How to fix Funny People (SPOILERS, maybe)
I was really confused by the long trailer of this movie, which seemed to give away the whole story. It doesn’t. The TV trailers have been even more confusing; hiding the drama and marketing it as another Apatow bromance.
I really liked this movie. I thought it was smart and hilarious and heart-wrenching at times. But it has a few problems. Here’s a quick fix:
- Make it shorter. Seriously. 1hr 45 minutes. That’s how long movies are. Stick to it.
- Make the Dramatic Question clear.
What’s the dramatic question? You don’t find out until the end of the movie, really, but luckily it’s pretty simple: “Will terminal illness spur this miserable man to change his ways and find true love?”
Now, this kind of dramatic question is distinct from say “Will the 40yr-old virgin get laid?” The latter deals with tangible elements. We know he’s a 40yr-old virgin and we can assume the movie isn’t about a 40yr-old virgin who has to solve a crime or win the big game. He’s got to lose his virginity; and when he does we know the movie is over. But Funny People is going to have a much harder time conveying the main goal of it’s protagonist to the audience. Fortunately there’s a really neat trick that screenwriters can use when they have a dramatic question like this: EXPLICITLY STATE THE DRAMATIC QUESTION. Ta-da!
This film would be so easy to market, and so easy to digest if there was only a scene, right around the 30-minute mark, in which Sandler tells Rogen that he wants to change and find true love and happiness.
Of course, you’re imagining this scene right now and it’s not working, but that’s because you have a weak imagination. Trust me, Apatow could have made it work. And it would be the second clip in the trailer too. So instead of saying, “What’s that new Apatow movie about?” We’d say, “I want to go see that new Apatow movie starring Adam Sandler as a miserable movie star who tries to change his life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness!”
04.6.09The Ol’ Subplot Switcheroo: Role Models (SPOILER WARNING)
This movie is damn funny. There are four writers credited: David Wain, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd, and Timothy Dowling. Apparently Dowling came up with the concept and it went through a few title changes and various rewrites and even had some substantial re-shoots before it was finally released. The Creative Screenwriting Podcast interview with Wain and Marino is pretty cool too, if you get a chance.
From a storyteller’s perspective it’s a pretty interesting movie: the A story is this: two guys become mentors for two kids in order to avoid jail. The B story is that Paul Rudd wants to marry his girlfriend. And the C story is that Paul Rudd’s mentee is into live-action role playing.
The odd thing is that the third act climax is a C story beat: when the LAIRE King gets dethroned. The A story just ends with a deus ex machina when Jane Lynch (who is amazing) says she called in a favor from the judge. And the B story resolves everything just before the credits when Paul Rudd improvises a song to Elizabeth Banks; which is pretty much where it should end.
The best part is, it works. It’s a great ending. If the writers would have stuck to the screenwriting manuals they probably would not have considered this switch, and the story might have ended with a lame court appearance and a Full House speech from Rudd, quickly deflated by Sean William Scott farting on the judge.
I’ll try to think of some more examples of subplot switcheroos.
03.30.09Screenwriting Tip #2: Toying with the Audience
(SPOILER ALERT) I Am Legend could have been great, but there was a point at which I had to leave the room and go rant to Sarah about it (and then go hug my dog).
If you’ve seen the movie then you probably know now what I’m talking about: when the dog dies. Killing a pet in a movie is just mean. I don’t like it. Like most folks my age, I was traumatized by Turner & Hooch (and I still have a hard time liking Mark Wahlberg after Fear). [EDIT: And I refuse to watch or read Marley & Me.]
But I especially dislike the way I Am Legend kills the dog. Here’s why:
First, we get a suspense-packed scene where the dog chases a deer into a dark building. We’re on the edge of our seats, praying that the dog will make it. We hear mammalian screeches, see a pool of blood, then a furry snout. Our worst fears are around the corner until– nope, that was the deer. The dog made it out alive! Who cares about the deer, right? Woohoo, what a scene! At that point I was sucked into the movie. If I didn’t before, I now cared a lot about Will Smith and his dog. The filmmakers had done their duty. Bravo!
You want to write scenes like this for this exact purpose, unfortunately such strong medicine is not without side effects, that is, these kinds of scenes set up rules and make promises that the rest of the movie has to deliver on. This scene promises me that the dog will be okay. Will Smith will be more careful next time.
Does it keep its promise? Nope, a few scenes later the dog gets killed. And the worst part is, this scene is far less suspenseful, far less interesting than the previous scene where the dog lived.
So I think this should be a screenwriting rule, if the dog narrowly lives in one scene, you shouldn’t kill him off three scenes later. I realize that horror movies may want to break this rule and apparently I Am Legend tried to be a horror film in some ways, but damn…those CGI monsters were lame. So if you want to break this rule, you better make the latter scene, the death scene, twice as good as the near death scene.
I Am Legend is a wonderful movie to learn from because it is a trainwreck. I’d really like to read about the committee that put it together because there are loose threads everywhere. I bet somewhere though, there is an amazing first draft that someone forgot to shred.
03.7.09Screenwriting Tip #1: Chekov’s Gun
To paraphrase: “If you show a loaded gun in the first act, you better shoot it in the second act.”
This is great tip to remember, but I think the statement is better applied in reverse: “If you want to shoot the gun the second act, you have to load it in the first act.”
For example, I was writing a My Name Is Earl spec a while back and I had a scene that had to end with Earl getting a hair sample from a brush. Originally the scene simply ended with Earl looking around the room, spotting the brush and going for it.
When I read it later I thought, how convenient for that brush to appear and solve Earl’s problem. Lame. It’s like a gun just appearing in a character’s hand so he can shoot the bad guy.
So I fixed it, by having the scene begin with another character taking the brush along with some other items and then placing them on a table (loading the gun). Then she and Earl talk about something unrelated to the brush, blah, blah, blah… Then as Earl’s on his way out, he remembers THE BRUSH!
You already know what needs to happen in your story, you need to shoot that gun. By applying Chekov’s rule in reverse you can make sure the gun doesn’t come out of nowhere and piss of your readers.
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