Feedback on short film screenplay

[montauk66]

Yet another short film script to read:

A 10 page film script, existential drama. Based on the concept of the limits of human behaviour, and the inspiration of the memories of love. It is the journey of Henry, who finds himself discussing the rules of life with a wise stranger, while revisiting his past.

I hope your 10 minutes will be enjoyable, and I'm looking for some honest and constructive feedback. Thanks.

www.livejournal.com/users...r/811.html (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mulhollanddr/811.html)

Kevin.

[William Haskins]

hi kevin,

not bad. it's obvious you know how to write, and that you can construct a scene.

to me, the piece suffers from a common malady among philosophically-driven plays and film: lack of subtext. you have a lot of on-the-nose dialogue that doesn't ring true, simply because in the real world (short of grad student bull sessions) people rarely speak in such sweeping philosophical concepts.

your characters come off as little more than repositories of theory and abstractions, and this makes them feel less human. all of the beauty of human experience that differentiate people (quirks, speech patterns, etc) are conspicuous by their absence, leaving us with just hollow vessels of abstraction.

i don't mean this to sound as damning as it possibly does; i think you're on your way to some successful writing; i'm just not sure this hits that mark.

best of luck,
william

[Stylianou]

i liked it. i wanted to read on so that can't be bad, although i think william made some good points.

[montauk66]

Thanks for reading it and the feedback, you pointed out the exact things I have been pondering over the last week, so its good that I'm not totally blind to what i need to improve on.

I would still defend the over intellectualised nature of it, in the same way people defend I heart huckabees as unashamedly pompus and philosophical. It does however mean that 99% of the audience won't find it realistic I agree.