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Yes, yes -- great script, great movie. Gritty stuff, and yes, raw and honest and provocative in how we're moved by stuff, even if foreign or offensive or unimaginable or gut-wrenching to us. Totally agree with the most memorable dialogue -- I wrote that down too!! I also liked, on page 34, Ron's speech to Eve, about celebrating via Cheez Whiz on a Ritz. :-) Couple things stick out for me as takeaways. First, the foreshadowing lines of dialogue Ron delivers, first on page 4 ("Gotta die from somethin'.") and another whiff of it on p. 11 -- "Ain't nothin' can kill Ron Woodruff in 30 days." Wow. Maybe I've read too many books/articles on screenwriting, but reading this script, I almost laughed out loud reading those two bits --- not because they weren't fantastic. They were. But it was like PLOP, a seed. And PLOP, another, bigger seed. Great seeds, albeit very blatant/apparent... A reminder to "toss something out there" and "let people know early on what they're in for with this story". Mission accomplished! Second takeaway for me was about picking a distinct theme. Marinate the story in it, let that flavor seep in and all the way through. For me, I scribbled down "walk a mile in another man's shoes". Plenty of ways to say this, but that's what I gravitated to. I'd love to see an early/first draft of this script, i.e. curious to see how it changed over the development process. This was clearly about spot-on to what got filmed. I'd seen this film fairly recently, so while the writing is surely vivid, I may still affected by remembering what I SAW .. and not just what I read.

I didn't realize Rayon's character was fictional, but it definitely adds to the story - s/he's the bridge to the other side. Agree on the scene with Rayon and her dad. This scene was necessarily painful and brought out the ugly lump in the throat for sooooooo many reasons: the last thing she wanted to do was have anything to do with her father, let alone ask for a favor and that interaction alone is painful. But that she's doing it for Ron and the cause is something else. Wow!

I see how this movie finally got made. I wasn't blown away in theaters but reading it I really enjoyed it. The little asides about how the characters were feeling in the particular moment were great. It seems the script works. I could really feel the different arcs of the sequences, with each sequence ending with some new obstacle the DEA or FDA or Sevard throws at him. That being said, I feel like Eve and Rayon could have been developed more in the script. Leto added a lot in his performance but I can't remember who played Eve and don't remember her being as strong in the movie. Oh well, there is only so much time in the script, and when half of the time someone is explaining what drugs do or something like that perhaps character development gets left out.

Joni, those two lines are on the nose, especially if, as a viewer, you enter the movie KNOWING what it's about. But I think they work because they come from a specific character: Ron. He is brazen, a braggart, and boisterous, prone to self-aggrandizement. In other words, they fit his persona. From a writing standpoint, they work because they a part of a foundation to set where Ron starts off in his metamorphosis-journey. In that regard, you might enjoy watching this 11 minute featurette with the filmmakers about Ron's transformation. And that's really what is at the heart of this story: How a homophoboic, racist white male evolves over time. As Claudia noted in her post, Rayon exists to compel Ron to deal first-hand with his homophobia as well as sexism (also Jennifer Garner's character per the latter). Listen to Matthew M in that featurette and you can see some of the passion for him about why he wanted to do this role - because it gave him a chance to cover a wide range of transformational emotions. That is something we all can remember with our own writing.

Despina, that scene recalls As Good As It Gets. If you recall Simon (Greg Kinnear) is the reason Melvyn (Jack Nicholson) and Carol (Helen Hunt) are heading up to Baltimore: So Simon can go meet with his father to borrow money. Similar dynamic. In AGAIG, that scene never happened, Simon realizing he needed to become self-sufficient, freeing himself symbolically at least from his father's judgment. But we DO get that scene in DBC. And it IS painful on many levels, as you point out. Thanks for your comments!

Dakota, I'll be curious to see if others felt like Even and Rayon were underdeveloped on the page. Perhaps in Rayon's case, Leto gave such a command performance on screen, it diminished what was written on the page. OTOH if you check out the featurette I linked to above, screenwriter Borten says that Matthew M had questions about his character on every single page of the script. Also listened to hours of tapes from the actual person he played. So actors can inhabit the roles we write and really make them come alive way beyond what is possible on the page. Best we can do is give them the fullest expression in our words so they connect, then run with that inspiration.