by Lucy V Hay
My Take on Beautiful Thing
Being the ‘outsider’ is a common feeling for teenagers, so even though Beautiful Thing is the best part of 20 years old now (thus practically ‘coming of age’ itself!), the core question at the heart of the story – ‘Why do I not fit in?’ – is still very relevant. We join the movie with Jamie attempting to play football, but being rejected by the other boys who throw homophobic insults his way. Jamie decides to mug off the day and slopes home to the London estate he shares with the other colourful characters who will be the main players in Beautiful Thing, such as neighbour Ste (whom we saw on the football field with the other boys who abused Jamie) and school dropout Leah, who now spends all her time playing Mama Cass records and complaining she’s bored. What’s perhaps most striking for me about Beautiful Thing is that the ‘coming out’ arc is not the protagonist’s. We already know Jamie is gay from the first scene in the movie, and though he’s not really sure yet how he feels or what to do about it, crucially Jamie knows he is gay too. Instead, it is love interest Ste, a secondary character, who must recognise himself as gay. In contrast, though the budding relationship between Ste and Jamie is the ‘catalyst’ for what transpires in Beautiful Thing, I would venture our protagonist’s journey really lies in the resolution of the existing conflict between him and Sandra, his mother.
Jamie is the quiet, thoughtful only child of the brassy, larger-than- life Sandra who works in a bar and wants more out of life, not only for herself, but for Jamie too. The spec drama screenplays I read frequently focus on mother/child relationships (especially those with sons), often ignoring fathers altogether (who will often be absent from the narrative instead). Those mothers in the spec drama screenplays will often fall into two loose categories:
• Neglectful Mother. She likes booze, sex, drugs, WHATEVER a lot better than her kid. She doesn’t cook, wash clothes or do anything mothers are ‘supposed’ to do; she swears, she smokes and is usually ill-educated. If she works, she works in a bar or club, sometimes as a barmaid, though also a pole dancer or stripper. Sometimes she’s a criminal, handling stolen goods and the like. Occasionally she is well educated and then she’s a workaholic, preferring her work as (usually) an accountant or similar to her child. She smokes a lot and may sweep into rooms to have a go at our young protagonist, who dreams of escaping her cruel grip.
• Depressed Mother. Depressed mother has too many children and can’t handle it. We know this because she will spend a lot of time in bed, or staring out of windows; there will be moments in the screenplay when she screams at everyone about how she can’t cope, and perhaps she delivers long monologues about how different (read: better) her life was before having children. Our protagonist is the eldest and has to look after his or her siblings, taking them to school and picking them up, even cooking their tea and ensuring they get in the bath.
Combined with that very two-dimensional characterisation, the spec drama screenplay mother above will usually have a very peripheral role in the narrative. A favourite storyline is our protagonist stealing money or a car and then running away from their mother, for whatever reason. Occasionally there is a big confrontation between them, where our hero/ine pleads with his/her mother to really see what is going on with their lives that may or may not relate to the story situation they find themselves in. In short, both versions of the spec drama mother character (and even fathers, by their absence) are put under the spotlight and found wanting. I’m sure scribes don’t mean it this way, but the lack of variety here means quite a damning statement is made.
At first glance, Sandra appears to be the ‘classic’ working-class mother who appears in this type of drama: she smokes, she drinks, she swears; she even works in a bar. But unlike the many spec drama screenplays I read, Sandra occupies a huge part of the story and plays a pivotal role in both Jamie and Ste’s emotional growth in the course of the narrative of Beautiful Thing, in the following ways:
• She’s funny. Sandra is not a comic relief character, but she is funny. She mocks Jamie, Leah and even her own boyfriend, the hippy clod Lenny. One of my favourite moments is when she takes the phone to talk to one of Jamie’s teachers, yet again: ‘Hello. I believe you wanted to talk to me about my total git of a son?’ As the mother of a teenage boy myself, I have uttered these words, too – if not aloud, then definitely in my head.
• She’s sharp. Very often, mums in the spec drama screenplays I read are cast adrift by circumstance; they’re poor and have no way out. In comparison, Sandra may not a well-educated woman, but she is ambitious and clever. When she is offered the job at the pub, we can see why; she’s canny enough to get in advance the ‘insider info’ necessary to impress the board of bosses. Jamie has a slight superiority complex when it comes to Sandra; he thinks he’s cleverer than her, like most teenagers. There’s a strong moment when Sandra warns him, a dangerous smile on her face, ‘Don’t make out I’m thick, Jamie.’ We wouldn’t dare!
• She’s emotional. The first word we hear from Sandra’s lips is ‘Slag!’, levied at Leah. Why a grown woman would have a vendetta with a school leaver is up for interpretation. Leah is cited AND shown as being a nuisance predominantly for playing her records at such loud volumes, not to mention she is also a shit stirrer, which is illustrated later when Leah tells Lenny (incorrectly) that Sandra aborted his baby. Incensed and hurt, Sandra does not wait to confront Leah; instead she marches round to the party Jamie and all his friends are at, to tell Leah it was actually a miscarriage (after assaulting her!). Jamie is mortified by his mother’s behaviour, not considering Sandra’s feelings as a human being, earning (rightfully) the sharp side of her tongue as well. This is a recurring conflict between them throughout the movie, in which she defends herself, on one occasion even raining frustrated (albeit light) blows on him. In other words, Sandra does her best and Jamie says it’s not good enough. This is a brilliant touch, because this is something (good) parents and their teenagers face every day: it’s authentic and feels real. So we empathise with Sandra, not Jamie, because Jamie is unduly harsh on his mother, as teenagers are typically wont to be. Yet the spec drama screenplays I read nearly always place a line in the sand between the teenager and the parent the reverse way: the parent is not interested in his/her child, they want it done ‘their way or the high way’, so we want the teen to get away.
• Sandra is still on Jamie’s side. Sandra is on Jamie’s case throughout the movie, whether it’s his truancy, doing his homework, wondering where he’s been or how he’s going to cope as a gay man in a hostile world. But, again, these are all things GOOD parents worry about, even if teenagers don’t see what the big deal is, or think that it’s none of their parents’ business. Despite this, however, Sandra will do whatever it takes for her son, which includes lying to his teachers on the phone… though she will also teach him a lesson for putting her in that position!
• Sandra is a Good Samaritan. Walking home from work one night, she discovers a morose Ste sitting by himself by the water: he’s received yet another beating from his father, Ronnie, this time for burning the dinner. Taking Ste home with her, Sandra announces Ste will be ‘top and tailing it’ with Jamie, before shouting through the letterbox next door to the unimpressed and abusive Ronnie that she’s looking after his son. So, in other words, Sandra is the catalyst for the story: had she not got involved, Ste and Jamie would never have been thrown together so intimately. This is interesting, because in most of the drama specs I read, if mother characters are there at all, they’re usually simply orbiting around the teenagers, not kicking off the story.
• The conflict is not what we expect. It would be very easy to have caused conflict between Sandra and Jamie by having her oblivious, or disapproving of him and/or his ‘way of life’. But Sandra knows her son is ‘not like other boys’ and there’s a poignant moment in the flat’s living room when Jamie challenges her to say he’s ‘weird’: ‘No… you’re alright. YOU’RE ALRIGHT,’ she insists. We sense that Sandra accepts who
Jamie is absolutely and this is illustrated perfectly in the resolution of the movie when she dances with Leah, as Jamie and Ste slow dance in front of all the other tenement residents. Instead, the conflict comes from Sandra’s concerns for Jamie, as an out gay man in a world that will not always be as accepting as she is.
On the surface, Beautiful Thing could have been your average nineties depressing drama: we’ve got poor teenagers; a housing estate; single mum; domestic abuse; smoking, swearing and drinking! Yet Beautiful Thing handles all this, plus its gay love story, with a whimsical, almost tongue-in-cheek vibe throughout. Again, it would have been so easy for Jamie and Ste to embark on a doomed love affair, further underlining that being a homosexual in today’s Britain is an isolating and painful experience. Yet Beautiful Thing sidesteps this predictable storyline with ease, instead showing us that acceptance, tolerance and understanding are indeed beautiful things.
What We Can Learn from Beautiful Thing
Write Tips:
• On the surface, Beautiful Thing may look like a ‘typical’ British film set in an urban area, but nothing can be further from the truth. Sometimes we can subvert expectations by seemingly giving producers, filmmakers and audiences what they purport to want, but with our own motivations firmly in mind. So if you feel that a certain group of people is underserved by drama, or are sick of stereotypes or particular ‘kinds’ of stories, go for it. In 1996, there had not been many stories about gay romances, which contributed to the success of Beautiful Thing. Can you think of a real-life issue or topic that has not been covered much (or only in one way) and bring it to life? If you can, you may find your drama story has people queueing up to help you!
• In order to do the above, make sure your characters are not ‘the usual’, but don’t make them so far out of left field that they’re totally unrecognisable either. Sandra works so well because she is what we expect, but in a totally new way. Her boyfriend, Lenny, isn’t the ‘usual’ addict boyfriend and domestic abuser we might expect, either; nor is Jamie the average drama protagonist, agonising over his homosexuality.
• Beautiful Thing is arguably as whimsical as Juno, yet this is a tone and story world script readers and filmmakers see very infrequently in British drama screenplays in the spec pile. Light and shade is SO important to drama, yet that misunderstanding amongst writers over ‘depressing drama’ continues to dominate spec screenplays. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned DEVASTATING drama, I’d venture a screenwriter is better off writing optimistic stories in order to get noticed, which means a stack more research is needed by writers in terms of watching them!
Selling Points:
• If you want to subvert expectation, you’re probably not the only one frustrated with the current status quo. Remember Gail Hackston’s ‘unusual’ cancer story, or the fact Noel Clarke was angry enough to write a screenplay ‘setting the record straight’ about how young people ‘really’ are… if you feel strongly about something, chances are others do too. So think of a story you’re passionate about and find others who are just as passionate. This is a shared dream, not just yours.
• It’s unlikely a realist British drama would be awarded as much as £1.5 million nowadays, so think of ways you can achieve something similar to Beautiful Thing for much less (i.e. £50,000–£500,000, like Night People and Kidulthood). Casting can be an issue for dramas, but in the opposite way to genre films: you may actively want unknown actors.
• Limited characters and locations are generally a must for a micro-budget to low-budget drama screenplay: 5–6 characters maximum and 3–4 locations is optimum. However, if you can make a few locations seem like more, or use a large cast in interesting ways (such as asking schools, youth groups or estate residents to ‘turn up’ and agree to being filmed, perhaps in return for food or drink), there are always ways round this if your producer is willing to think creatively. And do remember that, if you’re shooting on location, it helps if you know the area and its people well as you can use the goodwill you’ve generated.
• The songs in Beautiful Thing would have been very costly, just as all the snippets and references to Mary Poppins would have been in Saving Mr Banks. If you ‘need’ to include music in a realist drama spec feature screenplay, can you think of an alternative, e.g. a character is a singer-songwriter, who writes his/her own material? If that will not work, make sure you have a rock-solid story reason why your drama screenplay cannot do without it.
• Adaptations of plays can offer very real opportunities for spec drama screenplays: if your play does well, people are more likely to want you to make the film version. Look into staging your own and/or working with small theatre companies, many of which encourage new writers.
TRUE BLUE
WHAT IS ‘CHARACTER CHANGE’?
‘Character change’ is something lauded a lot online as a ‘good’ thing (especially by so-called writing ‘gurus’ and courses), regardless of the story being told. To be honest, I’m ambivalent about character change when it comes to genre screenplays; I even argue some of the most iconic protagonists, especially in thrillers and horrors of the last 30 years, hardly change at all. So, as with all writing endeavours, I don’t think a ‘one size fits all’ approach is either useful or necessary. And in the case of spec genre screenplays, this addiction to supposed ‘character change’ has actually created a load of NEW problems for those writers, because I have noticed a very sudden upturn in the spec pile of completely unnecessary prologues! In a bid to satisfy the gurus, box-ticking scribes desperately try to ‘shoe-horn in’ supposedly ‘character-building’ pasts (especially tragic ones), so their protagonists might ‘change’, regardless of whether the story warrants it or not. And guess what happens? Do we think, ‘Oh, I’ve seen WHY this character is a headcase; now I automatically care about him/her’? No, we do not. We are instead impatient, waiting for the story to start. This is NEVER a good idea when it comes to a spec genre screenplay, where it’s demanded we ‘hit the ground running’. In comparison, dramas frequently have protagonists who ‘change’ in some way, though often not in the way spec screenwriters might assume. Relying on that notion of a character’s (tragic) past will frequently do as little for the drama screenplay protagonist as it does for the one in the genre script, because prologues in any screenplay frequently perform a plot or story function, rather than a character one. What’s more, dramas need to ‘hit the ground running’ every bit as much as genre screenplays, because the demand is the same: do not bore us by making us wait!
DEVASTATING IS NOT A SYNONYM
Because of so many writers’ and filmmakers’ misunderstanding of what ‘struggle’ entails in drama, I want to break down precisely why Blue Valentine is ‘devastating’ and NOT depressing. On this basis, I will walk through what ALL spec drama screenplays should do to get the reader or audience on board, using Blue Valentine as an example with reference, not only to its concept and characters, but also to its logline, structure and the message (or ‘point’) behind the story.
First, ALL spec drama screenplays should do the following three things:
• Introduce us to the characters and story TOGETHER. The story of a marriage breakdown, we join the story of Blue Valentine with the couple’s little girl, Frankie. She crawls through the dog door – why isn’t the door opened for her?? – and wakes her father Dean (Gosling), who is asleep on the sofa. He is a devoted dad and immediately helps her look for the family dog, which is apparently lost. He goes outside, holding her, and beyond the house we see an open space of grass, which Frankie then runs out into. It is to all intents and purposes a beautiful scene: the sun is shining bright, the little girl is gorgeous, dressed in her finery, and we think, ‘The dog will turn up… any second… now.’ But it doesn’t. This seems a little odd, but we accept the dog not showing up, and Frankie runs back across the field, looking very much like she belongs in a John Singer Sargent painting. Dean plays with Frankie; they pretend to be tigers. They go through
to the bedroom where the mother, Cindy (Michelle Williams), is asleep. In comparison to Dean, Cindy is not happy to be woken, yet Dean and Frankie don’t appear to notice this. We expect Cindy to remember herself and go, ‘Oh, you guys!’ and join in, but she doesn’t. Instead she insists, ‘I’m SLEEPING!’, pulling the duvet over her head. This immediately gets us thinking again: where is the dog? Why is Frankie looking for it on her own, whilst her parents sleep? Why are the parents not asleep TOGETHER, whether on the sofa or in the bedroom? This sequence is only two or three minutes maximum on screen and occupies little space on the actual page, yet says EVERYTHING about the characters and where they are in the world at this moment, as we join the story.
• Start as it means to go on. Consider your own favourite dramas. Where do they begin? What is the first image we see? Most screenplays have no real ‘opener’ that sets the tone for the film. Instead, characters will be sitting thinking about ‘stuff’ or being miserable in some way. Now contrast this again with Blue Valentine’s opening image: a beautiful little girl, worried about a lost dog. It’s the story of a marriage breakdown, thus suddenly such a scene feels ominous, as we also figure even more will be lost as the story continues, which of course it is. What’s more, as the movie continues, we discover the dog does not return because it is dead: Cindy finds the deceased animal on the way to Frankie’s school play. When she arrives, crying, Dean does not wait for Cindy’s explanation but chastises her for being late. The dog is essentially Cindy and Dean’s marriage: it’s dead, but they just don’t realise it yet.