The GITS Club Treatment Challenge: Volume 1: “House on Wheels” — My Analysis
For our inaugural The GITS Club Treatment Challenge, we have “House on Wheels” by Brock Weaver. You may download the treatment here. Here’s the logline:
After a near death experience, a once famous novelist, attempting to salvage his relationship with a former lover, agrees to employ a promising young writer to document his resurrection as they drive cross-country in his house.
There are certainly aspects to like about “House on Wheels” and I will get to those — and my issues with it — soon. But first, as I always do when I first hear a story, I cull through the various movie associations that spring to mind. Why? Because I’m convinced this is what most studio execs, producers, agents, directors, and actors do when they initially hear a story idea, their way of creating a frame of reference for the pitch.
Here are four movie associations I made with “House on Wheels”:
Up: By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn’t alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip.
Wonder Boys: An English Professor tries to deal with his wife leaving him, the arrival of his editor who has been waiting for his book for seven years, and the various problems that his friends and associates involve him in.
Broken Flowers: As the devoutly single Don Johnston is dumped by his latest girlfriend, he receives an anonymous pink letter informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him. The situation causes Don to examine his relationships with women instead of moving on to the next one, and he embarks on a cross-country search for his old flames who might possess clues to the mystery at hand.
About Schmidt: Warren Schmidt is forced to deal with an ambiguous future as he enters retirement. Soon after, his wife passes away and he must come to terms with his daughter’s marriage to a man he does not care for and the failure that his life has become.
Up is an obvious association because the central narrative conceit of both stories is a guy moving a house. Wonder Boys because of the blocked writer dynamic. And Broken Flowers and About Schmidt because they are both road movies, both about a guy confronting their failures, both about love — and love lost — and both hit a similar indie-movie tone I feel Brock wants to go for in “House on Wheels.”
Okay, now let’s look at the concept as articulated in the treatment:
House On Wheels is a coming of age comedy/drama in the vain of Funny People and Little Miss Sunshine, with a bit of Rushmore. A burnt out and former best selling author, Bill, seeks to re-establish his relationship with his former wife while writing the sequel to his best selling novel of a decade prior in an attempt to become relevant again. He intends to leave his mark once more, after learning of his impending death. James, a recent graduate trying to follow in the footsteps of his favorite author, is given the chance of a lifetime to document the man as he makes his comeback, a career changing opportunity, which could make all the difference.
So my next question: What is the story? Is it about Bill attempting to reconcile with his wife? Is it about Bill attempting to restart his writing career? Is it about Bill bonding with James, a younger version of himself?
It’s interesting we have the articulation of the concept which starts with Bill. But the treatment itself begins with James. So let’s re-frame the central question: Who is the Protagonist? It would seem to be Bill as it’s his goal — at least as it’s related to moving the house — that sets the end point (geographically and perhaps emotionally) to the story. Then what is James’ narrative function? Is he the central character, distinct from the Protagonist in this case, the person through whom we experience the story, his perspective? Or is this a Co-Protagonist story, essentially a buddy comedy-drama where both characters go through some sort of significant metamorphosis?
Let’s assume for now this is a Co-Protagonist story. Then I need to ask the following questions:
What is Bill’s conscious goal (want)?
To drive the house cross country. Why? To use the surprise of showing up with the house to woo his ex. Okay fine. But wait, he also wants to write his sequel. Why? Because his agent is going to drop him, but more importantly he wants to re-establish himself as a successful writer. Can the story sustain these two conscious goals? And why would Bill choose this time frame, when the pressure’s on to write, to drive cross-country? What’s the rush to reconnect with his wife?
What is Bill’s unstated goal (need)?
Perhaps there’s an answer to the above question if, as in Shakespeare in Love, the Protagonist needed to fall in love in order to jump-start his writing. Clearly he needs to get in touch with something within himself, something from which he’s disconnected. But what is it? And again that divide: Is it about his wife? His writing?
What is James’ conscious goal (want)?
He is using the trip ostensibly to get Bill on his side so Bill can help James get “back on his planned [academic] path.” So there’s some duplicity going into this relationship. And the implied arc there is that over time James genuinely bonds with Bill and moves beyond his more manipulative desires. But…
What is James’ unstated goal (need)?
My guess is it’s about gaining confidence in his own writing ability. So is academic life for him a safe zone and what he really needs is to strike out on his own as a writer?
But then I go through all that and I’m left with this question: What does all that have to do with moving a house cross country?
Now the thing is this: Of all the narrative elements at work in this treatment, the one that most grabs my attention is that one — a guy who moves a house as a desperate act to woo back his former wife. We’ve seen movies about blocked writers (Shakespeare in Love, Wonder Boys). We’ve seen young writers bonding with old writers (Finding Forrester).
But I don’t think we’ve seen a story about someone driving a house. A great distance. To romance his ex-wife.
So my advice to Brock would be to strip everything else away and start with that single element. Then build your characters and story from there:
* Why would Bill think by showing up with their old house, he could successfully woo back his ex-wife?
* Why is he so desperate to do that?
* What sort of person would even come up with a crazed idea like that?
* What caused them to break up in the first place?
* What memories — presumably most of them positive — would the couple have associated with the house?
I would also recommend watching a gem of a David Lynch movie The Straight Story:
“The Straight Story” chronicles a trip made by 73-year-old Alvin Straight from Laurens, Iowa, to Mt. Zion, Wis., in 1994 while riding a lawn mower. The man undertook his strange journey to mend his relationship with his ill, estranged, 75-year-old brother Lyle.
While I’m thinking of “House on Wheels” as something more fanciful and comedic in a Little Miss Sunshine way, The Straight Story has a simple emotional focus to it. My gut says “House on Wheels” needs that type of focus in order for anyone to buy the central conceit: a guy moving a house over a long distance to woo his ex-wife.
Those are my thoughts. How about yours? What advice do you have for Brock?
Note: If you’d like to submit a treatment for the next GITS Club Treatment Challenge, you can go here to check out the peer script review site.
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