There is a particular pleasure in watching a genre film that knows exactly what it is and leans into that identity without embarrassment. Tuner arrives as one of those rare festival (TIFF, Sundance) discoveries that feels both comfortingly familiar and unexpectedly alive. It is a crime drama that moves with the rhythm of a musical, a character study disguised as a heist film, and a love letter to craft in all its obsessive, misunderstood beauty. It is also, quite simply, one of the most entertaining surprises of the year.

Directed by Oscar winner (2023 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Navalny) Daniel Roher in his narrative debut, and written by Daniel Roher & Robert Ramsey, Tuner plays like a collision of influences filtered through a distinctly personal lens. Watching it, you might find yourself thinking of Whiplash, Baby Driver, Thief, or Sound of Metal. Not because the film is imitating those works, but because it understands the same truth they do. Sound is not just texture. It is story. It is psychology. It is identity. Tuner builds its entire world around that idea and commits to it fully.

The film centers on Niki, a soft spoken piano tuning apprentice whose life revolves around precision, patience, and listening. He suffers from an acute sensitivity to sound that has ended any hope of a performance career but sharpened his perception to near supernatural levels. Played by Leo Woodall in a quietly assured breakout performance, Niki is a study in restraint. Woodall carries himself with a calm that feels learned rather than natural, as if silence is something he has had to earn. There is an intriguing mix of stoicism and nervous energy in his work here, recalling the internalized intensity of a young Ryan Gosling blended with the jittery unease of Michael Pitt. It is a performance built on micro expressions and physical control, and it anchors the film beautifully.

Niki works under the guidance of Harry, an aging piano tuner played by Dustin Hoffman with a warmth and cantankerous charm that never slips into sentimentality. Harry sees piano tuning as an art form, a sacred craft passed down through listening and repetition. Everyone else treats it like plumbing. Hoffman leans into that tension, delivering a performance that feels both affectionate and weary, like a man who has spent a lifetime defending something fragile against a world that does not care to understand it. Their relationship begins with humor and routine, then deepens into something unexpectedly moving as the story unfolds.

What begins as a lightly comic look at an eccentric profession slowly morphs into something more dangerous. Niki discovers that the skills he uses to tune pianos can be applied elsewhere. The careful listening. The sensitivity to internal mechanics. The ability to hear what others cannot. Suddenly, his gift has value beyond music, and not all of it is innocent. The film follows a familiar trajectory from that point, one that anyone versed in crime cinema will recognize. New associations form. Moral lines blur. Personal relationships are threatened. Escape becomes harder the deeper one goes.

Tuner does not pretend to reinvent the genre. It follows its structure closely, almost musically so. The pleasure comes not from surprise but from execution. Roher and Ramsey understand that formula endures for a reason. There is satisfaction in watching inevitability unfold when it is handled with confidence and flair. The film knows when to push forward and when to pause, allowing character beats to land without undercutting momentum.

Where Tuner truly distinguishes itself is in its sensory design. The sound work here is extraordinary. Roher places the audience inside Niki’s head, using subjective sound to make us feel the world as he does. Quiet becomes thunderous. Small details become overwhelming. Silence becomes sanctuary. The sound design does not merely support the film. It drives it. Paired with a jazzy, propulsive score and rapid, rhythmic editing, the result is a viewing experience that feels almost tactile. The film hums with energy even in its quietest moments.

Roher’s background as a documentarian shows in the procedural details. The safe cracking sequences are filmed with care and curiosity, cross cut with the same attention to process as the piano tuning scenes. Both are treated with equal reverence. This parallel is not accidental. Tuner is deeply interested in the idea of craft and how society assigns value to it. Music is romanticized. Crime is sensationalized. The work itself, the labor, the obsession, is often overlooked. The film insists on honoring that labor, even when it leads to morally compromised places.

The supporting cast adds texture without pulling focus. Hoffman remains a grounding presence even when absent from the screen, his influence felt in Niki’s decisions and doubts. A gentle romantic subplot provides emotional stakes without overwhelming the central narrative. It functions less as a distraction and more as a mirror, reflecting the cost of Niki’s choices back at him in human terms.

Tonally, the film walks a delicate line. It shifts from comedy to drama to thriller without ever fully abandoning its sense of play. There are moments of genuine humor, often drawn from character rather than situation. There are also moments of tension that land because the film has taken the time to build trust with its audience. Roher is not afraid of familiarity, and that confidence allows him to elevate material that could easily feel routine in lesser hands.

The ending deserves special mention. Without revealing specifics, it is bold, satisfying, and emotionally precise. It understands the story it has been telling and closes on a note that feels earned rather than imposed. It is the kind of ending that reframes what came before without betraying it. A rarity in this genre and a testament to Roher’s control as a storyteller.

Tuner is not trying to be a sprawling epic or a reinvention of crime cinema. It is a smaller film with a clear voice and a strong sense of identity. It creates melody out of chaos. It takes a simple idea and extracts every ounce of dramatic potential from it. Even when the narrative beats feel predictable, the experience never does. The film is too alive, too attentive, too committed to its sensory world to slip into autopilot.

Leo Woodall emerges here as a compelling leading man, not through bravado but through stillness. Hoffman reminds us why his presence still carries weight. And Daniel Roher announces himself as a filmmaker who understands that rhythm, tone, and perspective matter as much as plot.

This is exactly the kind of movie festivals are built for. A crowd-pleasing genre piece with soul. A film that respects its audience enough to entertain without condescension. Tuner listens closely. And in doing so, it finds its own distinct sound.

Tuner is now playing in Theaters.

The post ‘Tuner’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

Back in 2005, Laïla Marrakchi’s feature debut Marock premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, nominated for the Un Certain Regard award. Twenty-one years later, her third film, Strawberries (La Más Dulce) just premiered at Cannes (May 12-23). What does this full circle moment mean to her? “It was really moving yesterday to show the film to the audience. The actresses and crew were there. It was amazing.”

Strawberries revolves around two women, Hasna (Nisrin Erradi) and Meriem (Hajar Graigaa), who bond while working in the strawberry fields in Spain. Trying to persevere over harassment, abuse, and exploitation is at the nexus of their friendship.

Marock, which Laïla wrote solo, was a very personal story for her. Strawberries was new territory and she appreciated writing it with Delphine Agut (Souleymane’s Story, Inshallah a Boy), so much so that she now prefers writing with someone. “I think it’s more interesting to write with someone. You can do ping pong. You can [go] back and forth, share thoughts and information. The beginning of this film is a situation that’s new to me. I needed someone to help me build that world.”

Her sophomore feature, Rock the Casbah (2013), didn’t go to Cannes but received accolades at the Toronto International Film Festival, Washington DC Film Fest, and the Dubai International Film Festival. All of her films have female leads. This is the first one that doesn’t have a comedic component.

Strawberry Fields

Spain’s GECCO program recruits women from Morocco to work in their strawberry fields. This labor that doesn’t have enough oversight has been going on since 2021. It can provide more income for widows or divorcees, but it also puts the women in vulnerable positions. Most of the strawberry picking takes place in the Huelva region of Andalucia and the women go there with no clue about what they’re getting into. Their desperate positions make them targets for exploitation. They’re isolated and subject to being sexually assaulted, not paid for overtime, and getting paid egregiously late.

It took six years for Laïla and Delphine to complete this story because they wanted to make sure it was right. During their research they came across numerous stories of female strawberry pickers being abused, assaulted, and exploited.

“All the people I met had heavy, complicated stories. It was exhausting. It’s difficult to leave your country. These women come to Spain for three months. They don’t speak the language. They’ve left their families, including their children, behind,” Laïla told Script magazine.

Laïla and Delphine were able to make the story as authentic as possible by digging deep when researching and observing.

Laïla Marrakchii: The actresses also brought a lot of authenticity to the roles.

Sonya Alexander: What else did you do during those six years?

Laïla: I worked on three television shows. Damien Chazelle’s The Eddy, Carême, and L’Opéra.

Sonya: How did you find your position of observation in this story?

Laïla: In the beginning of the process, the story was supposed to be from the point of view of the Spanish lawyer. Then I changed it because I didn’t feel I could tell it through this point of view. I decided to tell it from the point of view of Hasna. Also, I had to talk to my Director of Photography Tristan Galand about finding distance in the story.  The first part of the film is more like a documentary. Just observing and following the main character. When the Spanish lawyer appears in the middle of the film, the film becomes more fictional. It becomes more about the lawyer’s investigation.

Sonya: If you were Hasna, what would you do?

Laïla: I’m kind of like Hasna. I talked about that with Nisrin, the actress who plays Hasna. Hasna’s strong. She’s afraid of emotion. She’s fighting. She’s sometimes selfish. [laughs] I know each of my characters well.

Sonya: What was the casting process for this?

Laïla: At first I wanted to use unknown actresses but after the film is done, that becomes complicated. I changed my mind and decided to use real actresses and I’m happy that I did.

Sonya: What do you want people to take away from this film?

Laïla: My main goal is for these women to be viewed differently. They are strong, they are loving, they are messy. Usually when we show these women, they are victims, they are poor. They’re a certain cliché. I want to show them as human.

Sonya: What else are you working on?

Laïla: I just finished this film last week…! I’m still doing some post-production on it. It premiered yesterday at Cannes. When I saw Delphine yesterday, I told her I have some new ideas. I might begin a new project this summer.

إنتاج سينمائي (Filmmaking)

Sonya: How did you first get into filmmaking?

Laïla: I’m a cinephile. I grew up in Morocco and for me cinema was a window to the world. I spent a lot of time watching movies when I was a child and teenager. My uncle was a distributor of films in Morocco. There were a lot of 35mm screenings at his place. I felt cinema was my place, but I didn’t have the tools. Nobody around me was a director or filmmaker. I could be a producer or distributor, but didn’t think I could be a filmmaker. When I came to Paris, France, I decided to go to cinema school but I wasn’t confident. I didn’t know any Arab filmmakers. It was a journey to become a filmmaker. Step by step it became possible for me.

Sonya: Do you prefer writing or directing?

Laïla: Directing. I love working on set, with my crew and actresses. Writing is a long process for me and it’s difficult. I like it, but it’s not my favorite thing.

Sonya: What do you want your next story to be about?

Laïla: A love story maybe. Also, it may be set in France since I’ve lived here a long time and I’ve never done one set here.

Sonya: What would you consider a perfect day for you on the set? That could be for this film or just in general.

Laïla: There are no perfect days! ]laughs] There are always problems that you need to resolve. You can be creative solving problems though. When you have constraints, you can be more creative. It’s magical sometimes when you do a scene and you get it in one take. After that, you might do another take because you want to do better, but you never find what you had before. It was perfect that first time.

Strawberries premiered on May 18, 2026 at Cannes. It also stars Fatima Atiff, Itsaso Arana, and Fran Cantos.

The post Keeping a True Story Authentic, Even as Fiction: Laïla Marrakchi Discusses ‘Strawberries’ appeared first on Script Magazine.

When social commentary and body horror meet, you know you’re in for a doozy – and not in a negative context. It holds a mirror up to society, and you’re not going to like what you see. But is there hope at the end of the day? Maybe. On an individual level, perhaps. It does take work, and a whole lot of understanding, with a heavy sprinkling of compassion and empathy. And that ladies and gents, is what we’re wonderfully and thoughtfully served by writer-director Natalie Erika James’ latest feature, Saccharine.

The film examines the diet culture and eating disorders in all it’s out of whack glory. And in doing so, centers a young woman yo-yoing her body and mind into oblivion. And while there seems to be a road to closure and catharsis, Natalie gives us a nudge, knocking you off course… with that ending. No spoilers. You’ll just have to watch to experience for yourself.

Natalie Erika James discusses with Script her personal connection to the film and exploring it through a horror lens, the importance of dialing in the visual language, her collaboration with her prosthetics team in designing Hana’s physical and emotional decline, and what she hopes audiences take away from the film.  

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Let’s first talk about finding your way into this story and tapping into that vulnerability.

Natalie Erika James: I think, in a way, I’ve been writing this film for so many years. As you can probably tell by the film, a lot of it is drawn from personal experience growing up with parents who really are on opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of how they cope with food or deal with their… When I was growing up, there were no films that felt like that to me or were really exploring that subject matter in this particular way. So, I think I always knew I wanted to tackle it.

Horror is a real passion of mine, but this one felt particularly suited to horror because of the feeling of being in the grips of an eating disorder can often feel like something that’s both internal, but almost like something external taking control, or something like a presence that’s lying in wait and there’s almost like a sense of possession in that. Doing things that one part of your brain is like, ‘stop,’ and the other is the primal part of you, ‘keep going.’ So, I felt like the way to externalize that internal feeling was through this spectral figure.

And I definitely borrowed from the logic of Dorian Gray, like the picture of Dorian Gray, in terms of the ghost getting larger the more that she ate, and the painting getting older. So that was really the starting point.

Sadie: I won’t go into spoiler territory, but that ending, I felt so devastated, because there was a sense of hope and this turning point for Hana. There’s so many layers to her and her journey.

Natalie: Yeah, I guess in a way, it’s a character who’s moving from self-destruction to self-compassion, right? For me, it’s still a very hopeful film. But what I was trying to do with the ending was to, I guess, pitch it in that cautionary tale space, because there’s that classic thing about recovery being nonlinear.

And I think that’s so true… it’s not a place that you just arrive at and that’s it forever. It requires kind of constant vigilance, and obviously, with everything happening at the moment, and with that pendulum swinging back to thinness as the aspirational ideal, and the media images that we’re constantly bombarded with, I think it puts people in a really vulnerable spot, because we’re not impervious to the messaging that we’re getting constantly.

It felt more truthful to me to kind of pitch it in a place where she really has this moment where she’s given the chance to bear herself and to be fully seen and accepted by Alanya. But it’s too much for her in that moment and of course, it has these really destructive consequences. And I think, that is so tied to how much we can dismantle shame within ourselves.

Sadie: It’s absolutely devastating, and layering it with a generational connection and how do you break that cycle? But again, that ending, off. [laughs]

Natalie: [laughs] When I met Midori Francis for the first time, one of the first things she brought up was, ‘I love a happy ending, though. Does it have to end this way?’ [laughs] Which I totally appreciate. But I think, in a way, I guess all you can do is convey something as truthfully as you can.

Sadie: The visual language of this movie, and your collaboration with your DP – how much of your background as a music video director and directing commercials influenced dialing in those emotional beats, like those fantastic close ups?

Natalie: In terms of where I started, I was definitely making short films first, and then, as you do post film school, doing music videos and trying to keep earning a living with commercials… but at the same time, still having that narrative sensibility and always wanting to direct features.

But I think this film in particular, was quite montage heavy, and that is because of that passage of time that you have to convey in a character that’s transforming in the 12 weeks that Alayna’s program sets her on.

So, music videos… the language of montage kind of is related to that, in terms of rhythm and what you’re conveying through visuals and music. There was a joy in not just leading into the heavier horror aspects of an eating disorder, but also on the flip side, pointing at the feelings, which can feel very like, I guess, conveying a sugar rush, in a way, like the ecstatic thrill of that, and laying the parallels to desire in all forms, and that’s the lust, as well as the consumption of food, as well as, these really sensual, bodily kind of experiences. It’s oppressive, but it’s the balance of the pain and the pleasure that makes it so harrowing in a way.

Sadie: Another thing you’re doing here is playing with Hana’s POV. There’s a scene specifically in her apartment where it feels like she’s hallucinating and we’re seeing Bertha, or are we, is she? But on top of that is how you fully utilize the space of that apartment

Natalie: Hana inhabits a lot of different spaces. There’s the gym, which is more Alayna’s world and more poppy, and the university clinical setting as well. But her apartment really had to be almost cocoon-like, or womb-like in a way. A lot of what we drew on in terms of the design of the space was the human body. And the walls are kind of cadaver like, and there’s a lot of layered set dressing and kind of mess that she accumulates, and it’s taken away by her mom, but then brought back in by herself.

And so much of that is about, how much are you keeping in control? Because I think that’s one of the driving forces of the eating disorder is the need to control something, or control how you’re perceived, or how you feel like in the world, which can feel very unsafe. So, the body was something that we homed in on. I guess the whole film is very textural and bodily in experience, so the architecture really needed to mirror that as well.

With the cinematography, like the perception of herself within the space was something that we talked about a lot as well. All of these intense binges that she has, they’re within the privacy of her own space, but we wanted to make sure that we utilize, even down to the lens choice of how her view of herself shifts over time. And so, we start with lenses that are a little bit longer to compress the space, and then over the course of the film, they become slightly wider as well as she gets smaller too. There’s certain psychological cinematic language choices that kind of just operate under the surface.

Sadie: As grotesques as the film can get, it’s also very visually pleasing to watch. In terms of your collaboration with your prosthetics team – you could have gone totally overboard with her look. However, it didn’t feel inappropriately portrayed, it didn’t feel like you were shaming anyone, and yet there was a very specific aesthetic to it all.

Natalie: It was a real focus for us. One of those make-or-break things for the film, in terms of Hana’s transformation. There was so much that was put into both the design process, but also how is an audience receiving her and what are we saying about her transformation? I think it was really important that it looked as natural as possible and as seamless.

Obviously, historically, prosthetics like that are almost like a punchline to a film, and so completely flipping that on its head so that was not a consideration. And if anything, she looks healthier at the start of the film, because as we move along, she is obviously losing too much weight, and then she starts to become very gaunt as well. And there were seven stages to convey that decline. On top of that, of course, Bertha’s growth over the film that she has four stages as well, played by two actors.

The prosthetics team did such an incredible job of layering those stages with in terms of monstrosity, I think it’s more about like decay, like she becomes more monstrous and more inhuman, but I think always with we’re seeing the film through Hana’s eyes, and it’s so much about her projection onto this figure that seems to be haunting her, but it’s really just a mirror to herself. And that’s why it was so important to really humanize Grace or Bertha at the very end of the film, and for Hana, for it to hit that that’s a person that is not only of value, but is intensely loved as well.

Sadie: As a director, you’re asking a lot from an actor in this piece, there’s a lot of vulnerability on display here. What kind of conversations or guidance were you sharing with Hana along the process of filming this, to make sure she felt safe?

Natalie: It’s so emotionally and physically taxing for an actor to be in a horror film, and particularly when they’re in every frame of the film, pretty much, [laughs] she’s in every single scene, apart from, the opening titles. I think it’s a testament to her stamina, but also commitment to the project that she powered through.

We worked really closely with an intimacy coordinator as well, and some of that process was in when you get your nervous system that amped up, how do you also let that go in this somatic way, which I think is super powerful as well.

And in terms of tracking the character because of the prosthetics and having to shoot out of order, we really group them by days, at the very least, in terms of where she was at in the script. So, it was really just constant recalibration.

To be honest, it was like coming back to lived experience, in a way, and kind of going, ‘OK, this is the intent of the scene,’ and being able to find common ground on that. We were really deeply connected on set, and probably one of the most rewarding actor-director experiences I’ve ever had. She’s not only just so talented and phenomenal, but just so willing to trust and experiment, I couldn’t have been happier with that experience.

Sadie: What do you hope audiences take away from watching this movie?

Natalie: Even though it does kind of flip into this cautionary tale, it’s still one of hope. And I think I have certainly had times in my life where I felt kind of trapped by what was happening in my head and the ideas that I had about myself – the main message is that compassion, whether that’s through other people, or for yourself, can really be a way out.

Saccharine releases in Theaters on May 22, 2026.

The post Externalizing Internal Feelings: A Conversation with ‘Saccharine’ Horror Filmmaker Natalie Erika James appeared first on Script Magazine.

Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord is the most recent animated offering from Lucasfilm in a galaxy far, far away. Telling the story of Maul, the villain from 1999’s The Phantom Menace, bridging his time between the events of The Clone Wars television series and his brief cameo appearance in 2016’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. For more than 20 years, Lucasfilm Animation has been producing Star Wars shows. Since the early seasons of their first offering, The Clone Wars, Matt Michnovetz has been part of the writing stable there, working under Star Wars creator George Lucas and now-Lucasfilm top-boss Dave Filoni. Across a myriad of animated productions, Michnovetz is the head writer for Maul — Shadow Lord, whose first season came out across April and May of this year. Prior to that, Michnovetz was a staff writer on 24.

According to the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Shadow Lord has been the single highest rated debut for a Star Wars show since the franchise has been on television with a near perfect score. Though every television show is a team effort, and the entire team definitely deserves credit, Michnovetz deserves quite a bit of that credit himself, both as head writer, and for scripting a number of episodes personally.

Script magazine had the opportunity to dive deep into the writing of the show, the lore of Star Wars, and how the work of bringing a dark character like Maul to life in a franchise as intrinsically hopeful as Star Wars was done.

Bryan Young: I really want to talk about the process of writing Maul, what it’s like breaking down this season of the show, and what your role is there to start with.

Matt Michnovetz: Dave [Filoni, Executive Producer, Creator] called me up and we got together in a room and then we brought in Brad [Rau, Executive Producer, Supervising Director] and then we brought in Athena [Portillo, Producer] and Josh Rimes [Executive Producer] and the creative executives. And Dave kind of laid out what the show was, what he wanted to do.

I worked with him to develop the pilot. And then I started writing the pilot, and we started figuring out who we wanted as writers. I wanted to put together my crack team, basically, my all-stars.

The pilot went through a number of iterations. We had a bunch of things we were doing in it that we had worked on that wasn’t working. We changed and we pushed and stuff like that.

So then when we had a good idea, we set out to hire the writers. So, we got this group of creatives and writers and our producers in a room and we went back to the old days of The Clone Wars where we would break the season at Skywalker Ranch.

Athena, Alex Spotswood [co-Executive Producer], and Filoni were able to get us a room up there and we sequestered ourselves for like a week in one of the old rooms that I used to write The Clone Wars with George [Lucas] in.

It was terrifying and challenging, but also super exciting.

George created the ranch basically for creatives and to like permeate… all this inspiration of ideas.

We just wrote and had dinners together and we were constantly talking and throwing these ideas around and so on. That’s the actual writers conference. Before the writers conference, I had drawn up, basically what we call a pre-conference with like Mandy [Amanda Rose Muñoz, Associate Story Editor] and Brad and Athena and Josh, and then we’d pitch it to Filoni, and he would give us notes, and then we’d fine tune it. So I went into the conference, not with a blank slate, but with an agenda.

We basically broke two stories a day, roughly, because I had written the pilot, and I had an idea where it ended, so, almost two stories a day. And we just broke out the beats, and we fleshed it out and then we would pitch it to Filoni and get notes and feedback and then revise and just keep going and kind of go through 102 to 109, roughly.

Then we’d leave.

We’d get the notes back and I would assign scripts and then the writers would go off to outline on the first five, if I recall. Then they’d start writing those, and then we’d get outlines on the back four, or whatever it was.

They’d start writing those. In the process, we’d rewrite, revise, and have meetings.

We had a follow-up conference later that year to go back over the back five and, at that point, flesh out 110 [the finale episode, The Dark Lord]. And to make sure that everything was working and that we felt strongly about it. It’s a constant process and we do Zooms and things in the meantime and get notes and revisions and stuff like that.

BY: With Maul specifically, how much conversation was there around working on balancing the tone? Listening to George Lucas over the years talk about Star Wars, at its most essential, is about brightness and hope and teaching folks how to act and be and essentially, and here you are centering Maul. And Devon, an impressionable Padawan, having trouble making decisions about where to go—which is not necessarily uncharted territory for George, looking at Anakin’s journey—but how what were the discussions like among the writers, and with yourself in the episodes you were writing, about how to balance that tone?

MM: First and foremost, with writing Maul, and in particular to the kind of themes you’re discussing, we rely on Sam [Witwer, Consulting Producer and voice of Maul], like 100%, too, because he’s the expert. He’s the voice. So, he was a huge creative part of it, and a huge help in the creative process.

Dave and I had talks early on, and then we talked with the exec-producer and the writers about exactly what you’re saying. This is the first time we’ve done a show centered around a villain, a bad guy. I mean, Maul’s not a good guy. He’s not an anti-hero. He’s not a hero. He’s just, he’s evil. He’s bad. He’s a murderer. But it’s about a bad guy fighting worse guys, and that was interesting to us, and the fact that we were able to create Devon and these new characters and see how they were affected by him and the choices they would make.

All the characters, including Maul, are affected by this force of nature, Vader, when he comes in at the end. The rest of the season is about them being affected by Maul and what his choices are and how it brings down them.

We weren’t gonna make him sympathetic, if anything, you understand his character better, I think. And the choices he makes that affect others, but we weren’t going to make him a hero by any means.

We also wanted to keep him as mysterious as possible, but also keep him true to form.

He’s the devil.

Every deal they make is a Faustian deal with this guy, no matter where it leads. It was challenging. It still is.

It’s going to be immensely challenging for season two.  And season one was very, very difficult in making sure that we were not giving people the wrong impression, making sure that they understand that the things he does are wrong.

That became a driver for the series, which was defining the difference between good and evil, but shading it in ways that made great stories and great moments for our characters, whether they make the right choices or bad choices. In the darkest of times, people who make the right choice, the good choice, they’re a better person.

Like what Master Daki tries to inspire. Like some of what Lawson tries to inspire being a lawman. They rise to become heroes, you know?

It’s a theme that’s going to be important in the next season as well.

BY: It felt like there was an element of The Godfather. Yeah, Michael Corleone is the bad guy, but we like him because he’s slightly less bad than all the other bad guys we see. But Devon in the middle of that, on that Anakin Skywalker scale, as she’s interacting in that first episode with Master Daki, you see her struggling with the same things Anakin was in Revenge of the Sith, where the Jedi aren’t really giving great answers in a world, they’re not equipped to deal with.

Evil has forced their hand, so they’re doing the best they can, whether or not they succeed is a different story.

As you were working with Star Wars, what is it about Star Wars in your writing that you find different than working on other properties or even your own original work?

MM: There’s a lot. You know, it’s weird because while there’s a lot more to be aware of, and there’s a particular tone and cadence to Star Wars, aside from all the Star Wars of it, right?

A lot to get approved, obviously, a lot to consider.

Have we done that before?

But, you know, it’s an IP. We’ve done that before. Have we not done that before?

But at its core, the stories, the morality, creating the depth to the characters and finding new ways that are exciting to do it that we haven’t seen before is something that I try to keep in mind and struggle with, with everything I work on.

In every form, you know what I mean? That’s the key to writing, I guess.

Star Wars is complicated and it’s hard. The hardest thing is just making great original characters whose choices seem natural and organic and don’t feel like they’re driven by the plot as opposed to the character themselves. And that’s something that is universal with everything I write.

You know, am I doing this because I want to see a big action sequence? Or am I doing it because I’m forcing the drama? If you do it right, I think the drama’s natural and it’s organic but that’s harder said than done.

BY: What for you is the key to unlocking a scene to make that feel organic for you, when you’re sitting there at the keyboard?

MM: Yeah, it’s funny. Because when we break the story and we have the beats, we try to get as much detail in there for the writers and for myself as well when I’m doing it for myself. You know where it’s going, and you know what the next beat you’ve got to get to is, whether it’s exactly the following scene or whether it’s a couple scenes later, wherever the character’s going, you know what it is. And then you get into the scene and you’re like, well, I don’t know if that’s going to make any sense.

That’s why we write on note cards a lot, so we can move them around.

One interesting sidebar is that we have the whiteboard that we write on and we have these magnetized dry erase board pieces. So, we don’t just write on the board, so we’re constantly erasing. We have a stack of these magnetized things, and we can write on them and put them all on the table, then we can slap them up, pull them down, slap them up, move around. That’s helpful because, to your point, you see that as you’re into the scene, you’re like, ‘well, wait, no, that’s not going to make a sense. They wouldn’t do that or that’s, or wait, here’s an opportunity.’

Because I’m in the mindset of this character and knowing what I know. And as that character, and having those emotions, I wouldn’t do that. So, we gotta say no, it’s gonna go in another direction. We’re gonna choose the left-hand path on that one. You know what I mean?

And to go back to your other question too, which is great, is that one thing with Star Wars we try to do that I don’t necessarily have to do, but the mandate to do, and also is part of the DNA, is that Star Wars also has to be fun.

So, I try to make everything I write fun. Sometimes some of the stuff can be incredibly dark, incredibly heavy, or just terrifying, playing on the genre.

But with Star Wars, we have tremendous opportunity to get into moments of comedy, and then immediately have a moment of transition that goes into either a thrill or action or tension, and then throw a little bit more comedy. Just have the fun and roll with it.

Those are some of things that we learned from George that he does so well. It’s so brilliant. You look at A New Hope and you’ve got the Jawas, which are terrifying at first, and then they come scurrying out of the canyon, and they’re adorable, and you’re like, what are these things?

Amazing.

And then you’ve got the Tusken Raiders. They’re terrifying as a little kid, they stand up and they’re making their noises and they got their [gaffi] sticks and they’re attacking…

Or Phantom Menace. Here’s a movie that has both Jar Jar and Darth Maul, right? Two iconic, amazing characters. And they represent totally different sides of spectrum.

I went to go see Phantom for the 25th anniversary recently and it killed. The whole movie killed. There were people who were cheering. People of all generations. A lot of younger viewers had seen it when they were kids, and then a bunch of old people like myself, and people with their kids, and they were cheering and laughing, all of Jar Jar’s jokes killed Darth Maul, cheering, Palpatine, cheering. R2D2 comes out, and he’s fixing the ship, and they’re cheering.

See-Threepio comes out? They’re cheering.

It just all worked.

The Podrace? People on the edge of their seats.

That’s, I think, the magic and the beauty of writing Star Wars in particular. To be able to do that. If anything else tried to emulate that, with all those ingredients… the recipe, I think would come out a little different.

BY: Star Wars animation seems to do it an even faster pace than the movies, which seems absurd. Does that make the writing more difficult because you’ve got to do it at an even faster pace? And with working with George on Clone Wars, how did he push you to learn that skill? Because that’s something I imagine might be even unique to him.

MM: Yes. 100%. I mean, it is. We have to be, especially since the scripts are coming in roughly 24-25 pages and they’re shorter episodes. And then we cut it down, we watch it. It has to move, move, move, move, move.

We have to be incredibly frugal in what we’re choosing to say. In dialogue and in action, but particularly in dialogue. Whereas I think live action feature films may have a little more liberty.

Live action television is interesting because they have the ability to do longer stories of drama and characters over the course of a season or two. Movies, I think, have to be somewhat tight because obviously you’re taking all of that and pushing it into 2 hours, roughly.

And then with our series, the action moves so fast. I think that’s one of the benefits of animation. There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity and benefits with animation, but that certainly is one of them, to be able to do all these kind of like crazy, off-the-wall action sequences like we saw.

I like to write out my action sequences, I like to write “backflip” a lot. I don’t know why I’m into backflips and like watching what these guys do with the backflips and the corkscrews. I don’t get out of bed for a minimum of 5 backflips. Not physically, obviously, because my back hurts…

BY: Speaking of The Dark Lord, specifically that episode, what was the decision-making behind not having Vader say a word? Because he felt like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, right? He was a horror movie villain.

This is a point at the timeline where Maul has really no idea who he is other than he’s clearly something different.

He’s not an inquisitor.

And it really pays off a moment from Twilight of the Apprentice [Star Wars Rebels, Season Two Finale] where he says, “I can’t take him alone.” This is something that I was always really affected by; that moment where Maul actually pierces through his ego for a moment.

You’ve paid that off really beautifully here and Vader doesn’t even have to say a word.

Was that budgetary because you didn’t want to get into Vader’s voice? Or was that a writing decision and a purposeful thing?

MM: It was purposeful.

When Dave came out and said, “Let’s get Vader in here. We know we need it.” We knew what the story needed, and that was the perfect character to come in and kind of exemplify a force of nature. That would take them right to the end.

Every character that faced him in that finale is left with a sacrifice to make. And they’re left with a change, and that’s what we needed.

So, he didn’t have anything to say. Dave was like, “You don’t need dialogue. There’s no need for dialogue.”

That was, again, back to the frugality of writing this thing when you want to tighten it up. There’s no need. We’ve heard all the lines. It felt right being that Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers force of nature that comes in and let them deal with it in all of their different choices and options.

And that’s what really it was from.

Maul knew that Anakin was being groomed to be Palpatine’s apprentice, but this doesn’t look like Anakin. You know what I mean? And so, what is this? Did this thing kill Anakin? Did it not? Little by little, Maul putting pieces together just made it more powerful.

It made it stronger.

BY: I loved seeing Maul in the Obi-Wan/Phantom Menace position, the way you staged the lightsabers for Devon and everything. I really, really loved the staging and how you organized everything in that last fight. It was really, really well done. And I’m wondering, just how much of that was on the page and how much of it evolved through the iteration of the episode?

MM: Some of it was on the page. I have to give absolute credit to Brad and the team, Steward Lee and Nate Villanueva and Saul Ruiz [Episode Directors], and their brilliant teams, and Joel Aron [Visual FX Supervisor] and the editors, and everybody on the crew who made those sequences turn out the way they did.

You know, we got on the page a couple things we wanted to do. I need to get a backflip in there, but they just took it to the next level. It’s a quantum leap between the script and I watched it evolve and I was just jaw on the floor every single time.

And the things they studied, I mean, you should talk to Brad about a lot of that. It was just amazing, like studying the different kinds of techniques and from like martial arts and various characters, Maul’s martial arts, Wushu, to taking the classic David Prowse Vader from parts of A New Hope and Empire, and giving him some weight and strength, I mean, our crew is just fantastic.

BY: It really just like watching the different iterations of Vader, where he starts with the one hand in Empire, and when he’s taking down Master Daki, it looks like Luke’s takedown of him, where Luke’s lost control with that rage from Return of the Jedi. There’s just so much to dissect in that episode.

MM: Those guys, they pay attention to every single frame. It goes without saying anything, even between the frames. They’re reading between the frames. I hope no one ever thinks that it’s a coincidence or an accident. Nothing is an accident. Everything is meticulous.

BY: There’s a reason George put that that line in Qui-Gon’s mouth. “Nothing happens by accident.”

MM: Nothing happens by accident.

The first season of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+. A second season in currently in production, but there’s no word on when it will be released.

You can learn more about Bryan Young at his website.

The post Interview with ‘Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord’ Writer Matt Michnovetz appeared first on Script Magazine.

There is something undeniably emotional about sitting in a packed theater, the lights dimming, and that familiar yellow font appearing against the endless blackness of space once again. No matter how many times it happens, no matter how uneven the franchise has become over the years, there is still that little spark. That childlike anticipation. That quiet hope that maybe this is going to be the film that reminds you why you fell in love with this universe in the first place.

Sadly, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is not that film.

Directed by Jon Favreau, written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, the latest theatrical return to the galaxy far, far away feels less like a fully realized cinematic experience and more like a stitched together collection of premium television episodes that somehow found their way onto an IMAX screen. And that distinction matters. Because while the original Disney+ series worked largely due to its episodic structure, weekly momentum, and smaller character driven storytelling, expanding that exact formula into a feature film only exposes how thin the writing underneath it all actually is.

The frustrating thing is that the film is not aggressively bad. In fact, there are moments where you can clearly see glimpses of what made the first two seasons of The Mandalorian such a phenomenon. The pulpy western influences are still there. The stripped-down simplicity is still there. Din Djarin walking into dangerous territory with a bounty hunter coolness still works in bursts. Grogu remains adorable. The practical creature work remains charming. And visually, there are moments where the film absolutely looks massive.

But none of that ever evolves into something emotionally compelling.

The story follows Din Djarin and Grogu navigating remnants of the fallen Empire while carrying out missions tied to surviving Imperial warlords. On paper, that setup should have been enough. Star Wars has always thrived when it embraces simple mythic storytelling. Unfortunately, the screenplay constantly feels like it is moving sideways rather than forward. The film plays like side quests assembled together into one long adventure instead of a narrative that builds with momentum, escalation, or genuine emotional purpose.

And honestly, that becomes exhausting after a while.

One of the biggest problems here is how obvious it is that this was originally designed as a television season. You can practically identify where individual episode endings would have existed. Every major action sequence feels structured like a season finale payoff. Characters arrive at a location, face danger, escape, move to another planet, repeat. There is very little connective emotional tissue between these moments. It genuinely starts to resemble watching the cutscenes of a Star Wars video game rather than experiencing a theatrical film crafted with cinematic rhythm.

The pacing suffers badly because of this. Somehow the movie manages to feel both rushed and sluggish at the exact same time. Entire emotional beats pass by before they are allowed to land, while action scenes continue long after their excitement has worn out. There are stretches where the film feels trapped in an endless cycle of “Mando arrives somewhere, gets into trouble, fights enemies, moves on.”

After a point, even the spectacle begins to blur together.

And then there is Grogu.

Look, I understand the cultural power this little guy has. I have been rooting for him since Season One. I saw the internet collectively lose its mind. Grogu became a phenomenon for good reason. But this film leans so heavily into the cute baby gags that eventually it starts feeling less like storytelling and more like merchandise maintenance. Some audiences are absolutely going to eat it up. Kids will probably love every second of it. But for me, somewhere around the 1-hour mark, the endless repetition of “look how adorable Grogu is” simply stopped working.

The emotional manipulation becomes painfully transparent after a while.

What makes that even more disappointing is that the film desperately needed stronger character development to compensate. Instead, most characters feel emotionally static throughout. Din Djarin remains cool but distant. Grogu remains cute but dramatically underwritten. Side characters and cameos pop in largely for recognition applause. There are a few familiar faces from previous Star Wars projects that exist almost entirely for audiences to point at and go “Oh hey, I know them.”

Even Sigourney Weaver feels strangely underutilized, functioning more like a marketing presence than an essential narrative component.

Ironically, the one person who once again saves massive portions of the experience is Ludwig Göransson.

At this point, I genuinely believe Ludwig Göransson might be physically incapable of delivering a lazy score. The man has spent the last several years operating at an absurd creative level across project after project, and once again he completely carries entire emotional sequences here through music alone. There are moments where the score injects scale, emotion, and urgency into scenes that the writing itself simply does not earn. His music continues to be one of the strongest creative pillars of modern Star Wars.

And honestly, without that score, I think this film would feel even emptier.

What surprised me most though was not anger or frustration. It was disappointment. Genuine disappointment. Because it has now been years since Star Wars delivered a theatrical film that truly felt cinematic in the fullest sense. Not just visually large, but emotionally resonant. Spiritually adventurous. Mythic. Memorable.

This film never reaches that level.

Instead, it feels content being “fine.” And for a franchise built on imagination, wonder, and emotional mythology, “fine” simply is not enough anymore.

I kept waiting for the movie to emotionally click into place. Waiting for a sequence that suddenly justified why this story needed the big screen treatment. Waiting for a moment that reminded me why theatrical Star Wars once felt like an event. That moment never came.

And that is ultimately the biggest issue here. Not that the film is terrible. Not that it is incompetent. But that it feels creatively small despite its giant budget and enormous franchise legacy.

I do think fans of the series will find moments to enjoy. There are entertaining action beats. A few fun creature sequences. Some crowd-pleasing callbacks. The production design remains solid. And if you already love spending time in this corner of the galaxy, there is comfort in simply revisiting familiar faces and worlds again.

But as a theatrical experience, The Mandalorian and Grogu never fully justifies its existence.

More than anything, it left me hoping that somewhere down the line, Star Wars finally gives audiences what they have been waiting years for now. Not just another extension of streaming content stretched onto a larger canvas, but a genuinely great theatrical film again.

Because right now, this franchise desperately needs its own new hope.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu releases in Theaters on May 22, 2026.

The post ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

Boots Riley’s (I’m a Virgo, Sorry to Bother You) sophomore feature effort is afro-futurism meets hyper-retro in an inverted fever-dream of a tale about maintaining your soul while and after achieving your dream. Unlike Sorry to Bother You, I Love Boosters has a slightly more optimistic lens about making the all mighty dollar. Its female aspirational characters are trying to fulfill their fashion dreams but because of racial, class, and economic challenges they have to ride the underbelly of the fashion realm, which they eventually realize is really no different from the legitimate one.

Back in 2006, musician Boots Riley’s band The Coup released an album Pick a Bigger Weapon that had a track “I Love Boosters”. The song addresses how the ‘hood has its own economy that manifests stylish clothing which also become pattern pieces for popular culture. The film expands on that notion. Keke Palmer as Corvette leads a trio of Oakland-based female boosters, women who shoplift high quality items and sell them at a discount. Her crew includes Naomi Ackie as Sade and Taylour Paige as Mariah. All of the actresses add their own blend of quirky, off-kilter humor to the upside-down world of Riley’s satire, but Palmer is in top form as the aspiring fashion designer who doesn’t quite fit in until she realizes it’s her off-color nature that will ultimately cause her to fit in. The world is out of sync and she’s oddly in-tune with the universe’s inherently off-beat chorus.

Corvette covets “fashion tyrant” Christie Smith’s (Demi Moore) lifestyle and targets her expensive Metro Designer outfits for boosting. However, when she and her friends cross paths with Jianhu (Poppy Liu), a worker from China who’s being exploited while making Smith’s trendy items, they get a new addition to their team that enhances their purpose. Things aren’t all work and no play for Corvette though because Pinky Ring Guy (Lakeith Stanfield) is constantly trying to seduce her. Stanfield was the lead in Riley’s Sorry to Bother You where his character makes some irredeemable decisions. As Pinky Ring Guy, a mysterious figure who’s a diversion, he’s a perfect foil to Corvette’s vulnerable, yet streetwise character.

The costumes, production design, music, and cinematography all overlap to create Riley’s bold, surreal world. Shirley Kurata (Everything Everywhere All at Once) creates color-blocked, vibrant appearances for the characters, buoying their animated personas. Christopher Glass’s production design captures the funhouse mirror effect of Riley’s off-kilter Technicolor world. Riley told him he wanted things “janky” and janky they are. The idiosyncratic sound of Oakland’s Tune-Yards meshes perfectly with Boosters’ dreamlike world. Cinematographer Natasha Braier manages to establish an “emotional connection” to the characters in this bizzarro world by crafting an elite visual language.

While the film tackles the parasitic nature of the fashion industry as it relates to Black and brown people, the story is ultimately about “loneliness” according to Riley. While Sorry to Bother You was a critics darling, it had mixed reactions from audiences. I Love Boosters could be more palatable to viewers because it has a more fun lens, while still addressing serious topics. One can’t help but note Riley’s Parliament-Funkadelic influence in the style of the film. There are a couple of scenes that are too graphic for children despite the comic-book and animated quality of the film.

When people say there are no original films or filmmakers, they haven’t seen Riley’s work. He’s certainly a fresh entry in the voice of Black filmmakers and in the world of auteurs in general.

Also included in the colorful cast are Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Eiza Gonzalez, Rachel Walters, and Najah Bradley.

Neon’s I Love Boosters slides into Theaters May 22, 2026.

The post ‘I Love Boosters’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

Though Tess Slesinger wrote only 12 films her contribution to classic Hollywood screenwriting and adaptation deserves focus.  Born on July 16, 1905 to Jewish parents of Hungarian-Russian heritage, Slesinger grew up with three older brothers on New York’s Upper West Side.  Her father worked in the garment world and her mother, Augusta Slesinger went from being a welfare worker to becoming a psychoanalyst and helping found the New School for Social Research. Slesinger learned talents from both of her parents’ professions to fuel her career writing short stories and eventually screenplays.

In 1925 she received a B.A. in English from the School of Journalism at Columbia where Slesinger also met her first husband, Herbert Solow. Influenced by the actions of suffragist Lucy Stone, when she married him in 1928, Slesinger did not change her name.  After working as a journalist for a few years, she also began writing book reviews for a magazine started by Solow and a professor they both knew at Columbia. In 1932 she added short story writer to her repertoire by publishing “Missis Flinders” – a piece about a married woman obtaining an abortion.  Two years later she expanded the story into her first novel, The Unpossessed.

By then Slesinger had divorced Solow, married Frank Davis, and sold a slew of other short stories for popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and New Yorker which were then published as Time: The Present (1935).  MGM producer Irving Thalberg offered Slesinger a thousand dollars a week to adapt The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck into a film, a credit she shared with Talbot Jennings and Claudine West. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Good Earth for an Oscar as Best Film of 1938 and Luise Rainer won the Oscar for Best Actress.  Not a bad beginning to a promising screenwriting career.

Immediately, Slesinger began supporting the Screen Writer’s Guild, the predecessor of today’s Writers Guild of America while also earning more script assignments.  She co-wrote The Bride Wore Red (1937) for Dorothy Arzner to direct and Joan Crawford to star. The original story Girls School followed in 1938, then she did some rewrites on the adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Jane Murfin. 

Slesinger had met her second husband, assistant producer Frank Davis on the set of Good Earth and married him in Mexico in 1936. Together they had two children and co-wrote a few films, but didn’t always function as a team. They wrote the feminist musical comedy Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) also for Arzner to direct and Are Husbands Necessary? (1942).  Their final collaboration came in adapting A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), based on the original novel by Betty Smith.  Slesinger deeply understood the life of a young, first-generation daughter of Irish immigrants living in New York City before the Great War changed all their lives. 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay. Sadly, Slesinger died of cancer in February of 1945 and was unable to see either the film premiere to great success or to learn of the Oscar laurels. But the empowered, young female characters she created continue to inspire generation after generation through their own conflicts, allowing them to achieve as Tess did. Though it was her son, Peter Davis, who followed her into the family business by becoming a producer and novelist.

If you’d like to learn more about the history of women of women in screenwriting, and about the craft of screenwriting while earning your MFA from your own home, our low residency Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is currently accepting applications: https://stephens.edu/program/master-of-fine-arts-in-tv-screenwriting/

The post Empowered Women Ran in Her Family and Her Heroines: The Screenwriting Career of Tess Slesinger appeared first on Script Magazine.

I think we can all agree that characters in movies, TV shows, books, plays, and usually in art, have issues. It’s why we love to be with them. Sometimes those issues are physical…although usually it’s a cut on the face that doesn’t bleed in an action movie…and most of the time it’s psychological. In fact, I dare you to think about a favorite character in a favorite movie that doesn’t have psychological issues. Luke Skywalker? Family trauma much? Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes (and had his own Daddy issues). Even the most recent Superman battled all sorts of worries. We love our favorite characters not because they are handsome/beautiful and perfect, but because they have damage. Sometimes it’s manageable, sometimes it’s not, but always it’s there.

And yet when we are learning the craft of writing, we’re never told to do anything other than ‘write what we know’.  Which often means scripts by aspiring writers have characters made out of cardboard, having the occasional ‘trait’, but rarely anything resembling a real, nuanced human being. You know, someone who had imperfect parents (perfect ones don’t exist), and other bits and pieces of life experiences along the way that got them to where they are when we meet them on screen.

So, let’s add another piece of ammunition to your writing arsenal right now. It’s called the DSM – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s a very thick book that was first published in the 1950s, and is updated every thirteen years or so. It’s the ‘bible’ for mental health professionals when it comes to diagnosing mental illness. The book has its own less than glamorous history…for the first 2 editions it had homosexuality as a mental disorder…but they fixed that.  

Full disclosure, I bought a copy of DSM 5 – TR (the most recent update) because I’m two quarters into a Masters in Psychology. When I started reading about all the different diagnoses, the variations, the nuances, what counts as something requiring treatment or something you just deal with, I wondered why I never thought about this when I was constructing characters for my scripts. Then I thought how helpful it would be in the hundreds of scripts I read every year for my screenplay competition, and in consulting. Imagine the time I would save not having to write ‘this character doesn’t feel like a real human being’.

Here is my advice when using this book – because it’s not exactly a rip-roaring page turner. Think about your current script and the people in it. As you think about who they are, what they want, and what the obstacles will be…which are the foundations of any story…spend more than a second on the first bit. Who they are. What traumas do they have…and it doesn’t have to be flashbacks from Afghanistan or finding their whole family dead, or being beaten to a pulp by Dad. What life events have shaped them? Where are their vulnerabilities? What are their triggers…what would be something that would give them emotional pause as they go about their journey? Marty McFly hating being called a coward, because his Dad was so sniveling for example. How could their own emotional history, and their own brain chemicals/wiring provide an additional obstacle in their quest for whatever it is they want?

Don’t settle for: ‘is an alcoholic’. No one is an alcoholic simply because they like to drink alcohol too much. If you disagree…then you have a lot more work to do before you can call yourself a writer.

This book, the DSM 5 – is 1080 pages long. If you can’t add genuine depth and greater authenticity to your characters in that many pages…you have a lot more work to do before you can call yourself a writer. Understanding the human condition is a key ingredient to connecting with strangers. A book like this (or this book specifically) can be useful to flesh out a character and make them relatable. I would argue it’s more than useful, it’s important.

Now…a word of warning. This book should not be used as a mental health supermarket.  Don’t just read up on symptoms, tell yourself ‘that’ll do’, and blindly trudge into a mental illness adventure of which you have zero experience, apart from what you read in this book. Emotional authenticity with any character begins with your own experiences. Your own emotional life and knowledge. Start there. Use the book to flesh out characters…from a foundation of truth. Do the work. Spend the time with these people. The more authentic your characters, the more easily your audience will be able to relate and engage. If they feel real to you, and not just a collection of traits invented by you because someone in a Script magazine article told you characters need traits…then they’ll feel real to us. That’s part of displaying your ‘voice’ by the way, because only you sees the world your way.

I’m not suggesting every character in your story needs a serious, diagnosable mental illness. That would be stupid. But living life means experiences, memories, scars, emotional hot spots, good times, sad moments and everything else that makes you who you are right now, and who your characters should be. They lived a life before page one of your script. It’s shaped them, like your life has shaped you.

If you find yourself looking at a wall wondering how you can make your character have more ‘traits’…I beg you…stop, and google DSM -5 TR, while you seriously think about your characters as people who have lived imperfect lives. DSM-5 TR offers a window into every diagnosable issue we know about right now, and makes it very clear humans are deeply complex, emotional creatures. There’s no reason the people in your script can’t be like that. Put in the time, do the research, and your script will elevate dramatically.

The post Psychology and Your Characters appeared first on Script Magazine.

There was a point during LifeHack where I suddenly realized my shoulders had been completely tensed up for almost twenty minutes straight. That is usually a pretty good sign that a thriller is doing something right. Especially one unfolding almost entirely through laptop screens, Discord calls, browser tabs, encrypted chats, security feeds, video games, crypto wallets, and the kind of internet chaos that probably makes every person over thirty feel at least mildly ancient.

Directed by Ronan Corrigan, written by Hope Kemp and Ronan Corrigan, LifeHack takes the now familiar screenlife format and injects it with a refreshing amount of energy, personality, and actual cinematic tension. What initially sounds like a gimmick slowly evolves into something surprisingly immersive. Four online friends attempt to pull off a massive Bitcoin heist targeting a tech billionaire, only for things to spiral violently out of control once ambition, ego, paranoia, and the uglier corners of the internet begin colliding.

And honestly, it is pretty damn fun.

The screenlife subgenre has had an interesting evolution over the last decade. Films like Searching and Missing proved that stories told entirely through screens could be more than just novelty experiments. They found genuinely inventive ways to create suspense and emotional momentum through modern technology. At the same time, there have also been plenty of entries that treated the format like a cheap horror trick rather than a storytelling language.

LifeHack comfortably lands closer to the stronger end of that spectrum.

What makes the film work is that it understands something many cyber thrillers forget. Technology itself is rarely the most interesting part. People are. The hacking, spoofing, encrypted files, and crypto jargon all create texture and momentum, but underneath it all this is fundamentally a story about friendship, insecurity, recklessness, and young people trying to outsmart a system they feel permanently locked out of.

That gives the film a surprising emotional grounding beneath all the frantic clicking and digital chaos.

The setup is simple. Four Gen Z friends scattered across different locations spend most of their lives online together. Gaming, joking, sharing music, arguing, venting. Eventually, they stumble into a plan to rob a billionaire’s crypto wallet. Part rebellion. Part greed. Part boredom. Part “why not?” logic that only really makes sense when you are young enough to still believe consequences are theoretical concepts.

Naturally, things go very wrong.

What impressed me most about LifeHack was how committed it remains to the screenlife format without constantly cheating. So many films eventually abandon the concept halfway through or awkwardly cut into traditional filmmaking once things become more complicated. Here, Corrigan keeps the audience trapped within screens the entire time. Laptop cameras. Shared screens. Surveillance feeds. Video chats. Browser windows. The movie never physically escapes into the real world, and weirdly enough, that restraint becomes one of its greatest strengths.

It creates a constant feeling of claustrophobia.

The editing here deserves enormous credit. This kind of filmmaking lives or dies entirely through rhythm, pacing, and visual organization. The film constantly bombards you with information without becoming incomprehensible. Notifications, side chats, gaming interfaces, Spotify playlists, file transfers, security systems, background tabs, and rapidly escalating panic all exist simultaneously on screen, yet the storytelling always remains surprisingly clear.
And when the tension kicks in, it really kicks in.

There is a sequence involving physical infiltration during the heist that genuinely had my theater holding its breath. It taps into that classic heist movie pleasure of watching highly specific plans slowly unravel in real time. The beauty of the sequence is that it understands the biggest vulnerability in any cybersecurity system is not actually technology. It is people. Human error. Human panic. Human ego.

That idea runs throughout the entire film.

The performances also help tremendously. One of the reasons many screenlife movies fail is because they forget audiences still need compelling characters beyond the format gimmick. Here, the young cast brings a natural chemistry that makes these friendships feel believable. The banter feels authentic without trying too hard to sound “internet cool.” These genuinely feel like kids who have spent years online together.

There is also something refreshing about how specifically Gen Z this movie feels without constantly mocking or patronizing its own generation. Discord servers, TikTok humor, red pill edits, gaming culture, livestream anxiety, crypto obsession, digital loneliness, parasocial identity. The film understands this ecosystem because it clearly comes from people who actually inhabit it.

That authenticity matters.

At times, LifeHack almost feels like a time capsule of internet culture from the late twenty tens and early twenty twenties. And I mean that in a good way. Watching all these familiar online behaviors projected onto a massive theater screen creates a strange feeling of nostalgia and discomfort simultaneously. There is humor in it, but also something slightly depressing about realizing how much of modern life now exists entirely inside glowing rectangles.

The film taps into that unease really effectively.

Tonally, Corrigan balances things well for the most part. The movie knows when to lean into comedy and when to tighten the screws. Some of the funniest moments arrive through absurdly mundane online interactions, while some of the most stressful scenes involve nothing more than waiting for a file to upload or praying somebody does not click the wrong button. And somehow, it works.

Now to be fair, the film is not flawless. There are moments where credibility stretches a little thin, especially once the operation becomes larger and more elaborate. Certain plot developments move faster than they probably should. A few emotional threads could have used more breathing room. And like many screenlife projects, there are occasional moments where you instinctively think, “Why are these people still recording this?”

But honestly, the movie earns enough goodwill through sheer momentum that most of those issues become easy to overlook.

What I appreciated most though was the film’s punk rock energy. There is an anti-establishment spirit running underneath all the cybercrime chaos that gives the movie personality beyond its genre mechanics. This is very much an “eat the rich” story filtered through internet generation exhaustion. Young people weaponizing the very systems they grew up inside. Not because they are noble heroes, but because they are frustrated, reckless, curious, and tired of watching billionaires treat the world like a rigged arcade machine.

That underlying anger gives the film bite. More importantly, it gives the film identity.

By the time LifeHack reached its final act, I realized something pretty unexpected. I was not thinking about the gimmick anymore. I was simply locked into the story. And honestly, that may be the biggest compliment you can give a screenlife movie.

Because beneath all the screens, codes, Discord calls, and crypto chaos, LifeHack succeeds where it matters most.

It works as a thriller first. Everything else is just the interface.

LifeHack is now in Theaters.

The post ‘LifeHack’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

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