Script Analysis: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” — Part 3: Characters

Read and analyze the script for the Award-winning drama.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Characters.

Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.

But there’s this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. Hence my principle: Character = Function. Writers can shade and shape a story’s character in limitless ways. But if you dig down deep enough, you can find each character’s narrative function, and that can become a lens through which you develop the players in your stories.

Same thing with script and movie analysis: Look at each character and think about why they exist and what their function is.

This week: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. You can download the script here.

A list of the key players:

Fred Rogers

Lloyd Vogel

Andrea

Jerry Vogel

Mr. McFeely

Bill Isler

Ellen

Lila Vogel

Screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster, inspired by an article by Tom Junod.

IMDb plot summary: After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor.

Writing Exercise: Think about each character. What’s their function?

Major kudos to Karen Dantas for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, click here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Plot discussion, go here.

To access over 70 analyses of previous movie scripts we have read and discussed at Go Into The Story, go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.