Daily Dialogue — December 10, 2016

RYAN: Alex?

ALEX: What were you thinking, showing up at my door like that?

RYAN: What do you mean? I wanted to see you. I didn’t know you had a family. Why didn’t you tell me that?

ALEX: Look, I’m sorry I ruined your evening but you could have seriously screwed things up for me. That’s my family. That’s my real life.

RYAN: I thought I was a part of your real life.

ALEX: I thought we signed up for the same thing.

RYAN: Try and help me understand exactly what it is that you signed up for.

ALEX: I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. I mean… you are an escape. You’re a break from our normal lives, you’re a… a parenthesis.

RYAN: I’m a parenthesis?

ALEX: I mean… what do you want? Tell me what you want. You don’t even know what you want. Ryan, I’m a grown-up, OK? So if you would like to see me again, then … then give me a call. OK?

— Up in the Air (2009), written by Jason Reitman & Jason Turner, based on the novel by Walter Kirn

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Excuse. Today’s suggestion by Gisela.

Trivia: Both screenwriters Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner never met or even knew from each other during writing the screenplay. When the novel was released in 2001, Turner read it and wrote a spec script adaptation which he sold to Dreamworks in 2003. However, Reitman also discovered the book and persuaded his father Ivan Reitman to acquire the film rights. Ivan Reitman then commissioned a screenplay by writers Ted Griffin and Nicholas Griffin who used some elements from Turner’s spec script. Finally, Jason Reitman developed his own screenplay by using some elements from the Griffin script that (unbeknownst to Reitman) originated with Turner. Reitman initially claimed a single screenplay credit for himself but the WGA ruled that he should share his credit with Turner as certain elements of his spec script remained in the film.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Gisela: “When thinking about a good scene with excuse I could have sworn that Alex excuses herself about not telling Ryan anything about her family.

Actually she don’t and she don’t get, that Ryan wanted to jump into the cold water and give their relationship a real chance. Even after Ryan asked her directly, why she didn’t tell him about her family, Alex just says sorry for one thing, that she had ruined Ryan’s evening, which is the least important thing about that after.

Afterwards Alex does what losts of real life people do after they have caught doing something wrong, and this makes the scene so vivid: She blames her counterpart. And Ryan cannot answer, though he knows what he would have wanted, because this would force him to be an even bigger looser. It’s a great scene with a failed excuse although the character had every need to excuse herself.”