“Unraveling Secrets: Is ‘Playdate’ the Screenplay That Redefines Friendship?”
I guess I’ll say it is. But this is another example of the Black List 3.0, where the list is more about scripts with potential than scripts that are finished products. And this script does have potential. It just needs some sprucing up in those first two acts.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If there’s a lesson to this script, it’s that, if you have a great third act, that does not give you permission to “bide time” throughout your first two acts. If you don’t know whether you’re biding time or not, pay attention to how many scenes are setting up that third act as opposed to being entertaining in their own right. There are too many scenes here setting up the relationship between Katrine and Alice, as well as what happened in their past. We get it by the halfway point. You don’t need to tell us seven different ways to Sunday that Katrine was mean to Alice in elementary school. Trust me. We got it after the first eight times. Check out Speak No Evil for how to do this correctly. There’s a scene near the midpoint, for example, where our evil couple takes our ‘good’ couple out to dinner and it becomes very uncomfortable due to how the evil couple acts. That’s how to entertain readers before your big third act.
