Screenwriting : Antagonist/Love interest by Mariia Rudenko

The love structure is unique as each of the lovers is the goal and opponent with each having a their own goal/desire line. No one made this type of movie, and along came LA LA LAND. Great example of this in that movie!

yeah Lindbergh E Hollingsworth a great example it is! thank you! I’m now having an interesting twist in my new feature where a child free TV icon (protagonist) in her 70s suddenly finds herself challenged by a niece and her teen kids she saw one time in life. Protagonist is hating the challenge (niece as antagonist), but inner need is to have a family and be loved (niece is a love interest). As love interest is not necessarily someone we love as a partner or spouse, it can be anyone who makes us want to be a better person, whose life matters to us a lot.

So I was thinking to add some guy as her love interest, but I see now it’s not needed at all

Good example for sure Lindbergh E Hollingsworth. And Mariia Rudenko, that's an interesting question, it sounds like you were able to fashion a good story without having to adhere to standard protagonist/antagonist setups. As long as it works for your story and isn't just different for the sake of being different, and of course as long as the script works as a whole, then there's no need to color inside the lines in this instance, you can change things up a little bit. As for a force of nature being the antagonist, Twister did pretty well with the antagonist being well....a twister; however Shyamalan's The Happening featured nature itself as the protagonist and didn't fare as well.

A force of nature can be an antagonist Mariia Rudenko. Natural disaster movies have force of natures as antagonists along with human antagonists.

Of course the love interest can be the antagonist, and that’s often the case in romantic comedies. The two leads can be fighting until they fall for each other. You’ve Got Mail, 10 Things I Hate About You.

You see something similar in buddy cop movies. The two partners are at each others’ throats until they learn to work together and fight the real antagonist.

If your characters are fighting a twister, shark, or earthquake, there’s better be conflict between humans too. Plenty to argue about while the boat is sinking (Poseidon Adventure) or zombies are attacking (Night of the Living Dead).

thanks Nick Phillips ! to be honest my story just decided that it’d be much more fun to have antagonist as love interest. As having antagonist as just a so-called “bad guy” in this case would look quite flat. And yeah, thanks a lot for great examples

thanks for helpful tips Mike Boas and Maurice Vaughan ☺️ having some natural disaster alongside a human antagonist is also an answer I was looking for thinking of one more feature idea I have (war plus a human who doesn’t make things easier at all)

You're welcome, Mariia Rudenko. I've never thought of war being an antagonist, but it can be one. That's intriguing!

yeah, Maurice Vaughan unfortunately we’re living in times when there’s a lot of material to use on this topic, often knowing it first hand. Being able to create something out of all this horror is maybe the only and very doubtful “plus” in all this. War + human = super powerful antagonist indeed. gotta try

I think an antagonist can also be a love interest and can be an inanimate force too. It makes stories more interesting Mariia Rudenko

thank you Sam Rivera ! I think so too

thanks for a good example Sergio Cardenas . I’ve just checked out the trailer. interesting storyline there

yeah, totally Mark Deuce ! there’s no right answer. There are just things that worked or didn’t

You'd have to ask my wife that question:)

hahah Dan Guardino good point! my husband would totally agree

I would say A Star is Born is a good example of antagonist/lover being the same character

right Pat Alexander ! thanks for one more very good example!

Im old; this type of genre was big in the 1990's: Fatal Attraction, Body Heat, Basic Instinct, The Crush..

After two divorces, I'm inclined to see all lover interests as antagonists.

ROFLMAO Preston Poulter