.gif)
So after thinking about the Mother's Day idea during the Big Move, I've decided to try an alternative structure, asking, "What if the first act ends differently to the-son-runs-away?" So my first replacement is:
13. The Son denies his mothers all access to his family.
So now I'm developing three possible structures for the film. The original road movie. This one, which is presumably set more in the city of origin. And an amalgam of the two.
But I'd still like to brainstorm more ideas - even though I think that this new way of playing the Turning Point represents a stronger failure for the mothers - ... while continuing to generate ideas for the son's job when he runs away.
2 comments:
Svend here...
Well, one of the problems you were going to have with the original set-up was why the mother-in-law cared about the son. After all, he was only related legally, rather than emotionally. So one possibility is:
The Son denies his mothers all access to his family - by running away *with his family*. (This has the additional advantage of making it easier to like the Son - abandoning a pregnant wife is a big hurdle to overcome for audience sympathy. I remember having a really hard time liking/caring about Bruce Willis' character in Unbreakable because the first time we meet him, he's trying to cheat on his wife.)
How about this - one of the mothers turns up to the house unnannouced, as has happened before. But this time, the house is closed, the locks have been changed, there's a bunch of fliers in the mailbox, and when the mother comes away from the house, she runs into someone putting up a "For Sale" sign.
Or is this what you were meaning by "amalgam"?
It occurs to me that the character of the wife may be problematic. To make the premise of the movie work, it seems like the Son has to be at least a bit... useless? wet? malleable? So if he forbids access to his family (by whatever means), why does his wife go along with it? Making her even wetter than he is would be one option, I guess; or she could be somewhere out along the quirky/weird spectrum.
Or... I'm not sure it would work, but you might be able to avoid meeting her until near the very end of the movie, at which point you can imply that she has characteristics of all the mothers that we've gotten to know. ;)
Another option is for running away being the *wife's* idea - but that might make the Son too much of a cipher, and it certainly changes the tone of the movie.
Your 'For Sale' suggestion made me laugh, which is a good sign in a comedy. And, yeah, that is the amalgam that I was thinking of.
Post a Comment