Critique of a Screenplay Draft: A Post of a Draft Over Two Years Old

I see, to my great shame, that it’s been over a year since I posted anything on this blog.  That will change.  But also, earlier this evening, I looked at this thing that I hammered out back in 2016 and never did anything with–I truly don’t know why–even though I finished composing it and can’t find a thing to change in it now.  So, while it’s old and outdated, it still expresses a lot of what’s on my mind, so while I promise to write something new before too much more time goes by, here’s this old draft, for your reading pleasure–or displeasure.

Dear Friend,

I read your screenplay over the weekend. I think you have some strong ideas in it, and some compelling drama, but because you asked me for my honest critique, there are some things in it that I’m not sure will fly, some things that I fear would strain credulity, even in the context of its being an intentionally over-the-top melodrama. I hope I’m not being too harsh.

Let me start with the parts that do work. The theme that you get across most powerfully is the tragedy of a country that has historically espoused the loftiest of ideals, has been uniquely equipped to exemplify those ideals, and yet time and again has fallen short of living up to them, when push comes to shove. You also show, convincingly, how so many people who boast that their country has exceptional virtues are the same people who fight the hardest to roll back its progress toward making those virtues a reality, demanding instead that their country live by a “might makes right” and “us first” mentality.

Second, you have a terrific idea for a plot. The whole notion of a ridiculously unfit candidate for president getting the Republican nomination, at the same time that a controversial former first lady is on the Democratic ticket with wild conspiracy theories flying around about her, and the roller coaster from having it look like she’s winning, to having it look like he’s winning, and back again—again, terrific idea. I also think you effectively show how so many voters, ignoring what’s really there, imagine this candidate to be what they think their country needs (for example, the way that people who think the biggest problem in the country is “leaches” imagine that he’ll somehow “restore” a society in which everybody has to work for a living, and people who fear terrorism convince themselves that no enemies will dare attack this country if they know they’ll be suffering consequences at the hands of this strong leader). And, right up there with good ideas for a plot is the irony of how the Republican candidate is drawing votes from displaced workers whose situation the Democratic incumbent (the target of even wilder conspiracy theories) so earnestly tried to improve by proposing job-creating, infrastructure-building measures, initiatives that the Republicans in Congress would not even take up for a vote. That much is good drama, and it’s also believable.

Even so—again, I don’t mean to be harsh, and you do have some good ideas here—I fear that you also have a number of events and situations in your story that will seem overly absurd, even for viewers who expect movies to show exaggerated and unrealistic scenarios. Let me list some of those problems for you.

The biggest problem I find in your screenplay is the high percentage of white Americans who, despite making loud protestations of not being racist or fascist, would be voting for a candidate whose campaign has so many overt trappings of a fascist movement and has the clear support of white supremacist groups. Similarly, when your character comes out with lines like “I alone can fix it” and “I’m going to build a wall, and I’m going to have Mexico pay for it,” I think you underestimate the intelligence of the average American. Do you really think that more than a tiny fringe would ever fall for that, or give any purported candidate who talked like that the time of day? At one point, you even have your character boast that he could shoot somebody in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still stand by him. Would hearers of that remark not recognize, for once and for all, that they were being played with and laughed at, and recoil accordingly in horror and disgust?

Closely related to that is the way you ask your viewers to believe that seasoned elder statesmen of the Republican Party—Bob Dole, for example—would think anything good could possibly come of that character being president. A man of Bob Dole’s stature and integrity would never pretend to favor the victory of that candidate, and if this movie gets produced, I suspect he’ll be furious at the suggestion, and rightfully so. Newt Gingrich is another one. Now sure, he has a long history of dishonorable and self-serving behavior—he’s no Bob Dole—but he also has some political savvy and expertise when it comes to governance, so even in the context of his bad character, he would still know better than this.

The way that the establishment Republicans like the House Speaker and the RNC chairman react to that candidate’s racist remarks is problematic too. They treat each remark as an isolated incident, and treat it as something he needs to apologize for and “walk back.” And when he says anything that even remotely implies that maybe he shouldn’t have said exactly what he said exactly how he said it, they all seem to say, “See? He’s behaving himself now. The problem’s solved.”

Another problem with the party leaders is that, no matter how blatantly the candidate disregards their strategic advice—about where to campaign, how to campaign, what to say and what to keep his mouth shut about—they just can’t stop seeing their candidate as a pupil who just needs some more remedial guidance. Obviously, sending out posts from a Twitter account attacking critics personally has absolutely nothing to do with not knowing better or with being an inexperienced politician, and it’s hard to believe that anyone would even pretend to see it that way. Sure, up to a point, the party officials would have to grit their teeth and ride with it, but you depict that candidate’s behavior as so extreme that they would have to be way past that point. In fact—and again, dear friend, I hope I’m not being too harsh—that’s where I find that your melodrama crosses over into wildly farcical burlesque.

I also think that the biggest reasons for the former first lady’s unpopularity seem contrived. Couldn’t you think of something bigger to make a big, monumental scandal out of than using a private email server while secretary of state? And when it comes to the deaths of four Americans in an embassy attack, I really think most voters would be smart enough to know that administrations, whether Republican or Democratic, sometimes get caught off guard and can’t prevent every disaster. I get that her political enemies would try to spin it to make her look like a cold-blooded murderer—to a point, that’s just politics as usual—but I think in real life that view would only work with a fairly small fringe, not enough to affect an election outcome. But let me offer some praise now: dramatically, I do like how you show the irony, where these same people who want to crucify her will make the most shallow and inane excuses for voting for a man who is so obviously worse.

Your scenes with voters who support the Republican nominee are a good idea, but some of the lines you’ve written, where they rationalize voting for him, are a bit over the top. “I like how he speaks his mind,” you have one voter say. Would anyone really say that about a candidate who is as crude and totally devoid of manners as you depict that candidate? Another voter, when the man’s dishonorable traits are pointed out, says, “Yes he’s a bastard, but I’m not looking for him to be my friend.” I can’t imagine that many Americans, or even any at all, dismissing character as a criterion for a president. Particularly jarring is where a woman who admits she dislikes a lot about him still says that maybe his bullying personality (you actually have her use that word!) is what America needs to gain the respect of the rest of the world. In real life, she would have to grasp that the candidate was making the country look totally pathetic to the rest of the world.

You haven’t written the ending yet, of course, and I’ll be interested to see where you decide to go with it. You do a good job of making the audience feel the roller coaster effect and the sense that, no matter how good things look at the moment, there could always be a surprise that would tilt the weight of the electorate back to the dangerously unfit and ill-intentioned candidate. If your candidate loses, the country will have dodged a bullet, though of course much of the division between his supporters and his horrified critics will still be in place. If he wins, you’ll need to write a sequel to show whether and how the country can survive such a catastrophe.

But again, the believability issues notwithstanding, you are most effective in getting across the sense of stark tragedy, where a country with this much potential to know better could let a man who makes such a mockery of every good thing the country has ever stood for become a major candidate to become its leader.

With best regards,

Ben