Story Type: Frustration Comedy
With movies, there are Genres. Cross Genres. Sub-Genres. Also Story Types. One of them: Frustration Comedy.
With movies, there are Genres. Cross Genres. Sub-Genres. Also Story Types. One of them: Frustration Comedy.
In Hollywood movie circles, there are genres like Horror or Science Fiction, cross genres like Action-Thriller or Drama-Comedy, and sub-genres like Romantic Comedy or Mystery Thriller.
Then there are story types, a shorthand way to describe a specific narrative conceit that is almost always tied directly to the movie’s central concept. They can be found in any genre, cross genre, or sub-genre.
Knowledge about and awareness of these story types can be a boost not only to your understanding of film history and movie trends, but also as fodder for brainstorming new story concepts. Mix and match them. Invert them. Gender bend them. Genre bend them. Geo bend them.
Story types exist for a reason: Because they work. Hopefully this series will help you make them work for you.
Today: Frustration Comedy.
There are all sorts of comedy story types. One of them is the Frustration Comedy. There are variations, but the basic dynamic is that the Protagonist or Co-Protagonists are frustrated over and over and over again in their attempts to achieve their goal. Oftentimes the goal is actually pretty simple, which makes the level of frustration that much more… well… frustrating.
In It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), a dying man provides a clue to a disparate group of strangers that promises to lead them to — literally — buried treasure ($350K). The all-star cast of characters has everything go wrong that can go wrong in their race to get to the money first.
In My Favorite Year (1982), young TV staffer Benjy Stone (Mark-Linn Baker) is given the responsibility of taking care of alcoholic movie star Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole) in the week leading up to Swann’s appearance on a hit 50s TV variety show. Swann repeatedly drives Stone crazy through his drunken antics.
In Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Neal Page (Steve Martin) gets stuck with fellow Thanksgiving weekend traveler Del Griffith (John Candy) and the pair endure one humiliating travel experience after another.
But probably the best example of this type of story is After Hours (1986).
In this dark comedy, directed by Martin Scorcese, Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), a meek word processor unexpectedly meets Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette), a beautiful but emotionally disturbed woman. He impulsively travels to Manhattan’s SoHo district in a quixotic attempt to go on a date with the fetching Marcy, but finds himself trapped in a nightmarish web of unlikely and bizarre characters and events. The frustration is amplified by the fact that underlying his journey is his romantic desire re Marcy, a tantalizing fantasy turned into a nightmare.
The compressed time frame, clean set-up, clear goal, and increasing insanity of obstacles, complications, and reversals, all of that can make for a winning formula for a script.
I love these type of stories, so it’s no surprise that I co-wrote several scripts with this plot conceit including Trojan War.
Can you think of other examples of a frustration comedy?
For story types posts, go here.