Marsha Q’s post reminds me to nudge people to see Dave Eggers’ watchable little movie called “Away We Go.” It got some bad ink: ” . . . true to Gen-Y life, but uninteresting.” Okay, the deck is stacked in favor of the happy couple looking for a place to settle down, but anybody who writes and is looking for some structure would do well to take a look at the movie’s underpinnings. The principals go from locale to locale, looking for a place to settle down. Neat, huh? Lots of room for description, new characters on a regular basis, a a mini-arc in every setting (usually from curiosity to disappointment).
Aside: Sam Mendes directed (“American Beauty” among others) and he said he put aside doing “Middlemarch” for something lighter. No kidding, Sam.
Sometimes movies and often TV get a bad rap, but scripts are very economical. When I wrote for “Hill Street Blues,” I worked as hard on finding resonant language as I ever did working on a poem. And I didn’t have to get paid in contributor’s copies!
