Mismatched

Alan Swyer

Steve Adler wasn't the least bit surprised when he received a text from a former

screenwriting student named Jerry Berman, asking if they could meet for coffee. During his

time at the American Film Institute, Adler had always announced to each new group of students

that his mentorship came with a lifetime guarantee.

Though he meant reading future screenplays, helping with ideas, or giving

professional advice, over time the scope expanded in unexpected ways. One one occasion he

was asked to mediate between two warring ex-screenwriting partners. Several times he played

matchmaker for writers seeking representation. Unhappily, he was once obliged to give a

deposition in a plagiarism suit. Late one night he wound up rescuing a one-time student from a

drunk tank. Every so often there were late night calls owing to depression, romance gone awry,

or even a plea for help in finding an escaped Labradoodle.

As for teaching, though not without certain drawbacks – a dreadful commute across

Los Angeles, plus the sense of entitlement displayed every so often by under-talented, but the

heavily connected, offspring of a producer, studio exec, or head of an agency – Adler genuinely

enjoyed the experience. Meeting with ten grad students for three hours on a Tuesday morning

each week became not only a reminder of his own enthusiasm upon arriving in Los Angeles, but

also a much appreciated contrast to the trials and tribulations of an ever-shrinking film industry.

Unlike the other members of the screenwriting faculty, Adler chose to run his class as

a workshop. Instead of toiling in isolation, each aspiring screenwriter was obliged to participate

in everyone else's project as well as well as their own. The first step was an oral presentation

known in Hollywood as a pitch, followed by constructive criticism from each member of the

class. Next, a written form called a treatment. Then finally the first draft of a screenplay. Since

no one could advance from one step to the next without Adler's approval, often that meant

returning with a re-pitch, a revised treatment, or a re-written first draft. But above all, it

resulted in every member of the class experiencing multiple genres, a myriad of problems, plus

a far greater appreciation of craft.

“Let's talk about the role of screenwriters,” Adler stated every September to the new

members of his class. “In the eyes of directors and producers, they're way down on the food

chain – expendable and replaceable. Yet here's what no one wants to admit. A director or

producer without a movie in production basically has no reason to get up in the morning except

to yak on the phone and worry about where to have lunch. But a writer has a reason to get up,

and that's to work on a new script. And who knows? Maybe the next spec script will turn into

an instant classic, or a career-maker. So what's the solution if you feel down and depressed?

Start writing something new.”

Always asserting that he was a teacher, not a magician, Adler preached that while he

couldn't make someone a successful screenwriter, he could help students learn to think,

function, and even feel like professionals. Yet the biggest surprise for Adler each semester was

how much he, too, wound up learning. Forced to find answers, solutions, and ways to improve

works-in-progress wound up giving him greater tools not simply as a writing instructor, but also

as a filmmaker.

One key was separating the students from the jargon found in screenwriting manuals.

“It's gobbledygook,” Adler explained every semester, “coming from nonwriters – or failed

screenwriters – trying to deconstruct great screenplays in the hope of arriving at some kind of

magic formula.” But the creators of Casablanca, The Apartment, The Lady Eve, and

Chinatown, he always emphasized, didn't start, per the manuals, with structure.

“It's story, not structure, that has to serve as the springboard,” became Adler's mantra,

explaining that there can't be Citizen Kane, with its intricate flashback structure, without first a

story. Or The Maltese Falcon, Seven Samurai, Breathless, and other classics.

To liberate students from a futile search for a forced structure, Adler devised a

solution. “Take one of your characters,” he found himself suggesting one morning, “and

assume that five or ten years have passed since the end of the events being contemplated. Then

have that character write a letter explaining what took place. That allows the story to emerge on

its own, so that form can follow content, instead of being handcuffed or constricted.” That, he

added, is the difference between story, which seems generated by the characters and their

choices, and plot, which is artificially imposed by the screenwriter.

Over the course of the four years he taught at AFI, Adler also came up with quips that

became part of his repertoire. Asked one morning to define a movie agent, he joked, “A heat-

seeking missile.” Asked why corruption abounded: “Hollywood attracts questionable people,

then brings out the worst in them.” Asked what's the worst thing about Hollywood: “The

greater the success, the greater the failure as a human being.”

It was a change in the Institute's accreditation that precipitated Adler's departure. If a

project he was producing or directing prevented him from making it to class, he had historically

convened class either on set or at the editing room – or invited the students to Saturday brunch

at Canter's Deli. Suddenly, however, all classes had to meet on campus and at their scheduled

times. Worse, despite his title as Adjunct Professor – which he took to mean “working

professional choosing to give back” – he was henceforth expected to attend faculty meetings on

Thursday afternoons, which meant fighting rush hour traffic in both directions. When asked

why that was such a hardship, his reply was succinct: “My helicopter's not working, so please

send yours.”

“Believe it or not,” said Jerry Berman when he burst into at a coffee shop in West LA,

“a casting director wants to make me a star.”

“You're now acting?” asked Adler.

Berman shook his head. “For a reality show. Do I say yes?”

“What kind of reality show?”

Berman sighed. “I'm embarrassed to tell you?”

“Involving relations with farm animals?”

“Not quite,” answered Berman with a shrug. “It's a crazy concept where they match

guys with women, then put 'em all together in a house, Day after day judges vote to eliminate

couples until only the winners are left.”

“So what's the hook?”

Berman smiled. “The women are knockouts.”

“And the guys?”

Berman frowned. “Dorks. Nebbishes. Nerds.”

“You're afraid that being in that company will hurt your writing career?”

Berman nodded.

“Ever heard that all publicity is good publicity?”

Again Berman nodded.

“How are your finances?”

Berman answered with a sigh.

“And how do you view yourself?”

“I'm 5'6,” 130 pounds, and dress weird,” acknowledged Berman. “If I'm honest, a

dweeb or a schnook.”

“Did that hurt Woody Allen? Or Pee-Wee Herman?”

Berman shook his head.

“And the pay?”

“Good to begin, better if I last.

“So what's the downside? Especially since it could wind up as subject matter for a

very funny script.”

Berman took a deep breath. “You convinced me.”

“One other thing.”

“Okay.”

“If you go ahead with it –”

“Yeah –”

“Win.”

Prepping a documentary about an experimental program in San Diego treating

chronic criminality like a chronic disease – remediation over incarceration – Adler was

surprised to get another meeting request from Jerry Berman.

“Now that you got me into it –“ Berman began when met again at the same coffee

spot.

“Whoa!” interrupted Adler. “I didn't get you into it.”

“But you showed how it makes sense. So now I need your help.”

“About?”

“How to win.”

Adler pondered for a couple of moment, then smiled. “If this were a screenplay, how

would you begin?”

“By establishing a character.”

“Whose name is?”

“Jerry Berman.”

“And what's Jerry Berman's goal?”

“To win a competition.”

“In which?”

“He's matched with a beauty.”

Adler smiled approvingly. “So I guess we need an arc, right? Establishing character

development.”

Berman nodded.

“What if we make Jerry Berman phobic?”

“In what way?” asked Berman.

“Will he and the beauty be expected to sleep in the same room?”

“Yes, in twin beds.'

“What if he picks up his mattress and carries it into the closet.”

“I love it.”

“And assuming there's a pool –”

“There is –”

“What if initially won't put on swim trunks, or even take off his shirt.”

“Great.”

“See where this is heading?”

“Bit by bit I move my mattress out from the closet, then have it inch closer and closer

to hers.”

“Exactly.”

“And I move from not putting on a bathing suit to one day putting it on. And from

not wanting to come outside, to doing it, then taking off my shirt, then finally jumping into the

pool.”

“There you go.”

“And the same goes for what I eat or don't eat, what I do or don't participate in –”

“The whole enchilada.”

“I can see it!” said Berman gleefully. “Anything else I need?”

“A little luck.”

“In what way?”

“Getting matched with a woman who sees what you're up to and plays along.”

Berman nodded, then suddenly darkened. “If I need a little goosing, can I call?

“You can try,” said Adler, “but I'll be hard to reach.”

“That documentary in San Diego?”

Adler nodded.

The statistics Adler gleaned first from the internet, then from his initial trips to San

Diego, were shocking. Forty percent of inmates in the California prison system can't read about

a third grade level. Over fifty percent have substance abuse problems. More than half have no

job skills. All of which makes them virtually unemployable.

Since life behind bars is like grad school for wrongdoing, it's no wonder that the

recidivism rate is so high, with four out of ten released prisoners winding up back behind bars

in less than a year. As San Diego's Chief Probation Officer told Adler, with the $200 they're

given upon release, “They go back to their old neighborhood, get loaded, get laid, then go on a

crime spree. Then they're back behind bars where they get three hots and a cot.”

With the cost of each prisoner roughly $100,000 per year, the streets are dangerous,

and both emergency rooms and courts overloaded, which means that a dramatic change is

essential.

Given the go-ahead by the Mayor, Adler learned, the Chief of Police, the District

Attorney, and the Chief Probation Officer brought in two experts from the local campus of the

University of California: a psychologist and a psychiatrist, each of them an expert on the

criminal mind.

That led to a plan that would kick in the moment a criminal was convicted. If willing,

he or she would become part of the new program. Addiction would be addressed immediately,

as would illiteracy. Once those needs were being met, aptitude tests and interests would lead to

job training in an appropriate field.

The goal was to transform predators into productive citizens. The rewards would be

safer streets, less demand on hospitals and courthouses, plus taxes being paid instead of money

being lost.

Once released, instead of pocketing $200 and returning to their old neighborhoods,

the graduates of the program would be given appropriate wardrobes, bus tickets and food

stamps instead of cash, plus housing far from their old homies. Counseling and other forms of

support would be supplied on a regular basis, as well as job interviews and letters of

recommendation.

Pushing hard, the powers-that-be in San Diego were able to overcome political,

institutional, and administrative hurdles so as to get state funding for their experiment, with the

proviso that if successful their model could be replicated in other parts of the state.

Sometimes commuting to San Diego, other nights staying with his crew at a local

motel, Adler started on-camera interviews with everyone from the Mayor, District Attorney, and

Chief Probation Officer on through the shrinks who devised the program, and the program

supervisors. But most interesting of all, in Adler's eyes, were the ex-cons – the men and women

who had graduated from the program and were now leading productive lives.

An ex-burglar had become a scuba diver specializing in emergency situations. A

former hooker was finding satisfaction as a dog trainer. A longtime junkie had become a drug

counselor. An ex-gang leader was working with at-risk kids.

Though Adler was proud of his previous films – some of which were commissioned,

others initiated by him – this one became different. Bit by bit, interview by interview, he began

believing that more than just an interesting documentary, this one might save lives and impact

society, especially if it served as a prototype for programs not just in California, but also in

trouble spots like Detroit, Chicago, and Miami.

Having amassed nearly sixty hours of interviews, plus additional visuals to serve as

what's known as b-roll, Adler worked long hours with his film editor, seven days a week, until

the film's running time was where he wanted it: under two hours.

Then came an unexpected hiccup. Upon seeing an early cut, the philanthropists

providing the funding complained that the result had an anti-conservative political bias.

When Adler asserted that the film was about societal problems and solutions rather

than politics, the funders were not moved.

“We demand certain changes,” Adler was told in no uncertain terms by a builder

named Jon Davies.

“You can ask, but you can't demand.”

“Because?”

“I've got final cut.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then how come,” said Adler, “the Directors Guild has not one, but two different

documents signed by you and your wife?”

Davies eyed Adler angrily. “And if I bring in my attorneys?”

“Be my guest. But know that you'll be dealing not just with me, but with the

Directors Guild,” Adler said, standing his ground. “That means that in addition to a court of

law, there'll be the court of public opinion, letting the world know you're fighting freedom of

expression.”

Unhappily, Davies yielded.

With the Mayor, Attorney General, and Chief Probation Officer jubilant after viewing

a subsequent cut, plans were put into motion to arrange a benefit screening. That's what Adler

assumed was to be discussed when he got a call asking him to come to the D.A.'s office.

To his surprise, he found the District Attorney looked forlorn.

“You won't believe this,” Adler was told. “The goddamn State's pulling our funding.”

“Because?” asked Adler.

“They claim it's too expensive.”

“That's crazy!”

“Beyond crazy. It's total horseshit!”

Adler sighed. “At least there's one thing that comes from it.”

“Tell me.”

“Know how we've haven't been thrilled with the title?”

“Yeah.”

“Let's replace it with a line from the psychiatrist.”

“Tell me.”

“It's more expensive to do nothing.”

“That's it!”exclaimed the D.A. “That's fucking it!”

Though the benefit screening in San Diego was a success, and the film was quickly

invited to film festivals on both coasts, Adler went into a funk that exceeded his usual post-

partum down period.

Even an offer from a distributor failed to ease the disappointment that owed to a

program he'd come to believe could make the world a better place.

Day after day Adler hung around his house, feeling sorry for himself, when in came

one, two, three texts from Jerry Berman, all of which he ignored.

Only when a delivery man showed up with a bottle of Dom Perignon – and a note

from Berman – did Adler finally call his ex-student.

“What's with the Champagne?” he asked.

“Meet me at that same coffee spot, and I'll tell you.”

“And if I say no?”

“I start pounding on your door.”

“You won't believe how much you helped,” Berman said when Adler joined him.

“On?” .

“The reality show, Mismatched. No one's supposed to know until it airs, but we

won.”

“Your partner got what you were up to?”

“She caught on immediately and played along, even coming up with a great line.

Asked if she was right-handed or left-, what did she say?”

“Tell me.”

“Both – I'm amphibious!”

Adler laughed. “Beautiful!”

Berman nodded. “Told you she got it. Now I need your help again.”

“How?”

“Remember you said the experience could wind up as subject matter for a funny

script.”

Adler nodded.

“I've been trying,” said Berman, “but I'm much too close. Write it with me.”

“This is not a good time.”

“Because?

“I'm pretty down.”

“Then this is the way out. I'll supply the insider's stuff – tons of it. You'll provide the

know-how. You're the one who told me to drag the mattress into the closet. Please?”

Adler pondered for a long moment, then shrugged.

Berman kept pushing. “C'mon –”

“I don't know –”

“We'll hang out,” Berman said. “We'll tell jokes and make something happen.

“Still –”

“What did you tell the class to do when feeling down or depressed?”

“Remind me.”

“Start a new script.”

“Somebody's got a memory.

“Yup. You in?”

Adler deliberated for a moment, then spoke. “We work at my place.”

“Okay.”

“Six mornings a week, from 10 on.”

“If you say so.”

“And I get to pick where we go to lunch.”

Berman smiled. ”We start tomorrow?

“What's the matter with now?” said Adler.