The Fall Guy: 3 Levels of Subtext

Hello, I'm Jacob Krueger, and this is the Write Your Screenplay Podcast. This week, we're going to be talking about The Fall Guy by Drew Pearce. This is a remarkably silly movie based on the old, equally silly '80s TV show. At the center of the film are two scenes that we're going to look at over the course of two podcast episodes. We’ll explore some interesting concepts you don't expect to see in an action-comedy like The Fall Guy. By analyzing two of the most successful scenes in The Fall Guy, we will learn about metafilm – how the movie comments on itself – and subtext – how to capture the unsaid intentions of your character in your dialogue.  We'll also explore how The Fall Guy writer Drew Pearce grounds his scenes, chooses locations, and uses other techniques that can be valuable to your writing, whether you're working on an action-comedy or something completely different. You can feel pretty safe listening to this podcast even if you haven't seen The Fall Guy yet. There are going to be very minor spoilers, but nothing you wouldn't get from the trailer… Let's start by grounding ourselves in what The Fall Guy is actually about. Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a top-of-the-line stuntman or "fall guy." In many ways, the film is an homage to stuntmen – an underappreciated art form that makes so many movies possible. The film is directed by David Leitch, a former stunt performer. It's jam-packed with fresh action, including a badass garbage truck chase scene and another sequence which broke the Guinness Record for most car cannon rolls. If you're a director interested in how to craft incredible action, it's worth watching for that alone. But we're not going to talk about The Fall Guy just to discuss the action movie elements. We're going to talk about something deeper. One of the things that makes the script for The Fall Guy so successful is the relationship and the chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s characters: Colt Seavers and Jody Moreno. Jody is a director longing for her shot at the big time when we first meet her. Colt is a top-shelf stuntman for the nastiest, most successful action movie star in the world: Tom Ryder, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Tom, of course, is an idiot, and Colt, of course, is a great guy. Jody and Colt, of course, are madly in love with each other. But during the opening sequence, Colt suffers an injury that he blames on himself, shattering his self-confidence. During his recovery, he not only gives up on his career but also on Jody. She wanted to show up for him and he wouldn't allow her. None of this is played for drama. It's all played for comedy. This is not a movie designed to make you cry (or even feel). This is not a film designed to go deep. We're not talking about Lars and the Real Girl here. It’s not a film that uses comedy to go deep into human emotion.  The Fall Guy is designed to make you laugh and be entertained by visual spectacle, some light self-criticism, and satire of the film industry. But that’s not really what allows us to connect to the film. We're not actually connecting to The Fall Guy because of the stunts, even though they're a big part of the genre elements we came for. We're connecting to The Fall Guy because we’re connecting to the characters. We’re connecting to characters in The Fall Guy on two different levels: the way the characters are changing through the choices they're making,