"He's F-ing Perfect" Script Review

I'm seriously thinking about quitting Hollywood. I'm not kidding. This script was a thousand times worse than I thought it would be, and it's honestly made me rethink everything I'm trying to do as a writer. I'm embarrassed for this business. I'm nauseated that this person is going to get rewrite jobs and agents and managers and assignments from this. I simply can't believe it, and it infuriates me.

Let's go back to the beginning...

In my last post, I bitterly ranted against a screenplay entitled "He's Fucking Perfect", that sold for a million dollars.

I didn't know anything about this writer when I read the story about the sale. I looked up her name on IMDB and her only credit was Adam Mckay's assistant. Well, upon further digging, it seems that Adam Mckay and Will Ferrell are on board to produce this script. Ahhh, now things are making a bit more sense. But only a little. I have to assume that the only reason this sold is because of them, and because "Bridesmaids" was successful.

There were a lot of great comments on my post, including one from a person who had actually read it. Well, this weekend my friend Jamathew sent me the script, mostly because he enjoys seeing me get really, really angry.

After reading it, I have to say I respectfully disagree with many of your comments. First of all, the protagonist does not compare with Goldie Hawn in "Overboard". Goldie Hawn spends that entire movie getting her comeuppance. And we can believe she's actually changed, she's not at all the same person she was at the beginning of the film.

Secondly, I do think this is exactly the kind of movie Kate Hudson would do. And I did not find the script "funny" or "fresh". Here's my review:

One of the things that made me mad about this script before I read it was the premise: a girl who acts as a vetting service for her friends by cyberstalking the guys they are dating.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the script doesn't have the balls to commit to this premise. It's definitely there, but it's not like that's her job or anything. Yet it is a key part of the story, and the problem with it remains:

That's not a real thing. Everyone with a computer can do this on their own, they don't need their friend to do it for them. It's never explained why she is better at using google than anyone else. Her special ability appears to be going on Facebook.

Adding to the annoyance of it here is the term that is used for what she does for her friends. They constantly refer to it as a "check up". As in, will you do a check up for me on him? It made me uncomfortable just seeing that phrase. She was probably trying to avoid the characters saying "can you google him?" because it would reveal how obvious it is that anyone could do it.

And while I thought that was going to be the thing I hated the most about the script, it wasn't. There was a secret other thing lurking beneath this premise that I have railed about in the past.

It's a Three's Company episode.

The whole movie is watching a main character lie to the guy she likes and pretending to be someone she isn't. And this is no slight to the writer, really, but I cannot stand any movie that relies on this.

A perfect example of this is that Adam Sandler movie where he pretends Jennifer Aniston is his ex wife in order to get with Brooklyn Decker. "Just Go With It". We all have to sit and wait for an hour and a half for the inevitable truth to be revealed. Boring. We know it's all gonna come out eventually, there's no other outcome in these kind of movies.

And yet, they still get made all the time. I don't get it. It's unwatchable to me. Just tell the truth! This never works!

But beyond this issue, that may or may not be personal to me, the writing in this script is bad. It's fucking amateur hour. I mean, there is some promise, but clearly this is a young writer. If this were a grad student's screenplay, it would be acceptable.

But no, it sold for a million bucks. Thus, we must judge it a little more harshly.

The jokes aren't sharp. It's amazing that this is okay in the feature world, because it wouldn't fly on any show I've ever worked on. This girl would not do well in a writer's room, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around this quirk in the business. Here's this person who is now a success, who wouldn't be able to do what many struggling writers do well on a daily basis.

Some other issues with the writing:

There are cut away jokes in this script, it's like a bad version of 30 Rock. And there's no consistency to them. There's a few in act one, and not really any after that. They stand out like a sore thumb, or more accurately, a crutch. A way to wedge in jokes, and then when she didn't need to do that anymore, she stopped using them.

Once again, I'll say it: this wouldn't pass muster at 30 Rock, or Family Guy, or a lot of other TV comedies, so why does it work in movie land?

I lost count, but I think 5 different people have birthdays during this script, all to setup opportunities for people to give other people presents.

The word boo-ya and ex-squeeze me are used, and even worse, multiple characters use the phrase "gettin' your BLANK on". For example, "yeah, I'm ready to get my hungry on". I thought it was okay, though unpleasant, when one character did it. But then another and another did it and it was weird.

When you write a Three's Company style premise like this, there is always a scene at the end where all of the lies come out. It should be a big block comedy scene where craziness ensues and we see our protagonist ruined. This is done in this script in the laziest, joke free way possible.

This scripts exists in some alternate reality where loving reality shows is this crazy unique thing that no one does. Maybe it's set in 2003 and I missed it. Here's an action line from the script:

Jack turns on “The Bachelor”. Charlie looks dumbfounded, it’s
one of her FAVORITE guilt ridden reality shows

The writer tells us, the reader, to put a specific song on to listen to while reading her dumb words. Thankfully, she only does this once.

Every bad sitcom joke that has ever been done is here. Also, she constantly uses "hip" words to "hip up" the script. Food trucks! Tweeting! Youtube! Bikram Yoga! The Black Keys! Iphone Scrabble! A&E's Intervention! Bon Iver! It's like every girl in LA who I hate helped punch it up.

Sample dialogue:

Ok, so if you go into Google docs,
I started a file for us to share
info we find out. It’ll mostly be
me using it, but it’d be cool if
you start following him on Twitter,
read all his posts, see his
Twitpics, that sorta thing. And
then Foresquare, Yelp, and Linked
in, just to keep up on him.

One more:

CHARLIE
What are you listening to?
MADDY
Black Eyed Peas.
CHARLIE
Are you Ferg-a-licious?

The word "creepy" is used 18 times.

Every God Damn scene between the girls involves smoking weed. It's obnoxious and so showy. WE GET IT: Girls: they're just like us!

It's practically a Cheech and Chong movie for no reason. I went out with a girl who smoked a ton of weed and it was never in your face like this. It's like some crazy overcompensation because they are girls. Fuck off.

One last thing: at no point does any character in this movie do something that a real person would do.

I sort of feel bad about shitting on this script, but then I remember she got a million dollars for it and is more successful than me, and it makes me feel a lot worse.

An underlying problem in Hollywood is that in truth, there's only like 3 great screenplays every year. And they have to make a hundred movies. So everything else is like trying to polish a turd. Comparing this thing to "Crazy, Stupid, Love" is absurd, they're barely even the same art form. This is one of the 97 others, and I can't even believe it's one of those.

I should mention one caveat to all of this. A few years ago there was a script that made the Black List that made me almost as angry as this one did. And, as coincidence would have it, it was called "I Want to Fuck Your Sister". And people loved it. Everyone loved it. So this could totally explain why I haven't sold anything and Kate Hudson wants nothing to do with me.

On a positive note, this script may have changed my life. I have a meeting coming up with some new members of Team Handleman. They are in the feature business. And I will bring this script up to them and get their thoughts. If they hate it as I do, I will have some hope. If they love it, I'm moving to Wyoming and getting out of everyone's way. That might be for the best.