Wake Up, Maggie, you're in Notting Hill by elijoel

This screenplay felt like it was Notting Hill all the way down to its socks, only with less sparkle, and the two lead roles reversed. Unfortunately, as Notting Hill is not one of my favorite movies anyway, I found it to be a rather un-engaging read. I think the main reason for this is that the central characters have not been very well set up, and are just not very likeable. Maggie Darcy, the Dog Trainer, comes over as a cold, narrow minded, and annoyingly self-important. And Gerry Robinson – who is supposed to be a big movie star – feels like he actually lacks all of the qualities and characteristic that would normally be require to achieve that kind of success. In short, Gerry comes over as being a rather feeble character that not only lacks confidence, but is also forever apologizing for himself.

There’s also too much detail and minutia in the action/description of the script, which seriously slows down the pace of both the read and the unfolding story. This could be easily improved simply be delineating the action/description more effectively.

Here’s a page-by-page breakdown:

Page 7: Not quite sure what the point of the Hospital scene is here, as it’s so short (with only one line of dialogue) that it seems to serve no real purpose. Every scene in a movie needs to “drive” the story forward in some way, and if it doesn’t then it’s usually just better to cut that scene out.

Page 16: It’s starting to become apparent that one of the problems with this screenplay is that the action/description is not delineated enough. There’s too much detail about the micro movements of each character, and this is seriously slowing down the pace. Here’s a quick example of what I mean by “more effective delineation” that will both improve the read of your screenplay, but more importantly pick-up the pace of your story. Here’s your scene at the bottom of page 14 as it stands:

INT. GREAT ROOM – NIGHT

Maggie prepares dinner in the kitchen area.

She rapidly dumps spice after spice into the pot, stirs, tastes and adds some more.

Swoop trots down the stairs, a pair of men's underwear in her mouth.

Gerry follows.

Maggie takes the underwear from Swoop, holds them up. The waist band frayed and the hem loose in a couple of places.

MAGGIE: Yours, I believe.

Gerry blushes, takes the underwear and stuffs them in his back pocket.

GERRY: Thanks.

Swoop heads back up the stairs.

MAGGIE: Keep your door closed. She'll pick up anything on the floor.

* * * * *

Now here’s the same scene again, only more effectively delineated:

INT. GREAT ROOM – NIGHT

Maggie stands in front of a stove stirring a pot of stew. She tastes it. Adds a little more spice.

Swoop suddenly appears beside her with a pair of well-chewed men’s underwear hanging from her mouth. Maggie glances over at Gerry.

MAGGIE: Yours, I believe.

Gerry blushes. Then tugs his underwear from Swoop’s jaws.

GERRY: I believe you’re right.

MAGGIE: Better keep your door closed. She’ll pick up anything that isn’t nailed down.

* * * * *

As you can see, it’s basically the same scene, but it uses only 2/3 of the page space. This means that over the course of your entire screenplay you’re going to end up with maybe an extra 20-30 pages to explore your story. Delineating like this will also result in a much faster and punchier read.

It’s also worth remembering that when a story in NOT effectively delineated, this can suggest to a producer that despite the page count, there might not actually be enough story to make a movie out of it! You have to think about the 1-Page = 1-Minute rule here: Too much detail on the page can mean that 1-Page actually equates to only 20-30 seconds of screen time. Keep this up over the course of a whole screenplay, and it’s easy to see where you can quickly run into trouble.

Page 18: “Gerry looks helpless.”

I’m not sure about this. If Gerry is a big movie star, then he should really be coming over as far more confident than the way you are painting him. Otherwise you risk it all seeming rather implausible.

Page 23: Again, I think you have a few character issues here that really need dealing with. It’s not just that Gerry is unconvincing as a movie star because he seems lacking in confidence and generally feeble, but Maggie also comes over as a rather harsh and judgmental person, which is certainly not going to get your audience bonding with her in the way that you would probably like, and thus you risk losing their emotional involvement with your story.

At the risk of sounding formula, you’d actually be much better off setting up your characters so that we (audience and reader) really bond with/like them BEFORE they show us any of their negative traits. This way, you get us (audience and reader) on their side first, which allows us to be more accepting of any of their flaws or weaknesses, etc.

Without creating this essential bond or connection first, you serious risk your audience and reader just feeling completely apathetic and indifferent towards everything that is happening.

Page 63: You have a scene in the Grocery Store here where Maggie has asked Gerry to do the shopping, yet nothing of consequence happens in this scene. Gerry shops. That’s it. He doesn’t even speak to anybody. So again, this scene serves no real purpose. It doesn’t “drive” the story in any way. I think you need to either rewrite this scene so it serves some function, or take it out, as right now it’s just dead wood.

I have to say that the second half of this screenplay is considerably better than the first half. I think if you work on your Set-Up more, and especially on creating that initial emotional connection with your lead characters, then you are going to dramatically improve the overall impression that this story makes.

Very best of luck with it.

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