David Koepp is an all-timer screenwriter. He wrote some of the best movies of the last few decades, and has an undeniable talent. So any new Koepp movie will have some lessons to take away. Which brings us to his directorial debut, You Should Have Left.
Adapted by him from the German novel of the same name, You Should Have Left deals with a retired banker, his much younger starlet wife, and their daughter as they take a vacation in the Scottish countryside. As so often happens in the movies, weird things then begin to happen.
But today we’re going to look at Act 1 and the groundwork Koepp lays there.
Getting Specific
Pretty quickly Koepp’s abilities as a screenwriter shine through in the specificity of choices being made. There’s a more generic version of this movie where the main characters have vague white collar jobs that the movie speeds through to get them to Act 2 and the vacation home.
But Koepp takes time with the specifics of these characters. You can see this most clearly in the scene where Kevin Bacon’s character goes to visit his wife on set. She hasn’t put him on the list for the day, and he has to try and convince a PA to let him in. It’s a scene you don’t see in most horror movies, so it instantly pops more. Plus Koepp gets to use his direct knowledge of what film sets are like to make the scene lived in.
Finally, the set’s closed because it’s a love-making scene. We get the cringe comedy of Kevin Bacon and this random PA listening to his wife moaning while arguing with each other. But this also sets up the issue his character has, jealousy over his beautiful young wife and suspicion that she has been seeing someone behind his back.
The Take-Away
Taking the time to make specific and well-researched choices are an easy way to add some unique flavor to your script. We often talk about ways to make your script unique and stand out from the crowd, and this is a great option for that.