Script Analysis: “Hustlers” — Part 4: Themes

Read the script for the surprise hit comedy crime drama and analyze all week.

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: Themes.

I have this theory about theme. In two parts. First, a principle: Theme = Meaning. What does the story mean? Second, while there is almost always a Central Theme, there are multiple other Sub-Themes at play in a story. Therefore the question, What does a story mean takes on several layers of meaning?

Time to ponder themes in Hustlers. You may download a PDF of the script — free and legal — here.

Screenplay by Lorene Scafaria based on a magazine article by Jessica Pressler.

Plot Summary: A crew of savvy former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

Writing Exercise: Explore the themes in Hustlers. What is its Central Theme? What are some of the related Sub-Themes?

Tomorrow we shift our focus to the script’s dialogue.

Major kudos to Priya Gopal for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for Hustlers, go here.

To read the New York magazine article the movie was based on, go here.

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

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

For Part 3, to read the Character 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: Hustlers.