Jallianwala Bagh

Note: I recently took down the 2nd Fellowship script review, Dream Before Waking, as I learned that it was a vastly different draft than the one entered in the competition.

Genre: Drama
Premise: In 1918 British occupied India, two 12 year old girls, one the daughter of an Indian servant, the other the daughter of a British Colonel, form a friendship.
About: Our third 2009 Nicholl's Fellowship winner.
Writer: Nidhi Verghese


We had a brief dip into the high-concept pool with our last Nicholl entry. Now it's back to the land of socio-political intensely dramatic period pieces for our third, and likely final, Nicholl submission (unless one of you can find me Sand Dogs). Jallianwala Bagh, for those who don't know, is the site of a horrible massacre that occurred in India during the British Occupation.

Not to belittle the people who lost their lives that day, but what the hell man? At what point would I need to inject caffeine into my veins to keep from going into a weeklong slumber. Page 10? 20? It's been awhile since I actually had fun reading a script and I was looking for a little escapism here. But the only escaping I was going to be doing was into the dreamworld. Yet I didn't even have that anymore after having to take down the last Nicholl script. Ah but that's the great thing about screenplays. Just when you think you've got'em figured out, they go and surprise you. As I began to read this, I found myself connecting with the story immediately. There's a voice here. A story that needs to be told. And there's a genuine emotional connection you form with the characters (and that the characters form with each other). For that reason, Jallianwala Bagh is my favorite of the four Nicholl scripts I've read.


Widower Colonel Foster has been sent to India during a very turbulent time in Britain's occupation of the country. Indians are getting restless and are retaliating against the occupation more aggressively every day. They are burning flags. They're attacking soldiers. Gandhi himself seems to be the only thing keeping the Indians from full out war.

Back at Colonel Foster's mansion, we meet his whip-smart but rebellious 12 year old daughter, Alison, whose Governess, Jane, is the physical embodiment of nails on a chalkboard. Since her mom is dead, and she's home-schooled, Alison has never had anyone she could truly call a friend. Over in the servant house a new family has arrived, led by a man with more anger inside him than any character I've read in recent memory, the imposing and heartless Amarjeeth. Amarjeeth is father to a son and a 12 year old daughter, the curious and beautiful Jusmeen.

Immediately we sense that something isn't right about their arrival. Securing this particular job didn't happen by chance. Amarjeeth has no intention of making Colonel Foster's garden the prettiest in India. He is planning something horrible, and he will do anything, including putting his own daughter at risk, to achieve his goal.


It is for this reason that when Jusmeen meets Alison, we fear that their friendship can only end badly. It is this unique and forbidden friendship where the script really shines. These two girls "from different sides of the tracks" can only meet in secret, as the Indian-British tensions have worked their way into the household. This creates a great source of conflict as we know that if either of them is caught talking to the other, the consequences will be catastrophic.

As Jusmeen and Alison's friendship deepens, Jusmeen finds herself in a key servant role which allows her access to the entire house. Amarjeeth realizes how valuable his daughter has now become, and pulls her into his plan, forcing her to make a choice between her friendship with Alison and her family.

As I read Jallianwala Bagh, I kept trying to figure out how this script kept me interested, where Victoria Falls lost me. There are a lot of similarities between the two scripts (so many that it concerns me just how open the judges were to all material). Both are about best friends from different sides of the tracks amidst countries in turmoil. What I realized was that Jallianwala Bagh gave the friendship between its main characters more importance, more weight. In Victoria Falls, the opening scene leads you to believe the script will be about these two young boys and their friendship. However a quarter of the way through, one of them leaves the country. The script then switches gears and becomes about the other friend protecting a farm. I think that choice left me cold and, ultimately, confused. I felt like I'd ordered a Big Mac and gotten a chicken sandwich.

Jallianwala Bagh works its way up to the friendship delicately, painting these two young girls' lives as vastly different, so that when they actually meet, we know that there's no way their friendship can last. The world they live in won't allow it. So there's this consistent urgency beneath every scene - one where we're always wondering, "Will this be their last time together?" Even when the script shifts into Amarjeeth's master plan, everything always comes back to that friendship.

It is another friendship, that between Hollywood and India, that gives this tiny story a chance to be made. It may be a period piece but it would be cheap if shot in India, and there aren't that many locations needed. You might even be able to convince Ben Kingsley to come back and play Gandhi. Jallianwala Bagh is a beautiful and heartbreaking story that I suspect will reward those who give it a chance.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Forbidden relationships make for great drama. Any time you put your characters in a position where, if they get caught, they'll suffer horrible consequences, it gives their scenes together an exciting undercurrent. It's no secret why Romeo and Juliet is one of the greatest stories ever told. The consequences for them getting caught by their respective families is devastating. Here in Jallianwala Bagh (a very fun title to type by the way - go ahead, try it) Jusmeen's father is such a tyrant, we're terrified of what he's capable of doing to Jusmeen if he catches her. Forbidden relationships are almost always more interesting than come-and-go whenever you want ones.

Victoria Falls

Genre: Drama
Premise: A look at the white commercial farming industry in Zimbabwe in 2002, the year of the first opposing political party to president Mugabe’s tyranic reign.
About: Victoria Falls is one of the winners of this year's Nicholl’s Fellowship. The Nicholl's Fellowship is considered by most to be the most prestigious screenplay competition on the planet. Although winning the Fellowship is by no means a path to success (many winners we never hear from again), there are some who have used it to launch great careers. Recently mentioned on the site are previous Fellows Ehren Kruger (1996) and Anthony Jaswinski (1997). Kruger's winning script was the excellent unconventional twist-ending thriller, "Arlington Road."
Writer: Matt Ackley

President Robert Mugabe

Victoria Falls, even on its best day, even with a great director, even with an A-List actor, is never going to light up the box office. It's just not that kind of movie. The themes are heavy here. The subject matter will challenge you. Thinking is a requirement. It feels like something you'd see nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.

What I like about Victoria Falls is that it's not what we think it is. Since the script is set in Zimbabwe, we're automatically assuming it's going to be about a bunch of oppressed Africans. Yet the focus is actually on a family of rich white farmers who are kicked off their land without reason by Zimbabwe's tyrant of a leader, the dreaded Robert Mugabe. What I don't like about Victoria Falls is that there are large sections of the script where I felt like I should be taking notes so I could ace my History test tomorrow. First and foremost to me, movies represent entertainment. And anytime I feel like I'm being taught something, I get squeamish. I think the true mark of a great historical or socially relevant film, is to teach you without you realizing you're being taught. And that wasn't my experience here.

So as long as class is in session, you're probably wondering what Victoria Falls is. It's actually the name of the biggest waterfall in Africa. And as you can see in the below picture, it's one of the few waterfalls where you can actually lay over the edge without going over. Because people need to lay over 700 foot waterfalls. Yeah, that's exactly what I want to do when I go to Africa. Right after I dive head first into a Volcano and swim into the heart of a tsunami.


The story centers around two best friends, poor Zimbabwe native Ojaji, and the rich white son of a local farming family, Nico. Nico's father is nearing the end of his working days and would like for Nico to take over the farm. But Nico has other ideas. He wants to grab a pot of the family gold and head over to America to party it up. And he wants Ojaji to come with him. The two are all set to bounce when Ojaji feels some guilt for leaving his crumbling country, a country where 10 trillion Zimbabwe dollars is worth 3 U.S. dollars. In an ironic twist of fate, he takes the job Nico was supposed to take, managing his father's farm.

Meanwhile, for the first time (In its history?) Zimbabwe has an opposition party. Mugabe, who is painted as a seriously bad dude, will do anything to squash the uprising. So in order to appeal to the masses, he promises that, if elected, the rich white farmers will be sent back to their country, and the locals will run all the farms themselves. It's a bold but effective claim. Zimbabwe is home to 5000 whites and 12 million blacks. Yet whites own more than 70% of the farmland. There's a predicable amount of animosity towards them as a result, and the chance to send them packing strikes a chord. Ojaji is then forced to become a bit of a politician himself, as he tries to save the farm from the relentless locals, who would like for nothing more than to burn the farmhouse down along with everyone inside it.

Zimbabwean politics. Farm management. An upcoming election. What more can you ask for in a piece of summer entertainment, right?


What we have here is a good writer who's maybe trying to do too much. I mean there's a lot going on in this script. We have the two best friends going off in different directions. We have a political battle between a renegade party and a dictator. We have Ojaji trying to run a farm. We have Ojaji's sister secretly promoting the opposing party. We have a strange love triangle between Ojaji, Nico, and an American woman. I just felt that at a certain point, we lost focus. What was Victoria Falls about? I wasn't always sure.

That's not to say the script isn't deserving of a Fellowship. There are some wonderful moments and the final act rewards you for your patience with an intense almost action-movie like ending. But the foundation of the story - asking us to sympathize for the rich white man amongst the poverty and struggles of so many less fortunate people - is a tough pill to swallow. From a purely story point-of-view, it's the same reason why I didn't like Friday Night Lights (the film). I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to root for a team that always won. I tend to pull for the underdog.

I'm happy the writer had this competition, because I'm not sure the script would've been recognized otherwise. If you liked Gaza or The Untitled Bill Carter Project, you might want to check this out. The subject matter here just wasn't my cup of tea, and ultimately kept me from falling for this story the same way the Nicholl's judges did.

Script link: **sorry guys - asked to take this down.**

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: This is a competition script. Plain and simple. You could send this logline to a thousand agencies and you'd probably get 999 rejections. But there's a lesson here. You need to understand how marketable your idea is before you type Fade In. Know that if you're going to write the next Victoria Falls, agents, producers, and managers will likely turn their cheeks. Contests will probably be your only route. Write something more mainstream with a hook, and the logline does the work for you - getting you reads everywhere you submit. As long as you know what you're in for, you can make a more informed decision and write any kind of screenplay you want.

Snatched

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A father takes a man he beleives is his daughter's abductor for a little ride.
About: Snatched is a 2008 Nicholl winner.
Writer: Lee Patterson


I’ve covered a lot of scripts here on Scriptshadow. I’ve given you million dollar sales. I’ve given you Black List scripts. I’ve given you adaptations and reviews where I haven't even read the script (click here for reference). But one script I haven’t given you is a Nicholl winner. For writers millions of miles away from Hollywood, winning a screenplay competition is their best bet at getting noticed. So I thought I’d show you exactly what a Nicholl-winning script looks like. Here is my review of Snatched.

You know Snatched has it going on after only a few pages. We learn that a young girl has gone missing. Her grade school teacher, Lewis, is devastated, as is everyone in the community. They all fear the worst. At the end of the school day a mysterious man, Jack, introduces himself to Lewis. Jack is the father of the missing girl and he’d simply like to talk to Lewis for a few minutes. For 15 pages, the two walk through the school, through Lewis’s classroom, vaguely discussing their personal ways of dealing with this horrible tragedy. But the genius of this scene is that everything that’s being said is secondary to everything that’s not being said.

Remember the scene in The Fugitive when Ford starts to realize that the cops aren’t asking him what he knows? They're accusing him of killing his wife. Lewis realizes that there's something similar going on here. So he makes up an excuse for having to leave early and ends the meeting with Jack. But when Lewis gets to his car, his tire is mysteriously flat. How convenient it is then, that he's offered a ride by the passing Jack? Of course Lewis is hesitant, but Jack gives him a poor sob story that makes Lewis question whether he misread their earlier conversation. So he gets in the car. And Snatched begins.

We find out that Jack's done his own investigation and he already knows who the kidnapper is. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Is Lewis, the most mild-mannered teacher in the history of grade school, the kidnapper? And if he is, is Jack's daughter still alive? Can she be saved? It's a smart decision by Patterson because it keeps Jack from wasting Lewis right then and there. Whether Lewis is the kidnapper/killer or not, he knows that that question is the only thing keeping him alive.

We've seen these vigalante justice scripts before. The damn things are becoming their own genre for Christ's sake. But this one gets it right. If you enjoyed Prisoners (sadly, no longer in my Top 25), I can pretty much guarantee you'll like Snatched.

There are a few areas I took issue with. There's a scene where Lewis gets away and Jack must drive through a mall parking lot to find him in a high stakes game of hide-and-seek. I understand that in theory this might work. But you ask the audience to make a huge leap of faith when your “protagonist” gets into a heavily populated area and your “bad guy” throws all logical thinking out the window and chases him anyway. Obviously, you gotta change things up when 80% of your script takes place in a car. But this was a moment where I thought, even a crazy person would’ve cut his losses and left.

***MAJOR SPOILER!***
The biggest issue I had with the script, however, was that in end, we’re subjected to the old tape recorder trick. The one where the good guy is secretly recording the killer’s confession and then proudly shows him that "AH-HA! I WAS RECORDING YOU ALL ALONG!" I’m actually kind of baffled that writers still use this as it’s literally been used 10 billion times - 9 billion of those on 90210 and Melrose Place. Then again, what do I know? The Inside Man, one of the biggest heist flicks of all time, and Michael Clayton, a movie that was nominated for an academy award, both used the “tape recorder trick”. Maybe it's me who's the dummy for not using it.

Both of these were minor issues compared to what was otherwise a solid script. I think you guys will like this one. Check it out.

[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The power of subtext! Conversations are always more interesting when what people say and what they actually mean are two different things. The first fifteen pages of Snatched are a mastercourse in this technique. Pay attention to how the most innocent line can have a multitude of meanings when you realize that Jack is probing Lewis for information.