Scott Neustadter writes warmly about longing and ambition, usually alongside Michael H. Weber. We welcome that sympathy, but his scripts sometimes leave the actors to explain why those people need each other.
Fi1m perspective
In The Disaster Artist (2017), Tommy has somebody to impress, while Dave Franco’s Greg has rather too much listening to do. Scott Neustadter and his writing partner Michael H. Weber understand how shared ambition can bring people together. We laughed at the filmmaking incompetence because James Franco makes it funny without asking us to despise the ambition behind it. The warmth matters, and keeps the comedy from becoming an exercise in ridicule. But the script is too ready to assume that the friendship will explain itself.
The breakthrough was the original screenplay for (500) Days of Summer (2009), written with Weber. Romance, heartbreak and comedy mixed with melancholy became familiar territory for the pair. With The Spectacular Now (2013) and The Fault in Our Stars (2014), book adaptations became central to Neustadter’s work. His preference is to preserve a character’s voice and feelings rather than every detail of the novel.
The move to Daisy Jones & the Six (2023), which he co-created with Weber, gave those interests ten episodes in which to develop. Adapting Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel, they concentrate on the attraction between Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne. Riley Keough and Sam Claflin make that choice understandable when they perform together. The other musicians receive too little attention, however, and the series asks for an investment it has not earned. Neustadter advocated television as a way to expand the story; we wish more of that extra space had gone to the rest of the band.
We want more of the difficult questions that these relationships invite. Greg needs a clearer reason for remaining close to Tommy, just as the supporting musicians need enough character of their own to justify our interest. Neustadter’s sympathy is appealing, but the performers should not have to work quite so hard to make up for these gaps. Start with The Disaster Artist for the comedy, allowing for a friendship that needs more questioning than it gets.
Biography
Scott Neustadter is an American screenwriter and producer. He frequently collaborates with writing partner Michael H. Weber.
Their credits include the screenplay for (500) Days of Summer (2009), The Spectacular Now (2013), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), Paper Towns (2015) and The Disaster Artist (2017). For the latter they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. They also created the television series Friends with Benefits (2011).
Neustadter was born in 1977 in Margate City, New Jersey. He attended Atlantic City High School and the University of Pennsylvania, and undertook graduate studies at the London School of Economics and the University of Southern California.
