Script Analysis: “The Farewell” — Part 4: Themes

Read the script for the acclaimed drama comedy and analyze all this 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 The Farewell. You may download a PDF of the script — free and legal — here.

Written by Lulu Wang.

IMDb plot summary: A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies.

Writing Exercise: Explore the themes in The Farewell. 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 Karen Dantas for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for The Farewell, 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 Characters 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: The Farewell.

Onward!