Opulence by Maria Blanco H. - Drama, Action - An ambitious priest in desperate need to support his struggling community; meets a computer hacker with “Robin Hood” complex, who sets up a cyber-heist to give back. 111 Pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi Maria,

Appears to be half a logline. Does anything happen after they meet that you can reel the reader in with?

Tony

Just read the script, all the way.

The central character Father Daniel is a local priest who tries his best to be community focused and do the right thing by ordinary people. His greater goals are to try for larger projects like fixing up the high school, but he's out of his depth going beyond jumble sales. His plucky assistant hooks him up with  some corporate donors, and he appeals to the bishop for funds ... both ways lead him right into trouble, until a young guy in his parish, together with his girlfriend, decide to use their computer skills to sort it out ...

The script starts with Father D in jail, then flashes back 6 months for the main story. The first antagonist, the bishop, is openly and arrogantly corrupt and there's a child sex dungeon right on page nine, blasting us into dark tone. Then the company they get involved with is called E.V.L so overall the hero is in a pretty big hole from the get go.

My own thoughts.

I should get the format / technical stuff out of the way first, just one observation. When I got to page 26 I started to find it hard to follow the dialogue, then I noticed it was because in longer conversations every single piece of dialogue is broken up by an action line (in the middle of conversations). And it goes on that way for the whole script. The next time I found two pieces of dialogue that ran together was page 51. My own stuff probably has errors too and I apologize for how annoying such crit is, but my eyes were really being bounced around and I couldn't get a sense of the flow of the speaking.

My favorite part of the story was Solomon and Angel, they were cool, full of life immediately, and were a relief from the seriousness up until that point. Nothing wrong with serious tone, I just,as a reader, really perked up when they came into it. They also make for a nice contrast to Father D's lack of agency - he won't even call the cops through months of knowing about child abuse. I know it's part of his character and that in the script, Magnolia is constantly frustrated with him ... but I guess it throws the focus onto S and A who are willing to act - and therefor move the narrative too.