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Today I'm taking the day off.  However, longtime Scriptshadow reader Christian Savage, who often critiques scripts in the comments section better than I do, will be kicking major ass with a review.  And what is he reviewing?  None other than "The Flight Of The Nez Perce," from Desperate Hours writer, E. Nicholas Mariani!  Yay!

Genre: Period

Premise: The true story of Chief Joseph and his resistance to his tribe’s relocation to a military settlement in Idaho during the 1800s. 

About: Only one script has gotten a genius review on Scriptshadow in the last two years - number 1 ranked screenplay "Desperate Hours."  This is that writer's other screenplay, "The Flight Of The Nez Perce," which barely slipped onto the Black List the year before.  Remember, just because a script barely made the Black List, doesn't mean it isn't great.  It may have been that only a few people actually read the script.  

Writer: E. Nicholas Mariani

Details: 132 pages

Is Nez Perce the next "Last Of The Mohicans???"

The Flight of the Nez Perce is a spec script that, by Hollywood standards, should not work. It’s more than 130 pages. It’s an extremely violent period piece, where half the dialogue is subtitled. It also asks for a cast of hundreds, and probably couldn’t be produced for less than $120 million. Normally, these are all choices I would suggest screenwriters avoid. And yet, I still hope that a miracle happens, and this movie gets made.

I confess the main reason I picked up this script was because one of the author’s other works, Desperate Hours, currently holds the No. 1 spot on Carson’s top 25 list. But, after I finished it, I read it a second time because I loved it. Despite its flaws, The Flight of the Nez Perce is an excellent piece of writing. Let’s find out how this script breaks through the chains of industry expectations.

The year is 1877, and it’s a time of cultural unrest in America. The Civil War may be over now, but there are still people in this country fighting and shedding blood, to protect their way of life. After living in balance with the natural world for hundreds of years, everything is changing for the Indian people. The white men have come to these shores to stay, and their presence spreads across the land like a sickness. The symbol of the white man’s reach is the steam locomotive, which the Indians call “the iron monster.” The Indians have come to learn that, when they see thick plumes of train smoke rising above the trees, it means the white man has arrived, to take them from their homes. Sometimes never to be seen again. Through their actions, the white men stir a combustible mixture of fear and anger inside the Indians’ hearts. Until one day, beside the waters of the Little Bighorn River in Montana, the match is lit.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn arguably becomes the worst Indian-related massacre in American history. Chief Sitting Bull and his Sioux tribe kill Captain George Custer and all his men, winning a major victory against the U.S. army. The outcome of the battle does a couple noteworthy things. First, the army takes a more aggressive stance on handling Indian affairs. As General William Sherman says at one point, they cannot afford another Little Bighorn. The other thing that happens is, warriors from other Indian tribes hear of Sitting Bull’s victory, and become even more determined to defeat the white man. Basically, relations between the two cultures just got a whole lot worse.

This all adds up to bad news for Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce tribe, which has lived in relative peace, in the Wollowa Valley of the Pacific Northwest. Joseph sees war as a failure of mankind, and will do anything he can to stay clear of it. This seems impossible, though, when Red Grizzly, a Nez Perce warrior, brings news of the Little Bighorn massacre. Red Grizzly wants to follow Sitting Bull’s example, and take the fight directly to the white men. Joseph turns down the suggestion, not wanting to put the tribe in harm’s way. But Joseph soon understands he can’t stop the inevitable.

Soon after Little Bighorn, General Sherman receives orders from the U.S. president to remove the Nez Perce from the Wollowa Valley, and send them to a reservation in Idaho. And, if the Nez Perce refuse to leave, then the army has permission to use any means necessary. Why is the government suddenly interested in the Nez Perce? Aside from wanting to keep the Indians under control, it turns out there could be significant gold deposits right under the tribe’s feet. And the white men want to get their hands on that gold at any cost. So, Sherman sends Civil War veteran General Howard and his regiment to run this campaign against the Nez Perce.

Meanwhile, tensions are heating up near the Nez Perce settlement. The white people have built a town nearby, and it’s been difficult for everyone to be neighbors. For example, one of the tribesmen, Eagle Rock, comes across a riderless horse during a walk in the forest. Eagle Rock tries to befriend the horse, thinking it doesn’t have an owner. But it turns out that it belongs to an unfriendly white man named Larry Ott. Larry sees Eagle Rock touching his horse, and he doesn’t like it one bit. Because they don’t understand each other’s language, a fight breaks out between Eagle Rock, Larry, and Larry’s friends. Eagle Rock is shot to death.

Eagle Rock’s murder sparks rage among some of the Nez Perce warriors. The warriors, led by Red Grizzly, go out one night to kill Larry Ott for revenge. The only problem is, once they get to Larry’s cabin, no one’s there. Larry probably knew he was in trouble and left his home for good. Not happy with this situation, the warriors find another white home close by. At this point, it doesn’t matter who they kill, as long as their victims have pale faces. The warriors kill several men at this house, and Red Grizzly rapes a young mother. The mother escapes and notifies the authorities of the horror that just happened. She also asks General Howard to kill all the Indians.

Chief Joseph and the rest of the tribe learn of the atrocities that Red Grizzly and the other warriors committed. Joseph takes these men into custody and plans to deliver them to the white people, so they may determine the punishment. The next morning, Joseph meets with white army, to turn over the warriors and talk about moving his tribe to Idaho. Unfortunately, during this meeting, a snake startles one of the Indian’s horses. When the horse rears up, one of the U.S. soldiers thinks it’s an attack, and fires at the Indian sitting on the horse. This causes a bloody battle to break out. In the end, the white men are soundly defeated, and the Nez Perce didn’t suffer a single casualty. It’s a victory, but the damage is done. The Indians think there’s no chance for peace now, so they begin a 1,300-mile run for Canada, in hopes of finding sanctuary with Sitting Bull’s tribe. General Howard and his army have no intentions of letting the Nez Perce escape, so they chase them every step of the way. The Nez Perce win several battles on their flight North, using tactics that are studied to this day. But because their hardships become too much to take – the loss of life, the starvation – they finally surrender to the white men, just forty miles away from the Canadian border.

There are a lot of reasons why this script is so good. One of the biggest reasons is that the author knows how to create empathetic characters. Without empathy, the character probably won’t connect with the audience. This doesn’t mean the character has to be likable at all times. But, it does mean that we, as readers and viewers, should be able to see the world through that character’s eyes. I think the writer accomplishes this goal. For example, it would’ve been easy to make the U.S. Army the indisputable villains. But the author is too generous to leave it at that. He paid special attention to the army’s high-ranking officers. I came to respect General Howard, in particular, because he eventually grieved for Joseph and the Nez Perce, and wished he could atone for his behavior. That kind of nuance is missing in a lot of antagonists I’ve seen. So when I find one that’s still in touch with his humanity, it stands out. Having said all that, my favorite character turned out to be the most likable of all. Chief Joseph brought tears to my eyes. He meets my definition of a good man. He wanted to live the rest of his life with his friends and family in peace. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt another human being, but he was willing to, if that’s what it took to save his people. Even in his defeat, he was dignified, courageous, and true to himself. Joseph has a place in my heart, and he’s welcome to stay there as long as he wants. I’d love to see more scripts use characters like this.

Another element that made this demanding script more enjoyable was the massive scope of the story. We get epic battles, forbidden love, fellowship, betrayal, and, just when we need it most, mercy. And it all takes place on the vast, untamed landscapes of the American West. So, if there are some elements in your script that are obscure or complex, you can balance those things with a few mainstream qualities. Especially if you’re writing a period piece, it can’t come across as a dusty history lesson. The audience, above all, needs to be moved and entertained.

Perhaps the most important reason why this script works so well is the way it’s structured. A lot of scripts these days hit the ground running, and they never stop. The writer, E. Nicholas Mariani, structures his scripts in a way I don’t see many other people use. He implements a slow buildup that eventually explodes into a breathtaking third act. In “Flight,” he uses the first act to introduce us to the many people of the Nez Perce tribe. He also introduces us to the U.S. Army, and explains why they plan to move the tribe off their land. A lot of story points are setup in the first act, so the first 20 or 30 pages are a bit slow. But Mariani is willing to take that risk because he knows the ending will mean more, if we feel something for these people. The next two acts are constructed around the battles between the Nez Perce and the U.S. Army. The beauty of this approach is that each battle sequence requires greater and greater sacrifices from both sides of the war. The losses of the Nez Perce become more meaningful, as the order of deaths starts at the less important people, and moves up to the most beloved. The environmental obstacles also become more dangerous with every step. In one scene, the Nez Perce have to climb a mountain during a mudslide. And then in a later scene, they have to fight the army in a blinding snowstorm. The conflict is elegantly designed like a rollercoaster; it’s always moving up the hill. And with the third act, we come careening down the other side.

Act three is what really made the script for me. If you’ve ever taken an American History class, you probably know what happened to the Indians. The story of these people is almost unbearably sad, and that’s how I felt when I watched Joseph surrender his tribe to the army. By this point, the Nez Perce are completely exhausted and miserable. After the final catastrophic battle, the “flight” is over and they lost. When Joseph gives his immortal speech of surrender, I felt his pain deep in my bones, because Mariani structured his script to build up to that final climax. It was glorious to behold. Because of this script, I find myself supporting the slow build. If it’s done right, it helps setup the ending more effectively than a shallow first act would.

Of course, no script is perfect, even this one. I’d argue that the dialogue could use some more sepia tones. Like his other script, Desperate Hours, the characters sometimes sound too modern for the times they live in. My humble suggestion is to focus a rewrite on giving more period flavor and texture to the voices of these amazing people.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the large cast. I’m honestly torn on this one. I kept a head count, and there were at least thirteen characters introduced by name in the first five pages. In most cases, I’d highly recommend keeping the cast list down to five or six major characters. Not only is it hard for the reader to keep track of so many people, it’s hard for the writer to develop all of them with such a limited page count. But this script has the one exception for a big cast that I can think of. The third act would not be as good without it. It just wouldn’t. The power and devastation of the third act is largely achieved from realizing how many people died since the first page. If the cast had been smaller, the effect would have shrunk, as well.

In the end, The Flight of the Nez Perce was more than just another script to read. It was a full-blown experience. I was so tied up in the story that, when I finished the last page, I felt emotions I couldn’t quite explain. I was bruised, heartbroken, and appreciative all at once. Is there a name for such a thing? Yes, there are problems in this draft worth fixing. But, to paraphrase Maya Angelou, the problems aren’t what I’ll remember. What I’ll remember is the way this script made me feel. Unless something better comes along in the next couple months, this is my script of the year.

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

What I learned: If your concept is expensive and noncommercial, be very sure that it’s an idea you’re passionate about. The Flight of the Nez Perce was on the Black List two years ago and, to my knowledge, hasn’t sold yet. Sadly, it’s not too surprising because the logline is a hard sell. In his 2010 Black List commentary, Carson himself said that this script “takes the cake for being the most boring sounding script on the list.” And yet this script is amazing. The author obviously had a strong feeling about the idea and put everything he had into it. So, at the very least, this is an incredible calling card script. But if your goal is to write a spec that’s an easy sell, it makes sense to use a concept with a mainstream hook and a modest budget.

type='html'>Genre: Contained Thriller

Premise: (Original Twit-Pitch Logline) After checking into a hotel to escape her abusive husband, a woman realizes guests in the next room are holding a young girl hostage.

About: For those recently joining Scriptshadow, I held a contest a few months back called "Twit-Pitch," where anyone could pitch me their screenplay on Twitter, as long as it was contained within a single tweet.  I picked my 100 favorite loglines and read the first 10 pages of each (which I live-reviewed on Twitter), and then from those, picked the Top 20, which I've been reading the entire screenplay for.  Today's script was chosen as a "definite," which means it was one of the 7 best "First Ten Pages" of all the entries.  

Writer: Matthew Cruz

Details: 79 pages

Julianne Moore for Samantha?

The Last of the DEFINITES.  Sounds like a good title if anyone decides to adapt Twit-Pitch into a movie.

Make no mistake about it: Twit-Pitch and I have experienced some rocky times together.  It wasn't always spelling-mistake free first pages and freshly polished gold brads.  There was that time where I realized the writer hadn't written his script before entering the contest.  Oh, and then there was that other time where I realized the writer hadn't written his script before entering the contest. But through it all, we stuck together.  Maybe longer than a lot of you thought we should.  There were times when Twit-Pitch was downright abusive to me.  But I remember when I broke up with Looper in front of the world.  You know who the first one there for me was?  Twit-Pitch.  That's who.   I'm kinda gettin' all...teary-eyed just thinking about it.

As far as where today's Twit-Pitch script brings us?  Well, here's the thing.  There've been flashier concepts.  There's been better writing.  But reading the first ten pages of "Guest," I thought, "This could be the one that actually gets made."  The contained thriller element - a protagonist with something under the hood - the low-budget price tag?  If this thing were done right, it may be the sleeper that woke this damn contest up.  Let's find out if that was the case.

Samantha Given is 56 years old.  One look at her and you know whatever roads she's taken in life, they're not the same roads you and I drive on.  These roads are the unpaved kind, the backwoods gravel-laden pieces of shit you get lost in.  She wears every wrinkle of that 56 year old face.  And it doesn't take long to figure out that's why she's here, checking in at this hotel.  She's sick of those f*cking roads.  And she's finally doing something about it.  Even if it's just holing up for a few days.

Now this hotel isn't Hotel Transylvania, but it's got its fair share of spooky shit going on.  There's loud thumping noises happening every hour or so.  They actually put that famous Van Gogh Scream painting on the wall (who puts that in a hotel room?).  Oh, and the bellhop, the overly polite but totally sketchy Diego, likes to get a little too personal with his questioning.  Since when do bellhops ask, "So what do you plan to do for the rest of the day?" Not only that, but he seems really keen on getting Sam into a "better" room.

But Sam's fine with the room she's in.  That is until those thumping noises start again.  After awhile, Sam decides to do some investigating, listening through the wall, and starts getting this idea that someone's being held captive in the next room.  Oh, this would be a good time to mention that Sam's on anti-psychotics.  So yeah, not everything's kosher at the top of the Christmas tree. But man does she become convinced that something's up.  So even though she knows it's going to put her on the hot seat, she calls the cops.

The police come in.  There's a big hubbub in the hallway.  The guy staying in the next room is obviously pissed.  And when the police check inside, they find nothing.  Not a single trace.  But Sam knows something's up.  Diego, the bellhop, is always acting weird.  If he were in on it, they could've moved the girl they've kidnapped.  Assuming there's a girl.  And assuming all of this isn't in her head.

If this weren't bad enough, we're also learning more about Sam's past and why she's here.  Her husband, Charlie, has been treating her like a pinata for the last 30 years, and this is the first time she's had the balls to do something about it.  But Charlie's constant calls and texts asking her to come back are starting to break her down.  And Sam's daughter, completely oblivious to the abuse her mom's been through, is getting pissed that Sam is being such a baby.

All this leads to an increasingly precarious situation.  If there is someone being held captive in the other room, Sam has to find a way to save her.  If there isn't, and she's just imagining it all, then maybe she's as weak as her husband's made her out to be.  And maybe her best option is to go crawling back to him, apologize, and continue to live a life of abusiveness.

Something I want to bring to everyone's attention right away is that readers LOVE reading scripts like "Guest."  Low character count.  Contained location.  An easy-to-understand situation.  These are easy reads!  Readers know they're not going to be taking endless notes trying to keep track of who's who and how they're related and how those fifteen other subplots factor into everything.  And that doesn't mean you shouldn't go to some unexpected places with your story.  It doesn't mean you shouldn't have complicated stuff going on with your characters.  Of course you want that.  But the overall story situation is easy to follow and therefore very reader-friendly.

Something else that gave me confidence in "Guest" was that the adjacent room wasn't the only mystery.  The second mystery was Sam herself.  Whenever you're writing something that takes place in a contained area, you don't have as many places to go with your story.  So it's ESSENTIAL that you make your characters themselves a story.  That way, we're not just trying to find out what's going on in the "other room."  We're trying to find out what's going on inside our protagonist.

And to that end, I think Cruz did a good job.  The whole "abused wife" thing can be really cliche if done badly, and I thought Cruz brought a realism to it that made me give a shit about Sam.  I believed she had this past with her husband.  And I liked the parallels of her being trapped in this relationship, needing to be saved, just like this girl (if there's a girl) is trapped in the next room, needing to be saved.  Watching Sam gradually gain the courage to go from victim to hero wasn't a perfect transition, but it was convincing enough.

The problems I had with the script mainly fell on the technical front.  When you're doing a contained thriller, I'm not sure you should ever take us outside of that setting.  I believe it's important that we feel stuck here, even if we technially aren't.  When Sam went to have coffee with her daughter, that carefully constructed fabric of danger was instantly ripped apart. I wanted to stay in that hotel. Or actually I didn't.  Which is exactly why the writer should've kept me there.

Also, one thing I'm always on guard with with these scripts is the writer biding time.  Most writers get these ideas for contained thrillers, think they've struck gold, but then realize they have these huge chunks of time to fill up between the main scenes.  And since the sparse setting offers little in the way of choices, these writers come up with shit for the sake of coming up with shit instead of giving us scenes that actually matter, scenes that are actually entertaining.  As a result, the script slows to a crawl.  Overall, I thought Cruz did a good job avoiding this but there were a good 10 pages early in the second act where Sam didn't seem to be doing much and I started to get bored.  It picked up afterwards but still, you can't have ten slow pages in a thriller.  Especially one that's only 80 pages long.

(Spoiler) My last issue is I would've liked to have known more about Danielle.  Why was she kidnapped?  The few hints that we got indicated that this wasn't your average kidnapping.  There was more of a story to this.  I was waiting for that story to be revealed but it never came, and I was disappointed by that.  That could've been a nice final twist, if Danielle's kidnapping wasn't exactly what we thought it was.

But all in all, this is EASILY one of the best Twit-Pitch scripts.  It probably needs to come in longer than 79 pages, but the writing here is really strong.  And more importantly, the STORYTELLING here is really strong.  Check this one out for sure!

Script Link: Guest

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[ ] wasn't for me

[x] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned: In contained low-character count screenplays, make sure your main characters are dealing with some kind of inner conflict, some kind of troubled back-story that needs to be resolved.  Because your story choices are limited in contained situations, you need an additional interesting story going on within your main character to keep us entertained.

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Hey guys.  I am currently being held captive in Cambodia by a group of hardcore screenwriting enthusiasts, one of whom wants me to teach him how to write the next "The Adventures Of Pluto Nash." This is why I'm unable to write today's review.  Assuming that my village cleaning duties are limited to today, I should be back tomorrow.  In the meantime, guest reviewer and elusive Canadian-born writer/reader "Rich," who's had the privilege of studying at both NYU AND AFI, is going to be taking over reviewing duties.  Pray for me Scriptshadow Nation.  Pray for me to make it back to the states alive.  

Genre: Erotic Thriller
Premise: After a sexually adventuresome couple moves into an upscale neighborhood, the woman accidentally murders her new neighbor while defending herself against rape. When the couple chooses to dump the body instead of confessing to the police, things take a turn for the worse.
About: According to Variety (June 2011), the script sold to Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. David
Writer: David Schickler
Details: 90 pages, Mar. 10, 2011 draft

James Franco for Daryl?

In full disclosure, I knew nothing about this script before I’d read it, other than that it was “Hitchcock-ian.” But for me, the word has always been something of an invitation, so with a touch more curiosity than “nothing” should warrant, I dove right into this baby, this script called “Borrowing Girls.” Gee, I wonder what I’m supposed to be thinking about this title...

It all starts with a young couple moving into an idyllic neighborhood called the Pinnacle Estates. Gretchen and Daryl Gift are that perfect unit that maybe we’d all like to be. She’s 27 and gorgeous, a former actress now selling makeup at an upscale department store. He’s 30-something and confident, having recently scored a major contract as an architect. Daryl and Gretchen’s new home isn’t the biggest on the block, but still, in Daryl’s words, “they made it.”

Oh, and they share a very healthy sex life, too. (More on this later.)

They soon befriend their neighbors Samantha and Todd. Samantha, as one local puts it, is the queen bee of “the Pin,” while Todd, it turns out, is persona non grata for having lost a ton of money for people in the town with business deals that all went south – paying for it in the bedroom, even, being routinely rejected for sex.

One night, Gretchen and Daryl have them over for dinner and afterwards, the guys split off from the girls into the basement (where a lot of the fun of this movie takes place). Drunk and bonding, Todd presses Daryl for his “secret,” how he gets Gretchen to be so hot for him all the time -- code for, “I noticed your wife is quite hot and I would very much like to boink her.” But whether Daryl gets the subtext or not, his answer to Todd’s question will prove to be most consequential. Be warned, the next little bit is going to get complicated, so just bear with me. For a movie like this, it kinda goes with the territory...

The thing about Gretchen and Daryl’s sex life is that it’s wrapped around a pretty unique fetish (or maybe it isn’t unique? And I’m just too tame?). They do this thing where Gretchen dresses up like various women in their lives, people like the realtor, the nanny, the Denny’s waitress, etc., and then has sex with Daryl – in character.

Schickler, a novelist and screenwriter, previously adapted his own novel "Sweet and Vicious."

They videotape these sessions and keep a whole library of DVD’s, one for every woman, or character, I should say, played by Gretchen.

To answer Todd’s question, Daryl decides to SHOW him these DVD’s (which they keep in the basement) of Gretchen getting screwed while disguised as various women from around the Pin. But because Gretchen is such a good actor, Todd is in total awe of Daryl – thinking that Daryl is actually having sex with all these women! At first, Daryl tries to correct him, but Todd is so impressed that Daryl can’t help but let it ride. Daryl adds to it, however, with a lie – that Gretchen allows him to sleep with other women, and that the two of them regularly watch these DVD’s together.

Todd becomes so jealous and curious that he steals one of these discs on his way out. He becomes instantly addicted, so much so that he sneaks into the Gifts’ house the next day to steal another one. When he returns home to watch the second DVD, however, he’s stunned to find Daryl having sex with his wife Samantha! Todd rushes over to the Gifts’ to confront Daryl about it, but Daryl’s out. Gretchen’s home alone. Tearing at the seams from pent up rage and sexual frustration, Todd ends up trying to RAPE Gretchen, who, after struggling to fight him off, manages to bury a fire poker into his skull. Yup. Todd drops dead, and later, when Daryl comes home to discover the bloody scene, he immediately tries to call the cops...

But Gretchen won’t let him.

And while thus far, the movie had me thinking Adrian Lyne or David Cronenberg, this is where the term “Hitchcockian” finally comes into play...

From here on out, the movie’s about whether or not the two will get away with it, of course, tracking Gretchen’s evolution (or devolution?) from a seemingly nice girl with a sexual kick to a full-on femme fatale as she convinces her husband to dump the body into the river. Enter Detective Corry Donner, a cop who’s not even in the right department for the case but is handpicked by Samantha for the fact that they share a personal history. Corry does manage to make things difficult for Gretchen and Daryl, who do their best to survive his meddling, but in the end, it’s Gretchen’s unrelenting commitment to getting away that causes the greatest strife for all.

But let’s just stop here for a second. While the rest of the script does play out as a taut little suspense piece, more or less, there was one question that I just couldn’t get out of my head during the entire read: Why didn’t Daryl just tell Todd the truth?! I just didn’t get it. And I’ll get this out of the way really quick – I personally can’t stand it when a major plot point is forced into being by way of inebriated characters. Like, anything that doesn’t make sense can happen just so long as the character’s had a few beers or a couple of tokes. Wrong. Drugs and alcohol help characters do what they secretly want to do but can’t under the inhibitions that society forces on us. Drugs and alcohol do NOT make nonsensical plot points suddenly make sense.

I say this because I reread this scene several times in search of a better motivation. The only other contender was that maybe being new to the neighborhood, and wanting to prove to Gretchen that they do, in fact, belong in the Pin, Daryl was overly eager to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor. But still, it’s overkill because all this occurs after Todd offers to sponsor Daryl’s application to the country club. I didn’t feel Daryl needed to go that far.

The other problematic aspect to this issue is one of logic, I suppose, that the story Daryl gave Todd was less impressive than the actual story, which is that Gretchen’s figured out a way for him to have sex with other women – without having sex with other women! I know, at a glance, the notion of having sex with lots of different women is far more impressive to most men, but for a movie such as this, it’s more interesting and appropriate for a character to be psychologically and emotionally capable and desirous of sexual experimentation. While Todd can barely get Samantha to have vanilla sex with him, here Daryl has a wife who does this sh*t voluntarily. Awesome! That, to me, seems like a better answer to, “How do you two keep things hot?”

But logic aside, the basic issue still remains – I didn’t buy that Daryl had to let Todd think he had sex with all those women. I mean, yeah, there was no way for Daryl to know that such a lie would ever lead to such a crazy chain of events, but still, there were so many other reasons to stick to the truth. If Daryl was, in fact, having sex with all the women in town, is that something he should advertise to someone he hardly even knows? I think not. The problem is, everything that Gretchen and Daryl endure after that point seems so... unnecessary. And this unfortunate thought popped into my head every ten or so pages, sometimes prompted by something on the page, sometimes just because.

But this might just be me. Another reader might be fine with it. But even so, there’s another issue that they’re likely to run into, which is that the main characters disappear for too much of the remaining plot and their reactions to major events are all but buried, barely even thought of! One clear cut example of this is when, after they dump the body, Gretchen and Daryl attempt to sneak into Samantha’s house to retrieve the stolen DVD in order to clear the path of evidence. This is totally in line with their overall goal, which is to get away with the murder. But then, this DVD retrieval objective takes a backseat for an entire sequence of the film (too long, in my opinion), such that by the time the plan resurfaces, it feels like the movie should have moved on to something else.

The added problem to this is that the lack of a more consistent effort toward the goal also undermines the urgency. It’s rare that characters are less motivated to pursue their goals than the audience is in seeing them do it. For a movie like this, where the stakes are clear enough – and high – it’s not only a momentum killer but a failure to deliver on the genre. Don’t deflate the tension by allowing, or worse, making your main characters lay off the primary objective!

Another form of this “presence” issue came up in the lack of reactions to certain key events, one obvious example being the discovery of Todd’s dead body. Shouldn’t this be the event that comes about, say, at around the midpoint to raise the stakes and danger for our protagonists? Why do we not even get a moment where they react to being invited to the funeral? Why do we never see the two freaking out but then regrouping and adapting to a new course of action? Yes, you do need scenes with Samantha getting the investigation going, and fine, I’ll even deal with the expository business with Samantha’s history with Corry (more on this in a moment), but if your main characters are, for a while, going to be in the backseat as far as pushing the narrative is concerned, then you have to at least track their reactions to and attitudes about all that’s going on in the meantime.

But regarding Corry and Samantha’s backstory, although I appreciated that the cop role in this film had a more personal involvement in all the goings-on, it felt at times like it was either too much or too little. Either keep him as just the cop, or go all the way and resolve whatever issue it is that’s still bugging Samantha. And make it RELEVANT somehow. And not coy or deliberately vague. Yes, they have a brief moment in the end that’ supposed to imply resolution, but I’m not exactly thinking about their subplot at that point because it occurs right after the most violent scene in the movie. And ultimately, even in hindsight, it was too little, too late.

Finally, I wondered about the movie’s theme. What was it? I’m not sure. I hate to come off all post-feminist or whatever, because I’m anything but (as my girlfriend is happy to point out when I demonstrate this fact myself), but what does it mean to have a woman who accidentally murders someone out of self-defense against rape go on to become the monster of the movie? Is it saying that anyone with a gamier sexual appetite is inherently immoral? Is the movie simply saying not to lie? To keep your perversions to yourself? Without any clear answers, I was left with a touch of “meh” and a dash of “So what?”

To be fair, the script does several things well, one of which is that it earns the prefix to its thriller genre. Boy, is this film erotic when it has to be. Whether it’s something as small as flirtatious banter or as extreme as having sex simply to deceive, the sexual content of the film is quite effective. It arouses. It smolders on the page. And it leaves you wanting more – even though you get plenty enough. And the whole thing of getting dressed up other women, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a movie before. I personally thought it was an interesting enough to be the novelty of the movie. That, along with the fact that Gretchen is a compelling character with so many sides, ultimately makes for an easy if not enjoyable read. It’s a script that I hope undergoes the necessary improvements because with them, the movie will do what it promises.

[ ] what the hell did I just read? 

[ ] wasn't for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Sometimes, there is such a thing as being too short. While Borrowing Girls’ 90 pages were a breeze to get through, in the end, the story you’re left with is missing a good amount of material that needs to be there in order for the story to be fully satisfying.

type='html'>Between keeping track of Star Wars 7 rumors and this whole voting for a new leader of our country thing, I had to take a day off this week But fear not. I'm leaving you in good hands. Ralphy is one of the sharpest screenwriting minds I know. If I have a question, this is the man I go to - when he's around at least. He can be more elusive than even I. But I found him long enough to get a great review of an older script out of him. Enjoy...

Screenplay Review – My Dark Places
Genre: Crime-Drama
Premise: As a publicity stunt, a successful crime novelist tries to solve the thirty-seven-year-old murder of his mother, from whom he was estranged.
About: Apparently, this script has been around for quite a while. The last time I checked IMDB, the project was listed as “in development.”
Writer: Jan Oxenberg. Based on the autobiography by James Ellroy.
Details: 125 pages. Draft date: June 18, 1999.

James Ellroy, author of such notable dark crime novels as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia —both turned into films, one critically acclaimed, the other not so much—published his autobiography, My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir, in 1996. In it, he chronicled his attempts to unravel the mystery of his mother’s thirty-seven-year-old murder by hiring a retired Los Angeles detective noted for his ability to solve old, unsolved cases. The crime itself had a profound effect on Ellroy’s life—it inspired his desire to write crime novels.

The script, penned by TV writer/producer Jan Oxenberg, takes that basic premise and creates a character study out of it, an exploration of an outwardly callous, fast-talking joker whose constant barbs at his mother’s expense never really hide his confusion about his relationship with her. The story opens in 1958, when James Ellroy is just ten years old, and his father, Armand, is actively trying to get dirt on his promiscuous ex-wife, Geneva “Jean” Ellroy, so that he can prove she’s an unfit mother and therefore win custody of James. Right away, we see that the relationship between Armand and James is much more reminiscent of that of best friends than of father and son. We get the sense that they survive by propping each other up—that they’re in life together till the end. Nothing is taboo between them; they’re just two guys hanging out, cooking frozen hot dogs and talking about the shaved pubic region of a woman in one of Armand’s girlie mags. They also discuss James’s mother, for whom Armand has little respect and isn’t shy about dissing in front of James. At one point, James refers to his mother as a “hairy bitch whore,” and Armand just laughs. It becomes obvious in just a couple of quick scenes that they’re a team trying their damnedest to take her down.

As juxtaposition, Jean is presented as a beautiful woman prone to serial dating—looking for attention but not commitment, thanks to having been in a loveless marriage with a man who could offer her neither. When we meet her, she’s dancing with a Swarthy Man in a tacky desert inn. She’s talkative, flirty, coming onto him in every way she knows how. But he seems bored with her, unwilling to give in to her advances. They drive out to a diner, then to a secluded wooded area near Arroyo high school. And there he strangles her to death.

One of the things that immediately stands out in this script is its deft ability to shift between tones. Irreverent humor, hard hitting crime fiction and pathos take turns vying for our attention, letting us know that there’s always something deeper going on here. After a while, however, the tones blend together, and we realize that the division between them was always arbitrary at best—a product of our own minds. For instance, an early moment of irreverence turns into something much deeper in the long run: when James finds out about his mother’s murder, his reaction is not one of shock and sadness—he smiles as a photographer takes a picture of him. Moments later, he again refers to his mother as the “hairy bitch whore,” right in front of photographers, detectives, and his mother’s neighbors. It’s a simple reaction from a child whose first impulse is to feel relief because he can now be with his dad, unconditionally. And it hits hard for us because it’s a jarring moment. The kid doesn’t understand what just happened… or does he? We’re not quite sure. Do we have a sociopath in the making? Or will James grow out of it? It is in these initial scenes that the script establishes its voice and signals to us that it’s going to keep us on our toes for the duration. And it is here that the script becomes impossible to put down.

From the murder, we transition to 1995, where the adult James Ellroy, now a successful crime novelist, is at a book reading and signing with his girlfriend Helen, also an author. Ellroy is now a smart-alecky, verbal wordsmith dazzling his audience with colorful, improvised turns of phrase, which are very “crime noir detective” in their temperament. While this bit of bookstore theater is taking place, Henry Stans from Unsolved Mysteries bursts into the room and confronts Ellroy about participating in a period piece episode about Southern California unsolved murders, in which an entire segment will be devoted to his mother. Not surprisingly, Ellroy wants nothing to do with this at first, telling Stans that “the only person who exploits my mother’s death is me.” Apparently, Ellroy hasn’t grown out of his disdain for the woman his father turned him against. At the very least, he’s developed a frosty self-defense mechanism designed to keep that part of his early life firmly in its place.

But Helen, Ellroy’s confidante and conscience, convinces Ellroy to learn more about his mother. Believing he can get some publicity out of this, Ellroy acquiesces. So they fly out to Los Angeles to take part in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, and there Ellroy hires retired homicide detective Bill Stoner, who is known for solving cold case murders. Stoner’s first impression of Ellroy is that he doesn’t give two shits about his mother, especially when he watches Ellroy interacting with the actors portraying young James and his mother in the dramatic reenactment for the show’s segment. At one point Henry Stans asks Ellroy what he thinks of the actress playing his mother, and Ellroy replies, “She doesn’t look cheap enough.” Stoner is immediately put off—to him, this is all just a publicity stunt. To make matters worse, he and Ellroy clash, Ellroy making it quite apparent that he doesn’t want Stoner’s pity—just his help.

From there, the script flips back and forth between Ellroy and Stoner’s 1995 investigation and sequences dealing with young Ellroy and the original investigation. It’s not a revolutionary structural device—some might even consider it trite—but it works well for this story. Young Ellroy’s relationship with his mother is obviously strained due to her sleeping around and his father’s constant criticism of her, but what is also obvious is how much she always cares for Ellroy, no matter how he treats her. And on some level he knows this. Always has. There’s a scene early in the 1995 investigation where Stoner and Ellroy are in an interview room looking over the old file on her murder, disorganized and overflowing with notes and crime scene photos, and Ellroy, prone to bouts of OCD, straightens out the papers, creating neat stacks. Stoner pitches in and helps him, and it’s a surprisingly touching moment because it’s the first time we and Stoner really see Ellroy’s human side. From there, the beat where Ellroy sees the crime scene photo of his mother’s corpse hits hard. Ellroy tries to play it off and remain professional and detached, but Stoner notices that something more is going on. Throughout the script, Stoner tries to figure out which Ellroy is the real one: the human being with genuine emotions or the smartass who seems not to care about his mother. And as the story progresses, and Ellroy’s obsession with this investigation grows, we and Stoner understand that Ellroy is far too complex to be pigeonholed into either category.

There’s a wonderful motif: a collage of Jean’s death Ellroy has plastered over the walls of his hotel room, consisting of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, a police sketch of the Swarthy Man based on interviews with two witnesses, and other evidence. As Ellroy’s obsession grows and the case becomes more personal to him, the collage becomes denser, more and more obsessively ordered. Toward the end of the script, the nature of the collage changes as Ellroy picks up old photos of his mother from her relatives. It transforms from a detective’s wall to a tribute to her, no longer about publicity for his book or his attempts to play detective and solve a crime. It’s now about his love for his mother.

The investigation itself is wonderfully played as Stoner and Ellroy plow into old leads and question old witnesses, each bringing his own unique personality to the proceedings. Also, there are some great little details in scenes that in less capable hands might play out in a boring, same-old-same-old way but are made livelier by unique and creative touches, like one in which Ellroy and Stoner interview a 14-year-old girl whose grandmother was a carhop at a diner where the Swarthy Man took Jean. The girl tells them that her grandmother passed away a couple of years ago; that she had brain cancer and died in a beauty salon. And the kicker is that she apparently hemorrhaged while she was getting her hair done. Such a seemingly small detail adds a great deal of richness to the story. Ellroy and Oxenberg have created a vibrant world here—a crime story infused with voice.

A lot of the dialogue is incredibly sharp and entertaining, but not in a way that draws attention to itself—in a way that breathes life into the characters. At one point, Stoner reveals to Ellroy that “Freeways are the Southern California victim drop zone of choice.” He then goes on to say, “I hate ‘em. One thing I swore was, once I retired, I’d never drive these freeways again.” Yet here he is, doing just that, and it’s a sign that he’s unable to retire… that he may never be. There’s another great line when Ellroy interviews his mother’s old neighbor/landlord that lands perfectly thanks to what we’ve learned about his past. When Ellroy was a kid, he used to compulsively stab the banana tree in front of his mother’s place with a knife, to the point where his mother’s landlord had to call in a tree surgeon. As such, the landlord couldn’t give Armand the full deposit back after Jean’s death; she had to take fifty dollars out to pay to have the tree revived. Thirty-seven years later, adult Ellroy introduces himself to the landlord as “James Ellroy. The kid who ruined your tree.” And these types of exchanges pepper the script, giving us insight into the people who populate its world. Not one line of dialogue is a throwaway.

The investigation comes to a climax in a scene where Stoner and Ellroy confront the man their investigation has finally led them to, almost by accident. He’s their prime suspect—a man who used to work with Jean. Now 75, he’s still muscled but skinny. In the face of Ellroy’s accusations, he’s scared to the point where he pisses himself. (SPOILER) But it turns out he’s not the perpetrator. (END SPOILER) And here we discover the script’s true purpose. It’s not really about Ellroy solving his mother’s murder as much as it is about his coming to grips with the fact that she truly loved him. In the process, he also makes peace with his own feelings about her, including some confusing childhood sexual fixations. There’s a great moment at the end when he and Helen are in his hotel room, facing his wall of photos, and he addresses his mother directly, telling her, “Swarthy Man took you away from me. I want you to meet the woman who brought you back.”

Irreverent yet moving, straightforward yet complex, My Dark Places is a subtly wrenching glimpse into an obsession that transforms over the course of its narrative as Ellroy allows the layers of emotional armor, secured into place over thirty-seven years, to drop off piece by piece until all that’s left is a vulnerable human being, abandoned early on by the world (including his father, who passed away when Ellroy was 17) and forced to fend for himself. The script is infused with a voice that strengthens the story rather than distracts from it, and characters actors would no doubt want to sink their teeth into. I hope that after floating around for over a decade, most likely stuck in every circle of development hell at one point or another, it finds its way to movie theaters someday soon. Unfortunately, I fear that its dark approach and constantly shifting tone might make this impossible, especially in the current climate. With that in mind, I strongly recommend that anyone who likes crime dramas, specifically those penned by Ellroy, give the script a read.

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn't for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Character, character, character. My Dark Places works so well because every scene not only reveals something about Ellroy but revolves around why Ellroy is the way he is. There are no faux-clever, throwaway lines of dialogue; no meaningless actions. The script is strictly about this human being, and even at 125 pages, it is tight.