“Listen, mister – this shit is pretty!”
After dissing the craptastic “Mystic River” dialogue the other day, it was interesting to watch “Lovely & Amazing” again last night from my NetFlix list. There’s some great acting in this movie (especially the always wonderful Catherine Keener), but for me the real genius is the dialogue. It has that messy, hestitating, talking-around-stuff quality that real words from real people’s mouths have.
It’s fascinating to me how difficult it is to write natural dialogue. We hear ourselves and others talk all our lives, but when it comes to putting words on paper, even the best writers can get bollixed up. Watch “Lovely & Amazing” and see what I mean.