what it is, and succeeds significantly on it.

The story goes like this: A young journalist in New York buys stuff she doesn’t need with money she doesn’t have. She loses her job in a gardening magazine and she’s forced to find a new one. She sees this moment as an opportunity to finally go to that fashion magazine she’s always wanted to work for, but ends up working for a personal finances one, and she has no idea about finances.

As I mentioned above, the writing of the film succeeds in most of what it attempts. The characters are well defined, specially Rebecca, the main character, who has a very satisfying character arc. Funny enough, it was with this film that I finally learned the importance of considering having more than one antagonist in a script. Confessions of a Shopaholic benefits from having three, each of which attacks a different front of our hero. This helps the movie have constant conflict and giving the feeling that there’s always something happening. There’s a scene where Rebecca is standing next to one of the antagonists in an elevator, but neither knows each other physically, which gives us a nice moment of tension and conflict building up.

Talking about moments, another scene I think reflects great writing in the movie is when Rebecca is forced to choose between two dresses. One of them, given to her by her best friend, and the other one by her boss. The stakes are high, since the dress she doesn’t choose will affect that area of her life (either friendship or work). Instead of having Rebecca articulate the words of her choice, the screenwriters Tim Firth (Kinky Boots) and Tracey Jackson (The Other End of the Line) make us wait until she appears on TV, to see her decision. It might not be very clear with my explanation, but if you watch the film, you’ll see what I’m talking about. This scene also uses the dilemma, a device that I’ve mentioned before I really like, since it forces the character to make a decision and, therefore, show character, and makes her face the consequences of the decision.

Naturally, the script isn’t perfect. I felt it could’ve spend more time fleshing out the romantic-interest character, Luke, since he’s also got an arc in his own subplot. His desire was somewhat ambiguous, so if the script had stated it more solidly, it would’ve had a more satisfying effect when he finally achieved it. I also felt the first act and the start of the second act of the film were slow, to the point where I considered changing the movie. This was mainly because of the lack of conflict, something the screenplay corrected correctly for the rest of the script.

Overall, the film had a slow start, but it got better after that, with things escalating quickly, stakes raising, conflict building up, and a very satisfactory ending in the third act. It’s not a perfect film, but it isn’t awful either.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

OPINION: Disney & Remakes

Once upon a time, there was a studio that dared to take risks. A studio that, no matter what budget restrictions were, was able to deliver some great, instant classic films. A studio that focused on creating and developing fresh, new stories and fantastic characters. A studio that wasn’t dependent on stock prices, investors and money, money, money. Because there can’t be art when one does it just for the money.

In my humble, personal opinion, Disney is taking steps in the wrong direction. They’re doing exactly the same other mediocre studios are doing. They’re becoming what they’re not. An average, play-safe studio that won’t take risks. The upcoming years are filled with remake plans for some of Disney’s greatest and most endearing classics. Dumbo, Aladdin, Pinocchio or the Lion King are some examples of the 21 films in the works. And that, for me, is sad. That’s sad because, at best, they’re delivering a predictable film with a story we already know and, at worse, they’re staining the mark these films left in the childhoods of thousands. To the writing of this post, Disney has produced three live action remakes: The Jungle Book, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. It’s clear that neither is going to become a classic. In fact, I don’t think people will remember any of those in ten more years. However, they made a ton of money. And that’s all Disney cares about.

I don’t understand why, but people love to go watch these films. And I know I’m not the only one who dislikes the simple idea of hearing the story all over again, but worse. Not as compelling, not as fresh, with characters that could never compete with their original counterparts. For an aspiring screenwriter like me, specially, these news are very preoccupying. Because this means not only Disney isn’t interested in fresh stories, but audiences aren’t either. Audiences want to go watch the old story they already know, and see how they CGIed the characters this time, how costumes turned out, how weird Will Smith looks in blue. As long as audiences are still watching, I don’t see why Disney would even think of changing the strateg, that’s generating them millions of dollars, and only needing to do half the work.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

Steve Jobs (2015)

I don’t think there is a screenwriter out there today that masters dialogue as much as Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The Social Network). His style is very easy to identify and he just knows how to do it right. This film relies almost exclusively on its characters. It shows us three major events in Steve Jobs’ successful career. But that’s not really what this story is about. Instead, it deals with Jobs’ relationships with people around him: Steve Wozniak, his assistant Joanna Hoffman, Apple’s CEO John Scully, his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, and specially his daughter, Lisa, who he refuses to recognize at first, and around whom Jobs’ character arc is based.

It’s very impressive to see how most of the movie deals with characters talking, what most screenwriters would consider a sin, and yet it never gets boring. One of the keys for this is how Steve’s character has a very conflictive nature. Conflict is inherent in him and every interaction he has with other person. The dialogue is extremely good, because it carries emotional and conflictive weight, and not dull exposition or flat words that explain how a character feels. Because, even though the film has a lot of dialogue, the conflict and the emotions are always shown, and not addressed directly.

This is a great example of how to write a character-driven story successfully. I don’t usually enjoy a movie that deals with a lot of talking heads, but Sorkin demonstrates that, when done exceptionally well, there’s nothing one can do else than sit back, eat popcorn, enjoy and learn.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

Mortal Engines (2018)

This is an interesting one. I saw the premise being harshly criticized, but I found it interesting. In a post-apocalyptic future, cities are not static anymore. Instead, they’re huge machines that roam the world, eating smaller cities. Interesting.

The first act of the movie is probably the most compelling one, as screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens show us how life in this ‘cities’ work. It’s interesting as we get to see a society in miniature. After Plot Point 1, when we enter into the upside down world of the second act, I think it turns into a very different movie.

I consider one of the biggest mistakes of this screenplay, to be the protagonist/main hero. The screenplay tries to tell us in the first act that Tom is our hero. They make a good job filling the first act with moments to empathize with him. And then, in Plot Point 1, they introduce the real hero, or heroine in this case. It’s Hester who has the most compelling motive, not Tom. Tom’s just a guy who got caught in a cross fire. It’s Hester, and not the character who we followed during the whole first act, who takes the main role during the climax and defeats the main villain. Tom gets a few, flat scenes on a plane shooting at a thing in a Star Wars kind of scene.

Another thing that bugged me about the story was the whole Shrike subplot. As the movie explains, Shrike is a sort of cyborg, who took Hester when she was left alone. He saw her suffering, so he tried to convince her to become a cyborg like he did. She decides not to and runs away, and that’s the whole reason why now he wants to kill her. Up to this point, the subplot is strange, but could still be acceptable. The point of no return is the wrap-up of the subplot, where Shrike finds out Hester is in love with Tom, so he just suddenly decides not to chase her anymore and then dies.

As for the ‘plot twist’ or reveal in the climax, where the evil Thaddeus Valentine confesses Hester he’s her father, this felt wrong for two and a half reasons. Number one, this had already been implied with flashbacks before. Number two, it really has no effect on the plot or the audience, since we don’t feel a connection strong enough with the characters to actually be impressed. And the last, half reason is Star Wars. This was already used in Empire Strikes Back. The difference is it worked back then. That’s because the characters were interesting enough for us to care, and it hadn’t really been implied before in the movie. Besides having an effect on the audience, it also had an effect on the plot. In Mortal Engines, this was an unnecessary reveal, and felt, at most, awkward and cringy.

The third act felt too long. They present us a whole new world of static cities hiding behind a wall, a preparation for the war, they come up with a plan, they fight in the climax and then the denouement. It felt too long and it wasn’t being that interesting anyway.

Overall, I didn’t hate the film. It just felt like they (either the author of the book, since I haven’t read it, or the screenwriters, or both) tried to make the story over-complicated and stuff it with more characters, more worlds and more subplots to make it last longer. The film, 2h 8m, could’ve lasted probably 1h 30m, and have been a lot better that way. ‘More is less’, they say. Specially in screenwriting. The main plot is interesting, the visuals are stunning, but all the condiments on top harm the film more than what they add.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

The film I’ll write about today is one of the best romantic comedies out there. If you haven’t watched it, you definitely must. It completely twisted the genre and, as Blake Snyder would say, ‘gave the audience the same, only different’.

First of all, this is not a story of ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back’. Instead, the first scene of the movie is ‘girl’ asking ‘boy’ for a divorce. Here starts the adventure of Cal, our hero, to try to move on.

What makes this movie different is the way it works with subplots and intertwines them perfectly. There are at least four subplots, that occur at the same time and each and every one of them has an impact on the main plot. This gives us a greatly paced story that never feels boring.

With the subplots, come the revelations, mostly in how the subplots actually relate with the main story. For example, by the midpoint, we learn (or at least I did, since I wasn’t aware of this) that the son’s teacher is actually the woman our hero decided not to call again, which causes a great scene of conflict that explodes in the face of Cal.

Working with four subplots is not easy. Intertwining it successfully, even less. The screenwriter Dan Fogelman (Tangled, Cars), demonstrates his amazing ability, delivering a story that is always moving forward, with amazing characters that suffer from believable flaws, and nicely executed arcs for each of them. The scene where all of the subplots intertwine together in the third act was my favorite. It makes the audience laugh, feel frustrated and surprises us with a revelation. It shows just how great of a writer Fogelman is.

Thanks for reading
The Screenplayer.

The Mule (2018)

Starred, directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, The Mule tells the story of an 80-year-old horticulturist facing financial problems, who becomes a ‘mule’, a person that transports cocaine for a drug cartel.

The premise is simple, yet the screenwriter Nick Schenk (Gran Torino) could’ve taken many different routes for the story and, in my opinion, took the best one.

The structure of the story is based around runs. Each time Clint’s character goes on a ‘mission’, something happens that either raises the stakes, reveals to the audience something new, or both. Clint’s character is established as a good-hearted man, who’s willing to help everyone around him, which creates empathy between the audience and the character. But he has a major flaw: He was never there for his family when they needed him. This character arc is well executed and feels natural and emotionally satisfying.

The first half of the second act of the movie is successfully driven by Bradley Cooper’s character, a DEA agent starting an investigation that will eventually lead to Clint. Even though this is the antagonist, we have no trouble empathizing with him and, at times, we even wish him to succeed.

As the story progresses, Bradley gets closer to Clint. This leads to a moment where, ignoring his identity, he shares a breakfast with him, and even gets some family advice. This scene at a café creates powerful and delightful tension, as Bradley might discover Clint’s the criminal he’s been looking for for a long time.

Around the three-quarters of the film, Clint is faced by a dilemma. Dilemmas are a very useful devices, because it forces the character to make a decision and, therefore, show character, and because it makes the audience eager to know which decision will be it. Clint ends up choosing family, which helps completing his character arc.

The ending of the movie is very good. As mentioned before, the character arc is satisfying and how things turn out for Clint’s character feel right. Strangely, the ending leaves a subplot forgotten, as we never hear from the drug dealers again and never see them get their comeuppance.

Overall, the two things I enjoyed the most about the film were:
The conflict.: Every scene is charged with conflict and tension, such as when the officer stops Clint and his dog almost detects the cocaine. The movie never stays in the same place. It’s always on motion and things are always happening.
The relationship between the hero and antagonist: This movie is a textbook example of how the antagonist of the story is not necessary evil or hates the hero. It’s easy to empathize with both hero and antagonist, and they even empathize with each other those some great scenes where they interact with each other.

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.

ROMA (2018)

I just read Roma’s screenplay in Spanish (my first language). This screenplay’s structure is very tricky and extremely atypical. For instance, it lacks a specific goal for the characters to pursue. Its acts are difficult to identify, since the story is more focused on specific, individual and intimate events. This is not to say that the screenplay or the story aren’t good. Actually, the opposite. In my opinion, the following are the key points that make this screenplay actually work:

Empathy: The screenplay makes us empathize with the main character, Cleo, from the first page. How? By showing her working hard, which is, per se, an admirable trait. She does this with a good attitude, again, admirable. We’re also shown that the people around her, specially the children, like her and worry about her. We also see her suffering undeserved mistreatment, like when Fermín abandons her in the movie theater after she tells him she’s pregnant. All of these situations make us care for the protagonist and follow her wherever she goes.

Conflict: Although the screenplay is focused on specific, intimate events, these are very charged of conflict and drama. In fact, I would say that the screenplay is composed by very small events that, as they go by, become big. For example, a father saying goodbye to his family before going to a business trip, becomes a big moment when we discover that he’s not coming back. A trip to the movie theater with the family, later becomes a significant event when one of the children sees their father with another woman. Or what about when Cleo goes to the furniture store to buy a cradle but ends up meeting again with Fermín and her water breaks.

The pregnancy: I give an special meaning to Cleo’s pregnancy, because, for me, it functions like a goal in the film. This is not to say that Cleo’s main goal is to give birth (she actually confesses she didn’t even want the baby to born in the powerful climax scene), but it gives the audience a sense of where the film is going, and helps us not to feel lost or like nothing is happening. It gives us a line to follow and dictates the story’s course.

So even being a drama about individual characters with low stakes, Cuarón manages to makes us feel very connected with the characters, and keeps our attention by establishing strong conflict in most of the scenes, tied in with some revelations that strengthen the plot. Even without a clear, specific goal for the characters to follow, it is hard not to continue reading (or watching).

Thanks for reading,
The Screenplayer.