A Doll's Life by Michael Cornetto - Short, Drama - A family's dysfunction shown through the eyes of a doll. 5 pages  - pdf, format

Second Place in December '08 Movie Poet short contest

Just read this one.

Expertly written and good story. I would have voted Very Good at MP.

Why not Excellent? I did have some issues with it. I knew as soon as Amanda said to the Doll not to tell that this was child abuse in some way. Also the way the father stuck up for the girl gave it away that it was him. There is the problem I had with this. Why is Amanda tormenting her mother when the father is the abuser. Sure the mother is no charmer either, but it just didn't seem right to me for the girl to torment her mother like this.

Other than that it was great.  

Oooh YUK!

That was one ending that made my skin crawl.

I too was a little puzzled to why girl torment mother. But it not important and did not stop me from enjoying this story. If anything it shrouded your story in mystery and things untold which is fine by me.  

I loved the creepy, magical yet sinister Brother's Grimm undercurrent- a  fairy tale in it's most purist form and how they should be.

Excellent stuff.

Quoted from me Why is Amanda tormenting her mother when the father is the abuser. Sure the mother is no charmer either, but it just didn't seem right to me for the girl to torment her mother like this.

From what I made of the script, Amanda doesn't think what her father is doing to her is wrong. I believed she was jealous of the relationship that the relationship that her father and mother had, hence why she attacked her mother. And, I also believe that Amanda's mother was attacking her, physically, hence why Amanda did the same thing back to her. That's what I grasped from this script.

But yeah, I enjoyed this one. The ending was an ending which made me go like, "Damn". A real shocker... I expected something bad to happen, but didn't know exactly what to expect.

I really couldn't see much to change here. You took a pretty simple story, but put a very cool spin on it, with the whole doll aspect.

Take it easy man.

Toby.

Hey all,

Thanks for the reads and the comments.  

On Amanda:

I tried to make it pretty clear that her Mother beats her.  And as Toby mentions her mother is clearly jealous of Amanda's relationship with her Father which probably increases the intensity of those beatings.  She gains privilege but putting up with her father's abuses, but she only gets pain from her mother.  It isn't surprising that she would want to see her Mother hurt back.  

Did everyone get that her mother beats her?  

I think the Dad's comments about Amanda's bruisings, then the mother looking away, embarassed was enough... You hinted it subtley. In my opinion, anything more explicit would have lost some of its effect.

No, I did not get that the mother was beating her...

The beginning with the doll made me think the dad had told her to not tell anyone and she took her anger out on him. That's why it felt wrong to me that she hated the mother.

It didn't stick out for me that the mother was physically beating the daughter, but she played the role of wicked mother so well  it was obvious she was making life miserable for her daughter.

Didn't pick up on that Mother was jelouse of daughter, but then again I'm not really that deep. but now that it has been mentioned it fits perfectly into story.  

It read well enough for me to want the father and mother both locked away and the daughter given to a foster family.  A little girl in that situation would be scarred for life.  Perhaps never to have a natural relationship.

It was well-written enough to make me feel kinda sick to my stomach at the end.  Which may have been the intent.

Now, the logline told me what the POV was, but I wouldn't have picked that up, from reading the script.

Hey Steven,

Thanks for reading and commenting.  

I agree that the logline could probably use some tweaking.  The thing is no one ever sees the logline during the contest but it's a required field on the submission form so you end up making it up on the spot just before you submit.  This one could probably use a bit more thought, maybe not 'shown through the eyes of' but 'as witnessed by'.

Ah yes.  I'd say "As witnessed by", may be better.  The girl obviously is using her doll as an outlet for her emotions, but she definitely does it in a Twilight Zone kind of way!

Michael,

I liked it a lot.
The plot was good but the writing is just superb. Great flow to the language and the story.

I really have no criticism, great job.

Great story! Really twisted. The end made me cringe.

And I had no problem understanding the mother beats her and apparently the father molests her. Yikes.

What else have you written? And can I shoot your script?? (if i can find a girl to play that part)

Hey Ben,

Happy you enjoyed the read and pleased to hear that you want to shoot it.  However, someone is already planning to shoot it.  This got snapped up fast, the day it was released here.  

As far as what else I have written - you can find some in my signature but you can find all of them here

http://eclectic-screenplays.blogspot.com/

This was short and well-written, but I am so disgusted I can’t even comment on what happened. The sad part is that we have heard time and time again of things like this happening in the world and it’s not getting any better by ignoring it. Charles Barkley once said “The more uncomfortable the subject the more necessary the dialogue.” I guess this was a good example of it.

Congrats on getting it filmed, I'm not sure if I'll want to watch it though.

James