After a late night on Saturday, I was feeling sorry for myself last night, so stuck on my jim-jams and settled down to a few films.
One of these films was Glengarry Glen Ross. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I love it.
There are two reasons for this:
1. It has an incredible cast: Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin.
2. The dialogue between characters is fantastic.
If you want an idea of how natural dialogue should be written, watch Glengarry Glen Ross. If you have any plans to write radio or video scripts, see yourself as a budding screenwriter, or want to write press ads or content which speaks to ‘normal people’, it’s a great film to watch.
In actual fact, it’s closer to a theatre play posing as a film … because that’s what it was originally.
If you want further ideas in respect of natural dialogue, you could also do a lot worse that revisiting Snatch or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
I’d also recommend watching any Mike Leigh films, as well, and maybe a few of Shane Meadows’ films.
There are many other films you could watch, so see what you can unearth.
As a starting point, you could do far worse than Glengarry Glen Ross, though.