Submitted by JACQUELINE STAHL Pages: 116 Draft: Time: Present Locale: Levittown, Pa, Philadelphia and Buenos Aires Genre: Dramedy Analyst: Hollywoodscript.com
PREMISE: There’s nothing special about Liz Miller’s bland existence, except for her stunning dreams of Argentine tango and her passionate drive to somehow fill her wanting heart. She feels insignificant, exhausted and alone, but ultimately, she will have to find phenomenal inspiration in order to revive her joy in living. It won’t be easy!
QUICK COMMENT: A deep, moody, often tragically hilarious, beautifully written original. Concept VERY GOOD Characterization EXCELLENT Dialogue EXCELLENT Story Line EXCELLENT Setting/Prod. Values EXCELLENT Freshness of Story VERY GOOD
SYNOPSIS: Liz is a painfully generic, middle-aged secretary who has been left achingly alone. Her son ROBERT and daughter JELLY are away at college. Jelly still calls home, but Robert, who is bursting with contempt for the whole family, never calls. More painful still, her parents both died five years ago. She spends long nights of insomnia missing them, staring into her mother’s gaudy broaches, and according to Robert, “trying to get inspiration from the dead.” And night after night, her husband BOB abandons her for the life-sucking BLUE GLOW of his TV. Liz can’t escape the Blue Glow. It fills the windows of every house in her neighborhood, except one. And on a particularly lonely night, Liz knocks on the door to this house, hoping to make a friend. She is met by a scary PALE WOMAN whose murderous glare and hateful words send Liz sprinting home. PALE WOMAN Liz dreams of reviving her ailing life and marriage by dancing Argentine tango, the premiere dance of passion. Her first step toward this dream is to “get a feel for the tango.” She does this by wearing gaudy, provocative dresses and four inch heels around the house. These extravagant dresses aren’t cheap, so Liz sells some of her “unneeded” furniture on e-bay to (as Bob puts it) finance her “weird dress habit.” In an argument with Liz, Bob attributes her “wacky behavior” to menopause. BOB LIZ Bob impatiently urges Liz to go to the doctor and get some hormones. Recognizing this argument as an opportunity to further her tango dreams, Liz strikes a deal with Bob: she’ll visit the doctor if he promises to dance tango with her. But when test results from the doctor prove she is not menopausal, Bob reneges on his promise, partly out of frustration with Liz’s habitual aversion to sex. BOB LIZ BOB Her tango hopes dashed, Liz charges, screaming, to the backyard. She rips off her tango shoes and throws them at the house. When a neighbor catches her in this frenzy, she realizes that she does need some fixing. She goes to MAGGIE, a therapist; but she goes secretly, refusing to give Bob “ammunition” for his “Wacky Liz” arguments. Before long, Bob gets suspicious of Liz’s sneaky visits and he spies on her everywhere she goes. He is convinced that she is cheating with DOUG, Maggie’s husband, and his suspicious fiasco culminates in a huge confrontation with Liz outside of Maggie’s home office. He accuses her of sleeping with Doug. She proves him wrong by dragging him to Maggie’s door. LIZ Bob unleashes himself from Liz in a panic: no marriage counseling for him. With Maggie’s encouragement, Liz ventures to a real tango party, instead of remaining stuck in her “little tango fantasy world.” She doesn’t tell Bob, hoping to make him wonder what she’s been up to. Unfortunately, the party turns out to be a humiliating disaster. No one asks her to dance, except for a strange man who rudely criticizes her dancing. Liz returns home devastated. Adding insult to injury, Bob hasn’t even noticed she was gone. Having just polished off a whole bag of cookies in front of the TV, he hollers from the den, “Honey, we got any Tums?” This question is Liz’s final straw. When Liz leaves Bob, her life takes flight. HAL, the elderly security guard at her work, offers her his guest room and becomes like a father. Hal forces her to give tango another try, and in a tango class, she meets SHARON, who becomes a fast (and funny) friend. Liz even finds a love interest, PABLO, a broad-chested tango teacher who can’t seem to take his smoldering eyes off of her. This group of new friends takes the trip of Liz’s dreams: to exotic Argentina. In Argentina, Liz’s passions break free. She laughs, she drinks, she dances. She succumbs to the slow, steady seduction of an expert Don Juan, or in this case, Don Pablo, and she has one breathtaking dance with Pablo. It’s like a love scene, without the bed. For that enthralling moment, she lives her tango fantasy. Then, reality crashes in. Bob’s father dies on Bob’s new bike. Bob is also injured in the accident, and Liz feels overwhelmingly obligated to cut short her dream vacation to go to the funeral and support Bob. Once again, despite her best efforts, Liz is home alone with Bob, her “life force” shrinking away. Her only consolation is that her kids are in college, far away from her mindless, suburban Hell. She gazes soberly at their pictures on the wall. LIZ Then, out of the blue, a call from Jelly. She has flunked half her classes. Bob doesn’t urge her to try harder. Instead, he encourages her to move back home and work with him. When Liz learns that Bob is sucking Jelly back into his “brain dead” existence, she hits her breaking point. And for one minute, via her aching heart, she acts completely unrestrained. That’s the minute that changes their lives forever.
COMMENTS: This is a rich, moving screenplay with very strong dialogue, characters that jump off the page and lots of deep, moody themes. A contest winner from the get-go. Has that special something that we always look for but usually cannot find. A rare combination of sad, funny along with smart, hip and deep, ever so honest, relatable, and tragically hilarious. Always comes from the heart. American Beauty-esque, but a star vehicle, perfectly supplemented with a memorable cast. You’ll like this material. Would make an incredible film.
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