The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Are two agendas genuinely clashing (rather than merely two personalities)?

The Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell newsroom comedy His Girl Friday (loosely adapted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur from their play The Front Page) has justifiably famous dialogue, so much so that it’s now become the template for every fictional male-female relationship: “We bicker all the time with rapid-fire, razor-sharp wit, but we really just want to jump each other’s bones!” Unfortunately, too many writers do it wrong because they fail to understand why that movie works. 

The heroes of that movie don’t just have conflicting personalities; they have conflicting agendas. Grant wants to win Russell back, both as his wife and his best reporter, while she wants to get free and move on with her life. They disagree about the past (what ruined their marriage), the present (the best way to cover the current news event), and the future (whether they should get back together). That’s genuine conflict.

The problem is, so many modern stories, in a failed attempt to imitate His Girl Friday, show a man and woman instantly launching into combative, flirtatious banter the very first time they meet.

Let’s return to an article I cited before: Tad Friend’s tragicomic New Yorker profile of floundering John Carter writer/director Andrew Stanton. Friend describes yet another attempt at an intervention: Stanton is meeting with his composer, Michael Giacchino, who is desperately trying to identify an emotional throughline in Stanton’s sprawling mess of a movie. Giacchino shows Stanton a problematic scene: American prospector Taylor Kitsch has been transported to Mars, where huge green aliens have enslaved him. Suddenly two warring groups of another alien race show up to have an airship battle right above their heads. This is the first time John has ever seen anything remotely humanoid on this planet. Minutes later, he sees one of those humanoid aliens fall out of one of the ships, and he leaps up to catch her in mid-fall. (Stanton calls this the “Superman catch.”) They land and automatically team up, pulling out swords and killing a lot of other aliens together, flirting with each other the entire time.

Friend describes the composer’s attempt to explain the problem to the director:

• They watched Taylor Kitsch soar up to save Lynn Collins as she fell from her airship—the Superman catch—and the newly met couple then carves up an enemy platoon. 
• “Do you have a take where Lynn isn’t smiling when she says, ‘Let me know when it gets dangerous?’” Giacchino asked. “She just met the guy. Why would she be smiling playfully?” 
• “Mm-hmm,” Stanton said. He folded his hands behind his head. 
• “It was a bump in the movie for me.” 
• “Interesting.” 
• Afterward, Stanton told me, “I was mentally kicking my own ass, because I don’t think I have a take where she didn’t smile—and I don’t want my learning curve to be the reason a scene doesn’t work.” 

Stanton still didn’t realize the entire scene (indeed, the entire movie) is unsalvageable because he directed it on autopilot. He had his hero and heroine flirting and bickering because he’d been told that’s what heroes and heroines do. He didn’t think he actually had to provide a reason why.

The movie version of Daredevil is even more ridiculous. In the comics, Daredevil and Elektra are college sweethearts who cross paths many years later only to discover they’re now on opposite sides of the law. The movie cuts out all the history but still has them sparring like old lovers from the moment they meet. They meet in a café, flirt like crazy, then walk outside and start playfully beating each other up in a playground. It’s hard to say which is worse, his decision to beat up a random woman who turned down his advances or her desire to beat up a blind man! Once again, the writers were on autopilot.

Yes, every scene needs conflict, but that should be because the characters have conflicting goals. Until their goals conflict, they should get along just fine. Both of the aforementioned creators were in too much of a hurry to generate empty conflict.

For this Scenework series, we’re examining these scenes:

The 40 Year Old Virgin	Andy goes home with a drunk woman from a Bachelorette party.
Alien	After the deaths of Kane, Brett and Dallas, Ripley becomes captain, so she has a meeting with the other survivors, Ash, Parker, and Lambert, to decide what to do next.
An Education	Jenny is amazed as David gets permission from her parents to take her on a weekend trip to Oxford by claiming to know C.S. Lewis.
The Babadook	Amelia chases her son Sam down to the basement, where he knocks her out, ties her up, and drives the Babadook out of her, temporarily.
Blazing Saddles	Bart arrives in town, then takes himself hostage to save himself from hostile townspeople
Blue Velvet	Jeffrey spies on Dorothy and Frank, then Dorothy catches Jeffrey in her apartment and has sex with him at knifepoint.
The Bourne Identity	Jason and Marie are attacked at her family’s farm by the assassin known as The Professor. Jason blows up a propane tank to distract him and kills him, but as the Professor dies he convinces Jason to come back.
Bridesmaids	Annie is driving angry after feuding with Helen when she gets pulled over by a cute cop, who gives her his number under the pretense of recommending a place to get her tail light fixed.
Casablanca	Sketchy crook Ugarte asks cool club owner Rick to hold onto the letters of transit for him.
Chinatown	Jake confronts Noah Cross with the glasses
Donnie Brasco	Lefty seeks to go behind Sonny Black’s back to set up his own meeting in Florida with Trifficante. He has Donnie borrow a boat for this purpose, but Sonny Black knows everything, and he crashes the party.  Lefty bitterly assumes that Donnie has betrayed him, and shuns him.  Sonny takes Donnie aside and elevates him above Lefty.
Do the Right Thing	Buggin’ Out notices that there are no brothers on the wall of Sal’s Pizzeria and decides to organize a boycott.
The Farewell	Billi finds out about Nai Nai’s diagnosis from her parents.
The Fighter	Micky and Charlene confront Micky’s family about his career.
Frozen	Anna confront Elsa in her ice palace
The Fugitive	Gerard confronts Kimble atop a dam, but Kimble leaps off.
Get Out	Chris sneaks out for a smoke in the night, has creepy encounters with Georgina and Walter, then finds Missy drinking tea.  She implores him to sit down, he repeats that he doesn’t want to be hypnotized, but she does it anyway with her teacup.  She gets him to admit the facts of his mother’s death, then sends him to a “sunken place” in his mind.
Groundhog Day	Phil takes Rita to a cafe and tries to convince her that he’s living the same day over and over. He convinces her by predicting what Larry will say.
How to Train Your Dragon	Hiccup and his students are in an arena competing to defeat a dragon, but Hiccup is quizzing their instructor to find out how to better commune with his own dragon, Toothless. Along the way, he uses what he learned from Toothless to peacefully subdue the dragon they’re fighting, infuriating the others.
In a Lonely Place	Laurel has made secret plans to leave town, but Dix makes her go to his favorite restaurant to celebrate their engagement with his agent, his alcoholic friend, and others.
Iron Man	Tony has built a better chest-device to keep shrapnel out of his heart, so he calls Pepper in to reach into his chest and replace the old one with a new one.
Lady Bird	Lady Bird flirts with Kyle in the parking lot.
Raising Arizona	During Hi and Ed’s first night with Junior, brothers Gale and Evelle show up having just escaped from jail, and begin to suspect the truth.
Rushmore	Max introduces himself to Ms. Cross on the bleachers.
Selma	King meets with Johnson in the Oval Office to try to get him to commit to a new Voting Rights Act
The Shining	Jack finally takes a drink from the ghosts in the ballroom. A waiter spills a drink on him, and takes him to the bathroom to clean it off.  While he does so, Jack realizes that the waiter is actually Grady, the former caretaker that killed his family.  Grady encourages him to do the same, but Jack is uncertain.
Sideways	Miles has struck out with Maya, but Jack comes back to the motel after a wild night with Steph, intending to go back out. Miles tries to get Jack to stay by forcing him to call his fiancé, but she doesn’t answer and Jack takes off with Steph after getting Miles to return his unused condom from the night before.
The Silence of the Lambs	Clarice first meets Lecter in his cell, under the pretense of getting him to fill out a questionnaire, but he quickly figures out that it’s really about Buffalo Bill, and that Clarice is hiding other things as well.
Star Wars	The gang takes over the Death Star command office.
Sunset Boulevard	Joe discovers Norma, who assumes that he’s there to plan her monkey’s funeral, but when he explains that he’s a screenwriter, she hires him to rewrite her screenplay for Salome instead.

So how do those scenes answer this question?

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES. He wants to get laid, and so does she, but she really just wants to work out her anger at her friend and the guy she’s marrying.
Alien	YES, they come to realize that Ash has a different agenda.
An Education	YES. David wants to screw her, dad wants to protect her.
The Babadook	YES. Very much so.
Blazing Saddles	YES.
Blue Velvet	YES. he wants to learn all, then to have sex, then to learn more, then to comfort her, then once again to have sex .  She wants to get ready for bed, then she wants to talk to her son, then she wants to confront him, then she wants to punish herself with masochistic sex, then she wants to placate Frank.
The Bourne Identity	YES. the professor wants to kill Jason, Jason first wants to be left alone, then wants to neutralize the threat, then wants info.
Bridesmaids	YES. She wants out of there, he wants a date.
Casablanca	YES. both: Rick doesn’t like Ugarte or his plan.
Chinatown	YES. Gittes wants to pin the murder on Cross (and then what?), Cross wants his daughter.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  very much so.
Do the Right Thing	YES. It starts out as a clash of personalities and then becomes a clash of agendas.
The Farewell	YES.
The Fighter	YES. Very much so.
Frozen	YES. Elsa wants to stay, Anna wants her to come home.
The Fugitive	YES. Very much so.
Get Out	YES. She’s pretending to help him quit smoking, but in actuality she has a very different agenda than him.
Groundhog Day	YES. He wants to convince her he’s a god, she determined to reject that.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Hiccup wants to find out how to befriend a dragon, everybody else wants to kill one.
In a Lonely Place	YES. she wants to leave him and he wants to get married.
Iron Man	YES. She wants him to get medical help but he just wants to rely on her.
Lady Bird	YES. Not really in that they both want to sleep with the other, but yes in that he wants her to be something she isn’t, so her desire to be with him puts her in conflict with herself..
Raising Arizona	YES. The brothers demand to stay, Ed demands they go.
Rushmore	YES. Just slightly: she defends Latin.
Selma	YES. Very much so.
The Shining	YES. the butler wants Jack to kill his family, Jack “wants to know who’s buying his drinks”
Sideways	YES. Miles wants to hang out, Jack wants to get laid again.
The Silence of the Lambs	YES. Very much so. She wants info on Bill, he wants to get out of prison.
Star Wars	YES. First Obi-Wan wants Luke to stay and Luke wants to come, then Luke wants to go and Han wants to stay.
Sunset Boulevard	YES. he wants to get of there, she wants a monkey funeral.