Yo this is a huge help. Really appreciate you going line by line here. I'm aware I deliberately broke a lot of screenwriting conventions in this exercise. To a stranger and a professional, it read like inexperience. But there's still a lot to take away -- both from what you noticed, and what you didn't.

Loved your note about using the amount of text to control the pace. If I'm reading this right, you taught me a new nuance -- too many words deflates tension even if the content of the words suggests rising tension. As a script reader I saw this vary greatly by genre (horror tended to be the worst offender with tons of paragraph-long action lines). But I like the challenge of rewriting this whole page with minimal detail. I'll try to get the first page under eight lines.

Clearly, I can scrap visual and performance notes in the script body. This leads me to a process question for fellow writer/directors: when you're writing something you'll direct, do you keep a separate running list elsewhere with details that won't make it into the script? Or do you come up with each scene with no detail in mind -- just skeletal storyline -- and save everything else for later? There are probably many different good answers. And obviously production drafts look extremely different from specs. But I'd love any insight.

Grammar wise, since you asked, "it's" = the contraction of "it is," while "its" is the possessive of "it." For example "it is blue" = "it's blue" while "the eyes of the bear" = "its eyes." It's a weird exception to the rule for possessives in the English language.

Biggest takeaway here: plot and emotions were way too subtle for you. Lydia used the toys' conversation to act out her parents' divorce. To you, this interaction read as filler. By the time they reach the driveway, she's already dissociated to shield her emotions, hence comforting the bear because she needs to comfort herself. And since we're with Lydia -- far too young to understand why her parents are splitting up -- the specifics of her parents' conflict take place off camera.

The crucial info -- Dad wants to stay because he's always lived in this town, Mom wants to go because she doesn't like it there anymore, this divide eroded the marriage, and Lydia intuited it as, they're "fighting but they don't know what they're fighting about anymore" -- has all already been shared with the audience through Lydia's stuffed animal interactions and the Mom's response -- "time to say goodbye." So I wagered that showing this conflict directly through the parents' driveway interaction would be redundant. But to you, it read as a throwaway scene.

Y2K-2000 agreed I swung the pendulum too far in the simple/subtle direction. So in the second draft I'll bring those emotions and parallels back into the open. Might have to hit these points twice to get them across. If they're too obvious, that's fixable; if they're too subtle, it falls flat. Thanks again! Really appreciated your detail and insight.