FANTASTIC FEST 24: Rewrites Are Needed For “THE DRAFT!” (2024) {REVIEW}
There’s a scene in the recent adaptation of “The Fall Guy,” where the script supervisor approaches the director played by Emily Blunt. The big-budget film they’re shooting is running into some screenplay issues in the third act, but obviously shooting won’t be halted to work them out. The script suggests they add a line to the film calling attention to the script problems as a way to get ahead of the audience, which is immediately shot down. This scene, while funny, is indicative of the problems with Yuson Fuadi’s new film “The Draft!”
I’ll give this to Fuadi: he’s delightfully ambitious with his tale of Amir, Budi, Iwan, Wait, and Ani, five college students who visit Ani’s villa for a vacation. There’s no cell reception, and the caretaker is nice but creepy. Budi is found dead the morning after they arrive. Who did it and why? Does it have something to do with the nearby cemetery? Or that Ani has a dead sister she hasn’t told her friends about? Why, as Wati points out, does she separate her sentences in an odd cadence when telling that story?
The answer changes constantly since Ani and her friends are only in the first draft. Yes, that one. Film geek Amir figures out that he and his friends are characters in a horror screenplay that’s constantly being rewritten (hence why Ani never told anyone about her dead sister. She didn’t exist until that very moment). Even when Budi’s corpse is discovered, his friends act like his death is a minor inconvenience at best. Maybe that’s because their relationships weren’t fleshed out yet. But, and this is the central question of the film: is that poor writing on the part of the four credited screenwriters, or a function of the plot? The problem is that we can’t really tell. When Amir claims “the writer is lazy,” we’re supposed to laugh, but there’s nothing to grab onto to make that joke land. When your film is about bad writing, it better be great, or you’ll notice the flaws. What are the rules? Do they even matter if the script itself is always changing? What happens when the writer, whoever they are, tears a page from the script?
That’s not to say it’s a total wash. Some of “The Draft” is hilarious. There’s a great bit where the characters wonder if they’re based on “real-life” celebrities. At one point, Ani bemoans that she only has negative memories of her childhood because they’re relevant to her story. It’s a fascinating idea that unfortunately never goes anywhere. And don’t even get me started on the zombies that show up. We get glimpses of the writer, but never really see his face, like an omniscient god.
The obvious comparison would be to “The Cabin in the Woods,” but Fuadi’s film has more in common with the reality-bending “In the Mouth of Madness” or “Melinda and Melinda.” Yes, I just compared an Indonesian horror comedy to a late-stage Woody Allen film (one of his last good ones, in my opinion). In the latter, two writers tell their own version of a story over dinner, one a comedy, the other a tragedy. The film feels intentionally like a first draft, or even a story being made up on the spot, and you can feel Fuadi yearning to get to that level. It’s a noble attempt, but “The Draft!” (originally titled “Setan Alas!”) needs a few more…er, drafts.
Seen at Fantastic Fest.
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