Page One: “Election” (1999)

Screenplay by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, novel by Tom Perrotta

A trailer for the movie:

A quote from the movie’s co-writer and director Alexander Payne:

Appeal comes from truthful and complex characters. I hate when movie people say, “Your lead character has to be sympathetic,” which for them means “likeable”. I don’t give a shit about “liking” a character. I just want to be interested in him or her. You also have to make the distinction between liking the character as a person and liking a character as a character. I mean, I don’t know whether I like Alex in A Clockwork Orange or Michael Corleone in The Godfather as people, but I adore them as characters. Besides, “liking” is so subjective anyway. So many American movies of the eighties and early nineties bent over backwards to make the protagonist “likeable” in a completely fraudulent way, and I detested them.

Takeaway: Instead of being concerned with writing a sympathetic Protagonist, focus on a compelling Protagonist.

Page One is a daily Go Into The Story series featuring the first page of notable movie scripts from the classic era to contemporary times. Comparing them is an excellent way to study a variety of writing styles and see how professional writers start a story.

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