Out of Character

            A successful screen-writer’s playboy life-style and cold perceptions are interrupted when a girl he sleeps with threatens sexual assault charges and forces herself into his life.

            A dark introspective romantic drama set primarily in one condo and on the beach in front of it.  With only two principal characters, and minimal action, the scope of the film is modest and could conceivably be completed on a relatively small budget.  The film analyzes both the relationships of disparate people and the often inaccurate portrayal of relationships in film.

            A successful screen-writer named David stays in his beachfront Florida condo when he isn’t busy marketing scripts in LA.  When in Florida he follows a clockwork routine.  Every day he writes 5-10 pages, then watches a movie or reads a book on the beach.  At night, he goes out to one of several clubs at which he is a regular and picks up a different girl.  In the morning, he drops them off to retrieve their cars, and that is the end of it.  He is cold, and detached, and in stark contrast to the characters he creates for his scripts, which are primarily romantic comedies.

            One night he picks up a girl, Cathy, at a bar and takes her home with him.  The next morning she wakes up and looking at the posters on the wall determines that he is the writer of several of her favorite movies.  She walks out of the bedroom and finds David writing in his study.  He tells her to get her things, that they can leave immediately, and she is confused, as a one-night stand was thoroughly not her intention.  She argues with him and asks how he can write such warm things while being so cold.  He’s heard this before and tells her to get out.  She refuses and says that if he makes her leave she will call the police.  She’s 16, she says, so technically he is guilty of statutory rape.  He begrudgingly accepts this, and pulls out his wallet, but she doesn’t want money.  She wants to convince him that he’s wrong.

            And so he lets her live with him.  He writes, but is distracted by her as she constantly questions and criticizes the characters that he is writing.  As their relationship progresses, he delves further into his theories about people, that they are driven by an emotion, that this emotion shifts eventually, and that everything is in service of a driving plot or theme.  Furthermore, he posits that in reality, these drives are mundane and tangible, sex, money, etc. whereas in film, they are lofty pursuits like love, hope, and honor.  He explains that inevitably, in both life and film, the progression of relationships, and the development of people is structured and linear.

            Cathy begins to intentionally subvert his theories, as she herself believes in chance and randomness and true inexplicable complexity.  She forces him to try things he doesn’t regularly do, and prevents him from continuing his usual structured lifestyle.  One night, she convinces him to go for a walk on the beach, and purposefully leads him far enough that they cannot get back to his condo easily.  A rain-storm starts and they sleep arm in arm under a pier.  In the morning they wake and he panics.  She suggests that he is realizing that his own emotions are no longer in check, that he is becoming to organic for his theories to hold up, but he argues that, no, his drives are still money and freedom and physical happiness, and that none of these things will remain attainable if he goes to prison for statutory rape because he did something stupid like slept with a 16 year old on a beach.

            They go back to his condo, and their spat on the beach adds further development to his screenplay, which, though set in the 1800s seems to mirror their relationship in strange ways, the mutual learning that stems from the forbidden but forced romance of a lord and a peasant.  And because it mirrors the way they really are, the screenplay becomes less formulaic and more erratic.  And because of this, David’s agent becomes less and less interested in it.  He suggests that David has lost his touch and should stick with the formula that he knows.

            David flies out to meet with the agent and Cathy insists on being present.  He introduces her as his niece and they begin to discuss the script.  Both Cathy and the agent are extremely confused, as they reside on diametric opposite ends of the character spectrum and he vacillates chaotically between the two, trying hard to argue against their two mutually exclusive perspectives.  He eventually caves and agrees that he will rework the screenplay to ‘make more sense.’

            They fly back to Florida and Cathy is pissed at David for giving in.  He says that he has to because it is one of his drives, money and success.  But he concedes that his drives have become increasingly cinematic, as he feels that he has begun to fall in love with her.  She points out that this is really just the character shift that he claims is such a formula and says that she doesn’t buy it and that she is leaving.  She admits that she is in fact twenty, and that her lie was meant to manipulate him so she could see his world.  He accuses her of being formulaic as well, and she says ‘maybe so,’ after all, she has fallen in love with him as well.  He invites her to stay, and she says no, she has to go, if only to prove her point to him that things don’t always work out the way they do in movies.  As she leaves, he promises to write a script that doesn’t work that way, one that reflects life, and how people are complicated and things don’t always work. 

            And he did, and now you’ve seen it.