PLAYDATE #2 on the 2024 blacklist - a list of the most loved un-produced screenplays in Hollyweird.
Logline: Logline:
When a struggling single mother reconnects with her childhood bully at their daughters’ playdate, old wounds resurface, turning an innocent evening into a tense psychological battleground—where past trauma, manipulation, and buried secrets threaten to unravel both women’s carefully constructed lives.
At first glance, Playdate seems like a simple drama about a struggling mother and daughter adjusting to a new life. But beneath the surface? This script is about trauma, gaslighting, buried wounds, and the terrifying weight of the past.
THE SETUP
Alice (50) and her daughter Sofie (8) have just moved to a new town, trying to start fresh. Sofie is struggling at school—rejected, lonely, self-conscious. Alice, a nurse, is doing her best, but she’s controlling, anxious, and hyper-focused on Sofie’s weight and diet. There’s an unspoken darkness lurking in Alice’s past, something that has shaped the way she parents and navigates the world.
Then, a small miracle: Sofie makes a new friend, Ida. And just like that, a lifeline appears. A playdate is arranged.
THE TURN
Alice drives Sofie to Ida’s house—a large, elegant home belonging to Katrine, Ida’s mother. But the second the door opens, something shifts. Katrine is a ghost from Alice’s childhood. They went to school together. And while Katrine seems delighted by the unexpected reunion, Alice is frozen, shaken.
Because Katrine wasn’t just another classmate. She was a bully. A manipulator. Someone who made Alice’s childhood hell.
Alice wants to take Sofie and leave. But she doesn’t. She watches as Sofie, beaming, disappears into Ida’s world. She stays. She drinks. And so begins a night of psychological warfare wrapped in pleasantries and small talk.
THE NIGHT UNRAVELS
What follows is a masterclass in tension. Alice and Katrine dance around their shared past, testing the waters, pretending, prodding. Alice tries to bring up the bullying—Katrine denies it, downplays it, mocks it. And just when Alice finally demands an apology? Katrine flips the script, saying she doesn’t even remember what Alice is talking about.
But the mind games don’t stop there. A slice of chocolate cake becomes a battlefield. It echoes back to Alice’s childhood humiliation—a moment when Katrine forced her to eat in front of a jeering crowd. And now, decades later, Alice finds herself choking down cake, forcing herself to eat through tears, as if proving that the past didn’t ruin her. But it did. And in that moment, it all comes crashing down.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Sofie is facing her own quiet devastation. She realizes that Ida was never really her friend. She was a pity invite. Just like her mother, Sofie is being manipulated, toyed with, made to feel small.
And then? The breaking point.
In a desperate moment of misplaced anger, Sofie pushes Ida’s pet guinea pig out the window. She immediately regrets it, scrambling to fix her mistake. But in doing so, she slips. And falls.
THE FALLOUT
Alice and Katrine’s battle of wills shatters as a scream cuts through the house. Sofie is on the ground outside, injured. Everything spirals.
And then the final gut punch: Alice’s trauma isn’t just from her childhood. She fled an abusive relationship. Her ex knows where she lives. The past isn’t just something she’s remembering—it’s something she’s running from.
STORY THOUGHTS
This script is about cycles. The cycle of abuse, of gaslighting, of learned helplessness. Alice was tormented as a child, and now she controls Sofie’s food, her friendships, her life—desperate to shield her from pain, but inadvertently passing on her own wounds.
And Katrine? She’s the perfect antagonist because she doesn’t think she’s an antagonist. She dismisses Alice’s pain not because she’s evil, but because it’s inconvenient. Because admitting what she did would mean admitting she was the villain.
This script is tight, tense, and deeply unsettling. It starts as a slice-of-life drama but slowly morphs into something psychological, something suffocating. Playdate isn’t just about a childhood friendship—it’s about how ghosts of the past never really leave. They wait. They resurface. And if you’re not careful? They consume you.
PLAYDATE – Character Analysis
Playdate isn’t just about childhood trauma; it’s about who carries it, who buries it, and who refuses to acknowledge it. The characters here feel real—flawed, layered, and painfully human. Some of them work perfectly, while others could be fine-tuned to land with more impact. Let’s break it down.
ALICE – The Haunted Survivor
Alice is a walking wound. Everything about her screams survival mode—the way she controls Sofie’s diet, the way she hesitates to trust, the way she physically recoils when Katrine smiles at her. She’s tense, brittle, someone who’s spent her whole life bracing for impact. And for good reason.
What Works:
✅ Layers of Trauma: Alice isn’t just dealing with one form of trauma—she’s carrying two. The childhood bullying that shattered her self-worth and the abusive relationship that forced her to uproot her life. This layering makes her fascinating. She’s a woman trying to heal but also deeply self-destructive.
✅ The Passive Victim Trap: One of the best (and most frustrating) things about Alice is that she constantly hesitates. She wants to confront Katrine but pulls back. She wants to take Sofie and leave but convinces herself to stay. This passivity can be infuriating, but it’s realistic. People who have been conditioned to endure abuse often struggle to break the cycle.
✅ The Cake Scene – Masterstroke: The moment Alice force-feeds herself cake is devastating. It’s not just about childhood humiliation; it’s about who owns her pain. Katrine tells her to “just get over it.” Alice, in response, tries to prove that she’s over it—and in doing so, reveals just how deeply it still owns her.
What Could Be Improved:
🔸 More Moments of Agency: Alice is reactive for most of the script. Yes, that’s part of her trauma, but at some point, we need to see her actively taking control—even if it’s in a small, self-destructive way. Maybe she tries to manipulate Sofie’s social life. Maybe she looks up Katrine before the playdate, already fearing what’s to come. Anything that shows she thinks she’s in control, even when she’s not.
🔸 Stronger Connection Between Past and Present: Alice’s past with Katrine fuels her breakdown, but it could be even more deeply intertwined with her relationship with Sofie. Is Alice subconsciously passing down her trauma? Is she setting Sofie up for the same pain she endured? A few sharper parallels between Alice’s childhood and Sofie’s current struggles would elevate this.
KATRINE – The Gaslighting Queen
Katrine is terrifying—not because she’s outright cruel, but because she’s so effortlessly dismissive. She embodies the kind of person who never acknowledges the damage they’ve done. She’s rich, confident, and effortlessly manipulative. She makes Alice feel crazy with nothing more than a well-timed smile.
What Works:
✅ Casual Cruelty: The best thing about Katrine is that she doesn’t have to try to be cruel. She doesn’t yell, she doesn’t threaten—she just pretends things never happened. And that’s infinitely worse.
✅ Magnetic Charisma: Katrine is likable. She’s warm, she’s funny, she’s playful. This makes her so much scarier than a stereotypical villain because she doesn’t see herself as one. She genuinely believes Alice is overreacting. And in her mind? She’s being the bigger person.
✅ The Cake Power Move: The way she pushes cake on Alice? Chilling. She knows what she’s doing. And yet, if you called her out on it, she’d act like you were crazy. This moment is the perfect encapsulation of who Katrine is.
What Could Be Improved:
🔸 Hints of Vulnerability: Right now, Katrine is an unstoppable force of casual psychological warfare. But the best manipulators have cracks. Maybe she’s drinking too much because she has something to forget. Maybe she’s deeply insecure under all that confidence. A single moment of real vulnerability would make her even more dangerous because it would make her human.
🔸 More Subtle Control Over Sofie: We see how Katrine controls Alice, but what if she also subtly starts controlling Sofie? Maybe she offers her real sugar-laden desserts. Maybe she compliments Sofie’s weight, making her question her mother’s rules. This would tighten the power struggle—because it wouldn’t just be about Alice vs. Katrine, but also Katrine slowly pulling Sofie away from Alice’s influence.
SOFIE – The Inherited Trauma
Sofie is heartbreaking. She just wants to be liked. She’s already internalized so much shame—about her weight, her loneliness, her mother’s rules. And in one brutal moment, she realizes that Ida was never really her friend. She was just an obligation. That’s the moment her world cracks.
What Works:
✅ Perfectly Written Insecurity: Sofie’s self-doubt is palpable. The moment she pinches her thigh fat while looking at Ida? That tells us everything we need to know.
✅ The Betrayal Hits Hard: When she finds out she was just a pity invite, it destroys her. And her reaction—lashing out at Ida’s pet—feels raw and real. It’s that mix of guilt and impulse that makes childhood pain so devastating.
✅ The Roof Scene = High Stakes Done Right: When she tries to “fix” what she’s done by climbing out onto the roof, it’s not just a literal risk—it’s the perfect metaphor for her desperation to be wanted. And, like Alice, she falls.
What Could Be Improved:
🔸 More of Sofie’s Perspective: We spend a lot of time in Alice’s head, but Sofie’s pain is just as important. Seeing more of her struggles at school would make the Ida betrayal land even harder.
🔸 A Sharper Connection to Alice’s Past: Sofie’s story mirrors Alice’s in so many ways. But what if Sofie unknowingly repeats some of Alice’s childhood behaviors? Maybe she starts lying to fit in, just like Alice once did. Maybe she makes fun of another girl, unknowingly becoming the bully Alice once faced. Something to hammer home the cyclical nature of trauma.
IDA – The Reflection of a Future Bully
Ida is a perfect mirror of young Katrine. She’s privileged, charismatic, and effortlessly cruel in a way she doesn’t even register as cruelty. She treats Sofie like an accessory—something to entertain her when she’s bored.
What Works:
✅ Completely Believable: Ida isn’t a mean girl caricature. She’s a product of her environment. She does what she’s been taught—people are disposable. She doesn’t hate Sofie. She just doesn’t value her.
✅ The Subtlety of Her Betrayal: Ida never outright says “you don’t belong”, but she doesn’t have to. The pity invite, the TikTok distraction, the way she subtly distances herself—it’s all done with just enough indifference to feel painfully real.
What Could Be Improved:
🔸 More Direct Parallels to Katrine: Ida is clearly a younger version of her mother. But what if we saw one moment where she learns this behavior from Katrine? Maybe Katrine casually dismisses a friend. Maybe she teaches Ida how to cut someone out. Something that shows that bullies aren’t born, they’re made.
FINAL CHARACTER THOUGHTS
Playdate is character-driven horror. The real monster here isn’t some shadowy figure—it’s the past itself. These characters work because they are real, messy, and deeply flawed. But with a few tweaks—more agency for Alice, a crack in Katrine’s armor, a stronger connection between Sofie and Alice’s past—this could be even more devastating.
And that’s the kind of story that sticks with you.
PLAYDATE – Story Structure
Playdate is a slow-burn psychological thriller wrapped in a domestic drama. At its core, this is a story about power, trauma, and the past’s relentless grip on the present. Structurally, it does a lot of things right—it builds tension masterfully, holds back key reveals until the perfect moment, and weaponizes everyday interactions. But there are areas where it could be tighter, sharper, and more active. Let’s break it down.
ACT 1 – THE SETUP
What Works
✅ Opening Image = Thematic Genius: We start with Alice in a dreamlike state—falling, floating, suffocated by unseen hands. Is it desire? Fear? Trauma? All of the above. This opening is a perfect metaphor for the entire film—Alice is trapped in the past, and she doesn’t even realize it yet.
✅ Alice & Sofie = Stakes Established Quickly: Alice is a mother desperate to protect her daughter from the pain she endured. Sofie is an insecure child trying to fit in. Their dynamic is clear from the start, and we immediately understand Alice’s overprotectiveness and why Sofie resents it.
✅ Katrine’s Introduction = Subtle Horror: The second Alice realizes who Katrine is, the film shifts. Her entire body language changes. This is the inciting incident—not the playdate itself, but Alice recognizing the woman who tormented her. And the fact that Katrine doesn’t immediately recognize Alice? That’s the first gut-punch.
What Could Be Improved
🔸 Alice Needs a More Active Goal: Right now, Alice’s main goal is avoiding conflict. She wants to take Sofie and leave but doesn’t. She wants to call Katrine out but doesn’t. While this makes sense for her character, it also makes her too reactive. The story would be stronger if she had a concrete objective—even if it’s self-destructive. Maybe she actively investigates Katrine, looking for dirt. Maybe she tries to subtly sabotage the playdate under the guise of concern. Anything that keeps her from just enduring until she breaks.
🔸 The Playdate Feels Too Sudden: Sofie goes from having no friends to a sleepover invite very quickly. If we saw more of Sofie struggling at school—maybe even a scene where she’s ignored by her classmates—then this invite would feel like a life raft instead of just a plot point.
ACT 2A – THE ESCALATION
What Works
✅ Microaggressions as Psychological Warfare: The way Katrine slowly chips away at Alice is brilliantly handled. The way she offers Alice cake? That’s not just a power move—it’s a calculated test of control. The way she effortlessly dismisses the past? Even more infuriating than if she outright lied.
✅ Sofie’s Realization = Perfect Midpoint Shift: When Sofie discovers that she was never really wanted, it mirrors Alice’s past pain. This is the film’s emotional midpoint—the moment Sofie’s world cracks, just as Alice’s did years ago.
✅ The Rooftop Sequence = High-Stakes Payoff: Sofie’s guilt-fueled attempt to fix her mistake (saving the guinea pig) is a fantastic externalization of internal conflict. This moment is visually gripping, thematically rich, and structurally perfect.
What Could Be Improved
🔸 Alice Needs to Push Back Sooner: Right now, Alice absorbs Katrine’s gaslighting for too long. Her first real attempt at pushing back comes after she’s already broken down. If she tried to regain control earlier—maybe by subtly warning Sofie about Ida, or pulling Katrine aside to force a confrontation—it would make her unraveling even more powerful.
🔸 The Flashback Connection Could Be Stronger: The film hinges on Alice’s childhood trauma, but we never actually see it. This isn’t about adding exposition—it’s about giving us one visceral moment from Alice’s past that visually connects to the present. Maybe we see Young Alice choking down cake in a schoolyard right before Alice does it again as an adult. Maybe we get one eerie echo of past laughter blending into the present. Just one well-placed flash of the past would lock the audience into Alice’s perspective even deeper.
ACT 2B – THE BREAKDOWN
What Works
✅ The Cake Scene = Uncomfortable Brilliance: Alice forcing herself to eat cake until she cries? This is the most brutal scene in the script. It’s not just humiliation—it’s self-destruction as a survival mechanism.
✅ Katrine’s Gaslighting Hits Its Peak: The way she laughs off Alice’s accusations, the way she acts like Alice is the one being unreasonable—this is masterclass-level manipulation.
✅ Sofie’s Betrayal & Injury = Maximum Impact: Sofie falling after being rejected by her “friend”? That’s literal and symbolic devastation.
What Could Be Improved
🔸 The “Reveal” of Alice’s Ex Feels Late: The reveal that Alice’s abusive ex knows where she lives is huge—but it comes after so much other drama that it almost feels like an afterthought. If there were small breadcrumbs earlier—maybe Alice checking her locks obsessively, maybe an anonymous missed call on her phone—then this moment would feel like a culmination instead of a new problem introduced late in the game.
🔸 We Need a Bigger Shift in Power: Right now, Katrine wins for too long. Just one moment where Katrine loses her composure would make Alice’s escape feel like a victory, not just a retreat.
ACT 3 – THE FALL AND THE EXIT
What Works
✅ The Ending is Unsettling as Hell: Alice doesn’t get closure. Katrine never admits to anything. Sofie is physically hurt but emotionally shattered. Nothing is fixed. And that’s exactly what makes the ending land—because that’s how real trauma works.
✅ Alice’s Exit is Quietly Devastating: She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t make a scene. She just leaves, broken, with no satisfaction.
✅ Thematic Full Circle: The story starts with Alice falling (metaphorically). It ends with Sofie literally falling. It’s a generational cycle of pain, unresolved and continuing.
What Could Be Improved
🔸 A Lingering Final Shot: Maybe we see Alice watching Sofie sleep, realizing she’s passed her pain down. Maybe we see Katrine looking in the mirror, shaken for the first time. Just one final visual gut-punch would cement this story’s impact.
FINAL STRUCTURE VERDICT
Playdate is brilliantly structured, but it could be even stronger with:
🔹 A more active Alice earlier on.
🔹 A single visceral flash of past trauma.
🔹 A bigger “power shift” moment where Alice shakes Katrine.
🔹 More hints at Alice’s ex looming in the background.
Right now, this script lingers in your gut. With just a few refinements? It would haunt you.
PLAYDATE – Dialogue & Story Engine Analysis
Playdate is a tense, slow-burn psychological thriller that thrives on subtext, emotional warfare, and buried trauma. The dialogue is razor-sharp in some places, but could use more active tension in others. The story engines—goals, stakes, urgency, and mystery—are solid, but a few tweaks could intensify the narrative drive. Let’s break it all down.
DIALOGUE ANALYSIS
What Works
✅ Naturalistic and Subtle Power Plays: The best lines in Playdate aren’t flashy—they’re quiet knives. Katrine’s passive-aggressive dismissals of Alice’s trauma are written with chilling realism. She never directly gaslights Alice; instead, she laughs things off, minimizes, and subtly shifts blame, which is far more insidious.
✅ Cake Scene = Perfection: The dialogue in the cake scene is brilliantly unsettling. Alice being coaxed into eating, Katrine’s offhand comments, and the moment Alice finally breaks—it’s all written with exquisite discomfort. This is where the dialogue is at its peak.
✅ Sofie & Ida = Realistic Childhood Interactions: The kids’ dialogue feels authentic. Sofie’s insecurity is palpable, and Ida’s casual dismissal of their “friendship” stings without feeling over-dramatic. It’s exactly how kids wound each other—thoughtless, offhand, devastating.
What Could Be Improved
🔸 Alice Needs Sharper Retorts: Right now, Alice absorbs too much. While this makes sense for her character, she should have at least one moment of verbal defiance earlier in the film. Maybe she subtly challenges Katrine before fully breaking down, making her later collapse even more powerful.
🔸 More Subtext in Sofie’s Storyline: Sofie’s dialogue could use more mirroring of Alice’s past trauma. Maybe she repeats one of Katrine’s dismissive lines without realizing it, showing how toxic patterns pass down generations.
🔸 Tighter Final Confrontation: The last confrontation between Alice and Katrine is almost too polite given everything that has happened. While subtlety is good, Alice should leave Katrine shaken in some way—even if just through one line that finally cuts through her armor.
STORY ENGINE ANALYSIS
(Breaking down how goals, stakes, urgency, and mystery drive the narrative.)
GOALS (OPEN VS. CLOSED)
✅ Sofie’s Goal is Clear (Closed Goal): She wants to be accepted. Simple, relatable, emotionally engaging.
✅ Alice’s Goal is More Internal (Open Goal): She wants to protect Sofie from what happened to her, but she doesn’t know how. This internal conflict is great—but it could be more externally active.
🔸 Alice Needs a Stronger External Goal: Right now, she mostly reacts. What if she actively tried to uncover the truth about Katrine instead of just reliving the past? Even a misguided attempt at regaining control would add more drive to the story.
STAKES
✅ Deeply Personal Stakes: The stakes aren’t life-or-death, but they feel like they are because they cut to Alice’s very identity. That’s powerful.
🔸 Raise the Personal Cost for Alice: Right now, Alice’s life implodes, but what if she also loses something tangible—her job, a personal relationship—before she leaves? It would make the fallout even heavier.
URGENCY
✅ The Third Act Feels Immediate: When Sofie falls, everything kicks into high gear. Great pacing here.
🔸 Act 1 Feels Too Languid: The first act could tighten. Maybe move up the moment Alice recognizes Katrine, so the psychological tension starts sooner.
MYSTERY
✅ The Mystery of Katrine’s Past Actions Works Well: Alice slowly piecing together what happened is engaging.
🔸 What About Katrine’s Present? Right now, Katrine is firmly in control the whole time. What if we saw hints that she’s hiding something more recent? Maybe a failed marriage, a secret drinking problem—something to make her unravel just a little by the end.
ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY
(How much do we actively root for Alice vs. passively feel bad for her?)
✅ We Feel For Alice’s Past (Passive Empathy): The childhood trauma is gut-wrenching. We sympathize with her from the start.
🔸 Alice Needs More Active Empathy Moments: We root for Alice, but she could use one or two moments of active, positive empathy. Maybe she helps another struggling parent, or fiercely protects Sofie from another school parent, showing who she is when she’s not afraid.
ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE NEGATIVE EMPATHY
(How much do we actively hate Katrine vs. just recognize her as toxic?)
✅ Katrine’s Gaslighting = Perfectly Hateable (Active Negative Empathy): We actively despise her, because we see exactly how manipulative she is.
🔸 More Layers to Katrine’s Character: Right now, she’s so unshaken that it almost makes her feel untouchable. If we saw just one crack—one moment where she’s caught off guard—it would make her more interesting. Maybe her own child shows signs of rejecting her—a small moment where her mask almost slips.
FINAL OVERALL VERDICT
Playdate already has brilliant dialogue, strong tension, and a compelling emotional core, but it could be even stronger with:
🔹 Sharper, more active dialogue for Alice earlier on.
🔹 A more direct external goal for Alice.
🔹 Tighter pacing in Act 1 to increase urgency.
🔹 A tangible loss for Alice to raise stakes.
🔹 A single crack in Katrine’s armor to deepen her character.
Right now, this script unsettles and lingers. With a few adjustments? It would devastate.
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