How should my screenplay end?
So I'm going to finish this movie I've been writing on and off since March, in the hopes of dropping a few copies off during my trip to New York over New Years.
I'm really happy with the story so far. I think it's got potential. I just don't know how to end it. So I'm going to explain the story and themes here, and please let me know either via the notes or email or some other format how you think I should end it. Seriously. I need some real inspiration and I know one of you will point me in the right direction if you give it a few minutes of thought.
ACT I
Married couple in their upper twenties living in the midwest. Husband is the main character; he works in middle management; a bit naive because of the small/homogenous world he's always lived in and a bit complacent because his parents died while he was in college. So he's kind of stuck in the 90s. His wife is a nurse; wants kids right away; is growing distant from her husband because he won't grow up; has developed an addiction to painkillers.
The wife disappears and the husband struggles to figure out what's happened. He's given some cryptic assurances that she's not hurt when he finds out that a patient at the hospital -- an African woman who's just fallen into a coma -- had developed a friendship with his wife. But in any case she's gone away for a while. He has to come to terms with that but also just learn to function on his own.
The husband eventually finds out that his wife has gone to Africa. In an altered state after a company party he buys a plane ticket to go and find her.
ACT II
The husband arrives in the wrong country and is immediately robbed. He's taken in by a kind family with some similarities to his own, and in the process of living with them he learns a lot about himself and his place in the world.
ACT III
The husband returns home with a new outlook on life (still no sign of his wife). His wife comes back into the picture and most of the confusion is explained away by a series of innocent misunderstandings.... or are they?
Should they get back together? Have a baby? Should a baby be on the way? Whose? Happy ending, tragedy or irony?
If your idea is good enough to push me over the finish line, you might even get a screenwriting credit when the movie is released national-wide starring Nick Thune in the role of John Bird, Kirsten Dunst in the role of Jane Bird, with Larry Bird appearing as himself. (oh yeah, did I mention it's hilarious?!)
3 comments:
Okay, how 'bout this for an odd twist...
The kind family in Africa is tragically killed in a carjacking incident. Their young children are left parentless and alone. Before coming home the husband briefly considers adopting them but decides he can't handle it alone.
The reunion between the husband and wife is made even more heartwarming when she reveals that she has adopted two African children - the same children who the husband almost adopted.
The End.
I dunno if that's what you are looking for. Too sappy?
well, the twist in the middle of the story is that the husband doesn't get to Africa. he buys his plane ticket when he's in an altered state of consciousness and ends up buying it for a city in Bolivia with a similar sounding name. so when he and the wife are reunited (if they are) it's back home in good old French Lick.
I like the idea of someone dying though. i like where your head's at.
and the whole heartwarming v heartbreaking v unresolved one way or the other end is the part that i'm having the most trouble with too.
According to Michael Malone, great novelists know there are only two plots, someone leaves home or someone comes to town. Somebody else who I forget said that there are only four movies that can be made. Man vs. Himself, Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature and Man vs. Fate. (I've also heard Nature and Fate be lumped together as God) So that's something to think about. I can't tell from your synopsis whether the Husband (John Bird?) is a hero or anti-hero, but I like happy endings so I'm going say that ending should their redemption. I think Ben is right about the adoption and death thing. I think the death should be somehow indirectly related to the couples lifestyles. Union breakers of his company, drug lords that supplied her dealer ( I know that's not painkillers ). AID's, Child Labor, Fair Trade, are all themes you could use.
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