The Kids Are All Right

Genre: Drama/Comedy
Premise: After her 18th birthday, a young girl and her brother go looking for their sperm-donating biological father, who subsequently becomes a part of their lives.
About: The Kids Are All Right stars Mark Ruffalo, Annette Benning and Julianne Moore and is directed by one of its writers, Lisa Cholodenko. Cholodenko’s first film was “High Art,” and her second was the underappreciated character-piece, Laurel Canyon, starring Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsdale. “Kids” went into Sundance way under the radar but came out one of the big winners, as audiences seemed to love it, and Focus Features bought the film.
Writers: Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Details: 122 pages (March 2009 draft)


Just when I was starting to give up on the Sundance crop, this script jumped into my pile, did a dance, and gave me hope again. Within ten pages I could tell why audiences at Sundance loved it. While it’s not as broad as, say, the hit TV show “Modern Family,” it explores a lot of the same themes – namely that there’s no such thing as a simple family anymore.

First we meet Laser (grr, I know – I don’t like the name either), an emo-ish 15 year old who’s looking for a father figure. His sister is Joni, 18, beautiful, seemingly perfect – yet she has some issues getting in touch with her emotions. Their first mom (yes, I said “first”) is Jules, in her 40s, emotionally fragile and constantly trying to keep it together, and rounding out the family is Nic, the “other” mom, a doctor who cares more about her career than her wife. Meet the Allgoods.


Because Joni has just turned 18, she can now officially file to find out who her biological father is. Joni could care less about her father though. It’s daddy-hunting Laser who’s been waiting for this day. Since he knows his moms will flip if he even broaches the subject, Joni is his only lifeline to meeting the man who supplied half of his genetic code. With only weeks before Joni leaves for college, it’s either now or never. With plenty of annoyed resistance, Joni puts in the call. After the father allows his name to be released, a phone call is made and a meeting is set.

The two head off on their secret mission, which is how we meet Paul, the "father" in question. Paul not only grows vegetables in his own garden, but does so to provide fresh ingredients for the RESTAURANT HE OWNS. He’s cool, he’s funny, he’s intelligent, he’s hip. He is basically the COOLEST DAD EVER. He had Laser at Hello, but it’s the puddle of drool under Joni’s chair that’s most surprising. What was supposed to be the equivalent of dropping Laser off for a play date has turned into a two hour love-fest. In this seemingly perfect man's eyes, they see an entire piece of their lives that they missed out on. And it's time to start making up for it.


Jules and Nic, who it should be noted have begun to drift apart, are horrified when they hear about Laser and Joni’s field trip. Although they claim their disappointment stems from the fact that the kids weren’t open and honest with them, maybe, just maybe, it’s because they feel threatened.

But these worms are so far out of the can you might as well stick a hook in'em. Paul is digging Joni and Laser just as much as they dig him, and before you know it, he’s coming over for dinners and birthdays, integrating himself into the family's life.

While Jules quickly warms up to Paul, Nic is increasingly threatened by him. It's hard enough to control a family that's slowly slipping away from you, but adding Paul to the equation is like coating those tensely gripped fingers in oil. And when Paul hires Jules to work on his garden – a new profession of Jules' that Nic is clearly opposed to – well that’s pretty much the end of the line. She knows nothing about this family will ever be the same again.

The Kids Are All Right is just a really good little screenplay. It takes a tried and true formula – dump an unpredictable variable into a bowl of constants, mix, see what happens – and milks it for everything it’s worth. But watching Paul infiltrate the Allgoods with his innocent charm, winning them over one by one, wasn't just fun because of the endless amount of conflict it created. It's fun because we know it can't possibly last. We know that sooner or later it's all going to crash and burn. And as much as we're dreading it, there's that naughty side of us that can't wait for the carnage.


But what really makes this screenplay shine is the character work. I got into some heated discussion the other day regarding the plotlessness of another Sundance screenplay, but believe it or not, I don't require a plot in everything I read. IF. If the character's internal journey is clear. In The Kids Are All Right, everyone is trying to overcome the defining faults that have shaped their lives. Because these flaws are laid out so clearly, the lack of plot doesn't matter, because we understand what our character's need to accomplish by the story's end.

When we meet Laser, we see how jealous he is watching his best friend play with his father. When we meet Joni, we see that she’s unable to emotionally connect with the man who loves her. When we meet Jules, she’s listening to self-help tapes, obsessed with finding emotional balance. And with Nic, we see that she’s unwilling to make an effort in her marriage. Since each individual problem is presented to us as soon as we meet the characters, there is no confusion over what they must overcome - an issue that plagues poorly constructed characters. I think this is one of the most essential components to good character work, and "Kids" knocks it out of the park.

But probably the most powerful aspect of all when it comes to The Kids Are All Right, is that it leaves a big smile on your face. It makes you want to make changes to your own life. It makes you want to go work on your own screenplays. In short, it does what we're all desperately trying to accomplish. It inspires.

Script link: Link taken down

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

What I learned: Giving us any sort of time frame for your story puts us at ease. It lets us know exactly where the story is going and when it’s going to end. It’s why ticking time bombs, in all their forms, work so well. But not every story requires a character to get to the other side of the city within 90 minutes or his wife blows up. When your screenplays are more character-driven, consider adding “soft ticking time bombs,” time frames that maybe don’t have a direct effect on the storyline, but gently keep it focused. In The Kids Are All Right, we have Jules working on Paul’s garden. And more definitively, Joni’s moving off to college in a couple of weeks. These are soft reminders that the story is approaching an end point, and in the process keep us focused. If you hear the criticism that your story is “wandering,” add a few soft ticking time bombs to bring your readers focus back where it belongs.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager: How phone calls can kill a scene

Lady Bitter (who in fact is the exact opposite of "bitter") is a regular viewer of some excellent TV shows and one utterly, irredeemably awful series on ABC Family known as The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I've only caught a few episodes here and there, but the best I can tell, it's about a bunch of teenagers who repeatedly talk about sex in clunky, unrealistic dialogue, yet rarely have it. If you're thinking that sounds like Dawson's Creek, let me disabuse you of that right now. This makes Dawson's Creek look like The Sopranos.

After just a few minutes of watching this show, I realized there was something familiar about it. The crappy blocking, the uninteresting direction, the universally flat performances, the stilted conversations... and especially, the propensity for repeated expositional dialogue in each scene. And then came the final piece of the puzzle - multiple dialogue scenes staged as phone conversations.

Scene after scene featured one character talking on the phone to another. Each character remained stationary in their respective sets as they talked back-and-forth - usually about some plot-point that at already been reestablished at least once in the previous five minutes. It looked like the director had positioned the actor, told them to sit still, then just let the camera roll while the actor read their lines from an off-screen cue card. This also clearly was a director who didn't believe in rehearsals or second takes, judging from the The most work in this entire scene came from the editors, who had the hard task of cutting back and forth between both sides of the conversation. As I watched, I knew I'd seen this sort of hackery before... and I trembled.

Yes, friends. This had the unmistakable stench of Brenda Hampton all over it. If the name isn't familiar, the resume probably will be. She was the creator/show-runner of 7th Heaven, a show harder to kill than Jason Voorhees, though not nearly as redeemable. Occasionally sympathetic friends and readers inquire about the terrible quality of the scripts I read, and wonder if I ever see anything better than what's produced by Hollywood. I often answer, "So long as Brenda Hampton is writing, there will be produced work that is worse than anything the slush pile will inflict on you."

I could devote a week of posts to using Brenda's writing as a "how not to write compelling scenes" but frankly, I don't have the motivation to sit through that much drivel to unearth a few nuggets. And it's not just that her shows are badly written, it's that they have truly horrible ideas. The episode I saw revolved around how one teenage girl spurs on all the other girls in their school to start a masturbation club, called "Just Say Me." As I understand it, this club got started because a few girls were tired of having their boyfriends cheat on them. They considered cutting them off from sex, but decided that wouldn't work because, "Boys can't help that they want sex, and the problem is that there's always another girl willing to have it with them."

Yes, you heard that right... The problem with having a boyfriend who cheats on you is not that he's unfaithful - it's that some other Jezebel is out there ready to give it up if you won't! And this shit was written by a woman!

If I had a teenage daughter, I'd sooner let her watch something like, "A Working Girl's Guide to Giving Oral Sex" than The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

But I'm drifting. The point of this post was to discuss the right and the wrong way to handle a phone conversation between two characters. First off, I avoid writing scenes as phone conversations whenever possible. It's always hurts the performances when the actors aren't really playing against each other. Having said that, there are times when it may be unavoidable, so heed these warnings.

1) Try to give the two characters something interesting to do as they're on the phone.

2) If the film is a suspense/thriller, see if you can milk some tension from the location. Perhaps your hero is talking on the phone to a stalker and suddenly has reason to think that person is very close.

3) Avoid having dramatic conversations take place on the phone unless Rules 1 and 2 apply OR there is some deep emotion in the dialogue for the actor/character to call upon.

4) When dealing with exposition, as always, make sure we don't have to sit through one character telling us what we already know. Consider if it is important that we see the phone conversation, or if we have enough context for what's going on so we just need to see Bill dial and say, "Charlie, it's me. I need a favor..." Cut to - that favor being put into motion.

Good uses of phone calls:

The Scream movies: Often there's suspense drawn from the fact that the phone call means that the killer is in the immediate vicinity and could be ready to pounce on the character in question at any time. Tension comes from several facts here: since we only hear the voice, we don't know who the killer is - so he could be anyone, and we don't know where the killer is - so he could be anywhere.

In the Line of Fire - the same rules apply as for Scream. Director Wolfgang Peterson also does a great job in shooting these conversations so that they're not visually static.

Phone Booth and Cellular also make strong dramatic use of phone conversations, which are effective for many of the same reasons as the above examples. So, this proves that phone conversations need not always result in a dead duck of a scene - but it takes care to avoid falling into some easy traps.

If this makes sense to you, you'll already have a better understanding of how to craft an interesting scene than Brenda Hampton. Then you too can have a series that not only survives cancellation, but the cancellation of its entire network and the loss of half the principle cast - and get to create a new show after that!

Hmmm... perhaps I'm the crazy one.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager: How phone calls can kill a scene

Lady Bitter (who in fact is the exact opposite of "bitter") is a regular viewer of some excellent TV shows and one utterly, irredeemably awful series on ABC Family known as The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I've only caught a few episodes here and there, but the best I can tell, it's about a bunch of teenagers who repeatedly talk about sex in clunky, unrealistic dialogue, yet rarely have it. If you're thinking that sounds like Dawson's Creek, let me disabuse you of that right now. This makes Dawson's Creek look like The Sopranos.

After just a few minutes of watching this show, I realized there was something familiar about it. The crappy blocking, the uninteresting direction, the universally flat performances, the stilted conversations... and especially, the propensity for repeated expositional dialogue in each scene. And then came the final piece of the puzzle - multiple dialogue scenes staged as phone conversations.

Scene after scene featured one character talking on the phone to another. Each character remained stationary in their respective sets as they talked back-and-forth - usually about some plot-point that at already been reestablished at least once in the previous five minutes. It looked like the director had positioned the actor, told them to sit still, then just let the camera roll while the actor read their lines from an off-screen cue card. This also clearly was a director who didn't believe in rehearsals or second takes, judging from the The most work in this entire scene came from the editors, who had the hard task of cutting back and forth between both sides of the conversation. As I watched, I knew I'd seen this sort of hackery before... and I trembled.

Yes, friends. This had the unmistakable stench of Brenda Hampton all over it. If the name isn't familiar, the resume probably will be. She was the creator/show-runner of 7th Heaven, a show harder to kill than Jason Voorhees, though not nearly as redeemable. Occasionally sympathetic friends and readers inquire about the terrible quality of the scripts I read, and wonder if I ever see anything better than what's produced by Hollywood. I often answer, "So long as Brenda Hampton is writing, there will be produced work that is worse than anything the slush pile will inflict on you."

I could devote a week of posts to using Brenda's writing as a "how not to write compelling scenes" but frankly, I don't have the motivation to sit through that much drivel to unearth a few nuggets. And it's not just that her shows are badly written, it's that they have truly horrible ideas. The episode I saw revolved around how one teenage girl spurs on all the other girls in their school to start a masturbation club, called "Just Say Me." As I understand it, this club got started because a few girls were tired of having their boyfriends cheat on them. They considered cutting them off from sex, but decided that wouldn't work because, "Boys can't help that they want sex, and the problem is that there's always another girl willing to have it with them."

Yes, you heard that right... The problem with having a boyfriend who cheats on you is not that he's unfaithful - it's that some other Jezebel is out there ready to give it up if you won't! And this shit was written by a woman!

If I had a teenage daughter, I'd sooner let her watch something like, "A Working Girl's Guide to Giving Oral Sex" than The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

But I'm drifting. The point of this post was to discuss the right and the wrong way to handle a phone conversation between two characters. First off, I avoid writing scenes as phone conversations whenever possible. It's always hurts the performances when the actors aren't really playing against each other. Having said that, there are times when it may be unavoidable, so heed these warnings.

1) Try to give the two characters something interesting to do as they're on the phone.

2) If the film is a suspense/thriller, see if you can milk some tension from the location. Perhaps your hero is talking on the phone to a stalker and suddenly has reason to think that person is very close.

3) Avoid having dramatic conversations take place on the phone unless Rules 1 and 2 apply OR there is some deep emotion in the dialogue for the actor/character to call upon.

4) When dealing with exposition, as always, make sure we don't have to sit through one character telling us what we already know. Consider if it is important that we see the phone conversation, or if we have enough context for what's going on so we just need to see Bill dial and say, "Charlie, it's me. I need a favor..." Cut to - that favor being put into motion.

Good uses of phone calls:

The Scream movies: Often there's suspense drawn from the fact that the phone call means that the killer is in the immediate vicinity and could be ready to pounce on the character in question at any time. Tension comes from several facts here: since we only hear the voice, we don't know who the killer is - so he could be anyone, and we don't know where the killer is - so he could be anywhere.

In the Line of Fire - the same rules apply as for Scream. Director Wolfgang Peterson also does a great job in shooting these conversations so that they're not visually static.

Phone Booth and Cellular also make strong dramatic use of phone conversations, which are effective for many of the same reasons as the above examples. So, this proves that phone conversations need not always result in a dead duck of a scene - but it takes care to avoid falling into some easy traps.

If this makes sense to you, you'll already have a better understanding of how to craft an interesting scene than Brenda Hampton. Then you too can have a series that not only survives cancellation, but the cancellation of its entire network and the loss of half the principle cast - and get to create a new show after that!

Hmmm... perhaps I'm the crazy one.

The Darkest Hour

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A group of strangers must band together in Moscow after a mysterious alien force invades the city
About: This project has been in development for awhile and, as far as I can tell, is waiting for someone or something to breathe new life into it. The original draft was written by M.T. Ahern & Leslie Bohem four years ago, and now Spaihts has given his take on the material. Spaihts, for those who don’t know, wrote the Avatar-sounding space thriller, “Shadow 19” back in 2006, which won the admiration of Keanu Reeves. Reeves (no relation) then hired Spaihts to pen “Passengers,” his weird idea about a guy who wakes up early on a 100 year space journey. The script wowed Hollywood and finished Top 3 on the 2007 Black List. Suddenly Spaihts was a big name and interviewing for all the big sci-fi assignments. That’s when he landed this job, rewriting “The Darkest Hour” for controversial director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted). That in turn landed him a writing assignment for Disney’s “Children of Mars,” and of course, the biggest deal of his career so far, the Alien reimagining for Ridley Scott.
Writer: Jon Spaihts
Details: 118 pages (November 30th, 2008 draft)


When you look at the writers out there today, there really isn’t anyone who’s churning out consistently good sci-fi, which is probably why Spaihts (a name I couldn’t pronounce with a blaster to my head) surprised everyone by landing the Alien reboot. But is it that surprising? Roger definitely loved Shadow 19. And Passengers is one of those scripts it seems like everyone loves (except for one person, notably). So I decided to momentarily forego all this touchy-feely Sundance fare and finish up the Spaihts trifecta. Let’s get our hands dirty with a little sci-fi, shall we?

Rex Halley is an American entrepreneur trying to take advantage of Moscow’s new influx of wealth. Or, at least, Moscow’s new influx of wealth two years ago, when this script was written and people had wealth. Equal parts eager and naïve, the 27 year old Trump aspiree cracks the deal of a lifetime, making him a millionaire within seconds, only to have it sucked away when his company’s board of trustees, all Russian, unanimously vote to fire him. A few minutes later and he’s just as unemployed as the guy who stands in front of your local Jack In The Box.

In the meantime we meet Natalie, an American abroad looking for some fun, Vika, a waifish 16 year old Russian girl, Sean, a dorky American video game developer, Skyler, a dickhead lead singer for an American metal band, and Matvei, a “don’t fuck with me” Russian policeman as big as the horse he rides on. Each is experiencing Moscow in their own way, working in it, enjoying it, enduring it. None of them know each other yet, but they will.

Cause on that very night, small golden meteor type rocks start falling from the sky, crashing all over the city. Emerging from these meteors are alien beings called “Spooks.” Seemingly driven by light and energy, these evil E.T.s are nearly invisible except for the dense glow they give off when moving around. As everyone spills outside to see what this strange phenomena is all about, the phenomena starts ripping them to pieces. These “things” are made up of a bunch of small furiously rotating metallic shards. These shards are to a human being what a juicer is to an apple. And let’s just say that after that night, Moscow could supply enough apple juice to make sure Mott’s would never have to plant another apple tree again.

We slam forward a few weeks to see our heroes, who have found each other and are nestled up inside a makeshift bunker, jumpier than a trampoline full of kangaroos. The entire city is dead, 28 Days Later style. No electricity. No society. Not another soul in site. Their days have been relegated to scavenging for water. But most of the stores have been ransacked, and leaving the bunker is always risky. There are spooks around every corner. These guys are somewhere around Plan W. They’re running out of alphabet.

Luckily a beacon of light appears halfway across the city – a highrise with an entire floor lit up. The revelation confuses and excites them. Someone else is alive! But why are they broadcasting their location to the Spooks? Could it be a trap? They decide to take a chance and go to the building because…well, because what else are they going to do? The owner of the highrise is Sergei, a Russian Einstein who’s a whiz with electronics. He’s figured out that the Spooks don’t see like we do, so as long as you protect your place with lead lining, you can run as much electricity as you want and they won’t spot you. Sergei is the first sign of hope for this desperate group. Someone who sounds like they actually know what they’re doing.

But the party is short-lived. A greedy Skylar uses the opportunity to steal all of Sergei’s food. As he sneaks out the door, the knucklehead leaves it open. This alerts the Spooks to their location, and pretty soon the Spooks are upon them producing more Spook Meat. Hmm, I don’t know why but that sounded dirty in a weird way.

Anyway, only a few of members of the group survive, and now they’re worse off than they were to start. They’re stuck in the middle of the city with nowhere to hide. Will they live? Will they die? You’ll have to read to find out.

It’s funny. You can see Timur Bekmambetov's influence on the material right away. I’m guessing this was originally set in an American city. But Timur moved it to Moscow, most likely because of familiarity. Even though that choice came from a selfish place, it actually ends up really helping the screenplay. We’ve seen the American-City-gets-invaded thing a billion times before. By throwing these Americans into Russia, making *them* the aliens to this country, it adds a whole new dynamic when the invasion hits. Anyone who’s been away from home when something bad happens knows how alienated you feel, how unfamiliar everything becomes, how desperately you pine for home. Watching Rex and Natalie and Sean and Skyler creep through this foreign land, it’s not just about coming out alive, it’s about getting back to where they belong.

I also really liked the aliens. While they weren’t perfect, they were at least original. They’re not bug like or reptile-like, the kind of aliens I see in 99% of the scripts I read. They’re a mix of light and energy and metal. And that weird combination inspires all sorts of questions. Why are they built that way? What are their needs? What are their intentions? It was a cool choice and one I thought worked well.

Unfortunately the final act takes a bit of a nose-dive. It makes that mistake of trying to do too much in too little time. How can you take down an alien race in 30 minutes when in the opening 90 pages you haven’t killed a single one? This results in a lot of rushing, a lot of warped logic (i.e. “Well if we do *this*, then they’ll go over there and then we can bomb all of them together!”), an entirely new location we have to learn about, new characters we have to file. In fact, the final act has so much going on that you could conceivably build an entirely new screenplay out of it.

But there’s easily enough stuff here to make it worth the read. It’s a fun script that tackles an age-old story from a slightly different angle

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

What I learned: Spaiths does a perfect job describing his characters. Like any good writer, he has a hierarchy for his descriptions, cluing us in on which characters are here for the moment, which are here for a few scenes, and which will be key characters in the story. If I have a pet peeve, it’s writers who don’t have any system for describing their characters. For example, they’ll describe their main character with a single word: “cool.” Then describe a waitress in scene 48 who has one line as, “dripping with sex, the waitress wears a uniform that’s several inches too high. Her lips are naturally ruby red, and her eyes are caked in mascara. An exotic beauty.” I’m expecting that woman to be on every page of the screenplay! So be smart in how you describe your characters. If it’s a main character, give them 2 or 3 lines of description. A secondary character, 1 line of description. A minor character, a couple of descriptive adjectives is fine. And if it’s someone only making an appearance in that scene, simply give us their profession or describe them in their name (ie. “Waitress” or “Asshole Lawyer”). Let me give you an example of why this is important. Matvei, the horse policeman, appears early on in the script, but only for a moment. He won't appear again for another 40 pages. However, since Spaihts took two full lines to describe him, I knew he was going to be a key character later on, so I paid attention. You don't necessarily have to have *this* description hierarchy system, but you should have some system.