Review: MARBLES

Script review for triggerstreet.com

MARBLES - by Alex Mesmer

I always respect a writer with admirable aspirations. Marbles has a good heart; it tries to face difficult issues with integrity and sincerity; it tries to leave the audience with a message of hope and optimism. Unfortunately I felt there were still many issues with the script that distracted from or diluted those positive qualities.

The writing style of the scene directions doesn’t help. Conventional scene directions are sharp, visual and specific but too often Marbles lapses into verbose, emotional and vague description – things that can’t be directly translated onto the screen, they need to be interpreted. It’s not bad writing; it’s just not screen writing, it’s more novel writing.

The pacing throughout is so slow it felt like wading through treacle. The subject matter is unrelentingly downbeat but sincere; there are no light-hearted moments to speed things along, just good people getting slowly crushed by their issues, it has to be endured. Repetition doesn’t help the matter: by the time John takes to the window ledge we’re well aware of his and Norah’s back-stories, but still we must hear them explained in detail again. Almost everything that happens could happen faster, many scenes could be merged, and dialogue could be much more concise.

Marbles is a redemption story; characters attempting to deal with traumatic events from the past. As such it suffers from the standard redemption story issue – the moments of highest drama all occur in flashback as isolated moments rather than as integrated beats in the dramatic escalation.

The range of characters are all difficult to support, they’re passive and weak. When John’s mother learns the truth, she loses the will to live. Even when the truth is out John’s father won’t talk and John can’t make him. Gail won’t bring charges against Vernon. John has to be talked out of suicide. Norah commits suicide. Most audiences like to see characters overcoming adversity, or at least struggling against it. The cast of Marbles just drift morbidly through their sad little lives – they’re good people, but it’s still difficult to care about them because none of them have any spark in spirit.

There are a lot of details we’re told but not shown, such as Norah being a social worker. I know her boss mentions something about a case once, but that didn’t make much impact. I never realised her job was of any importance until she’s thrust into the suicide negotiator role – it would’ve helped if we’d seen her performing social work earlier.

The dialogue throughout is all painfully honest – this town is entirely populated by straight-shooters. There’s no wisecrackers, no poets, no philosophers – and most importantly no subtext! Everything is above board, said nice and clear and out in the open. There’s nothing for the audience to read deeper into, no hidden depths to plumb – what you see is what you get, so you don’t ever need to question anything.

The structure needs a rethink too – which would really help with the pacing. As it is, there’s a lot of time spent setting up John’s life before anything really happens, it’s simply business as usual. The inciting incident is the moment when life starts to change – for John this is when he’s approached by the TV reporter (not when Mr Tuan arrives in the country, that hasn’t yet impacted John’s life) – that doesn’t happen until page 21 (convention drops it on 12, usually between 8 and 15). Because you’re telling two strands, John and Norah you need to interleaf their structure’s carefully and proportionally, not just bounce as and when. Norah’s inciting incident is Vernon’s release, page 1, which puts the two strands out of kilter and is in itself an odd structural choice – John is your main thread, Norah your minor, but you send the audience the opposing signal by opening with Norah. The 28 page ledge scene/sequence (with flashbacks) is a structural nightmare – it runs from the midpoint to the act three turning point, but runs well over its conventional time allocation.

The final act is a lot better. Characters start acting positively, they develop, the pace picks up and it all comes together nicely. Unfortunately, by this point there’s no longer any opposition. They move into high stakes territory but the opposition (Vernon, Mr Tuan) make it easy for them – if the opposition is weak, the achievement is minimal. It’s a case of too little, too late.

What I can congratulate you on is the story – it makes perfect sense, there are no obvious plot-holes, the atmosphere, tone and theme are consistent, the final message is clear and built towards throughout – in those areas you’ve done a thorough job.

There are two areas I recommend you overhaul for your next draft – are character and structure. John is a nice guy, a good son who loves his parents dearly, which is all well and good but it doesn’t make him all that likeable. Norah is currently little more than a traumatised rape victim. They both need a shot of zest, something interesting about them, a special angle on their plights that makes them worthy of an hour and a half screen time. With structure you need to make some hard choices and cut some scenes – try and be brutal. John’s opening scene trying to get work – do you really need it? No. Slash it. Look at the conventional wisdom on structure, inciting incident, turning points, focus points, etc. Try and work out which elements of your story fit those concepts and see where they lay on a proportional graph – that way you’ll know where you need to cut from. The two elements, character and structure, will work together for you – as you cut and condense scenes to fit structure you’ll generate space to demonstrate character flair.

Good luck, and if you want to discuss any of the criticisms and suggestions raised in this review feel free to get in touch.