When you come to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter you become familiar with the inspirational clichés: ‘Write what you know’, ‘All you need is paper, pen and an idea’, ‘Don’t let perfection get in the way of something good.’ You hear them so much that it becomes easy to not let them sink in. Then you see a film like Swingers, which proves the sayings correct, and that’s when you really feel inspired. It’s the film that launched the careers of Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Doug Liman and others. Favreau wrote the script which capitalized on the Swing culture of the 90s to tell a story of male friendship, both good and bad, with both sides portrayed by Vaughn. A bold decision to take the most entertaining character and make him the villain by the end. There are moments of painful honesty, usually played for laughs, and room for improvisation. The Letterboxd reviews often incorporate famous lines in their post. (Matt Singer wrote, “There are so many famous Swingers quotes that there are lines I repeat to this day that I didn’t even realize are Swingers quotes.”)
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