UNT-SE (Sci-Fi/Romance Feature Coverage)

TITLE: UNT-SE GENRE: ROMANCE/DRAMA WRITER: N/A SETTING: PARALLEL UNIVERSE COVERAGE FOR: INCOGNITO PICTURES PERIOD: PRESENT DAY ASSIGNED BY: SEAN RICHARDSON PAGES: 113 COVERAGE BY: CASSIDY HAYNES LOGLINE: In a parallel universe, a couple spirals through an unlikely six-year romance as their relationship is tested by fate, their conflicting personalities, and time itself.

SYNOPSIS: DELL, cynic and socially challenged genius, sits in a park, waiting for a meteor shower. He’s on the phone with his mother’s doctors. He stands for a smoke and spots KIMBERLY, intelligent and beautiful. She shouts for him to move just as a car barrels toward him, saving his life.

In the split second before the car misses him, he sees a collection of images, all years apart; he and Kimberly in a hotel room, the two of them in a train station, himself alone in a bus station, and finally Kimberly’s apartment.

He comes to again, and tries awkwardly to chat with Kimberly, but her jockish date JOSH steps in. Dell shows off his intellect and bests Josh with words, but his attempts at flirting with Kimberly fall flat and she leaves. Later the same night, they meet again and have a brief debate about the existence of love. There is an undeniable chemistry between them.

Three years later. They’re on a train together, having broken up, and recount a fight they had in a hotel room a year before.

Another year later. Kimberly’s in traffic in her car, and Dell calls her from a bus station far away. They’re dating again, but tentatively, and he can tell she has bad news.

Two more years later. The night they met was six years ago, and now Dell stands in Kimberly’s apartment. Things have changed dramatically between them, but her laptop plays the song from the scene before.

Six years ago. He and Kimberly are still waiting for the meteor shower. Dell confesses to her that he doesn’t understand the full range of human emotion, but insists that there’s a connection between them. He then opens up to her about his mother’s condition and his childhood. He tells Kimberly he’s anxious and always looking ahead, and she tells him

she stays in the present. They agree to date one another, to prove whether or not love exists. Dell tells her he lied about having never seen the movie Sixth Sense, arguing that every person in a relationship tells one big lie and he wanted to get his out of the way.

Kimberly tries to think of one too, but Dell stops her, saying she can’t until he least expects it and is in a vulnerable position. He asserts the only thing worse than getting hurt in a relationship is being changed by the other person.

Two years later. They’re in the hotel room, and they’ve been together for two years.

Kimberly almost sees a ring box in his pocket. He panics and says it’s his wallet.

Kimberly gets high and tells him she wishes she had control of time, so that she could view the beginning, middle and end all at once, like a painting. He places the ring box in a drawer when she isn’t looking.

On the train, a year later, she’s afraid to cross the cars to get a drink. He takes her hand and leads her across safely. They share a tender moment before she confronts him, demanding to know why he never proposed to her when they dated. She says she wants to undo their relationship, and he says he doesn’t. He admits that he’s come to win her back.

Another year later, she’s in her car and he’s at the bus station. At his urging, she admits the bad news was that she’d been texting her ex. He blows up, incredibly betrayed, and tells her that this was her big lie. Their argument escalates, and he tells her he doesn’t love her, and that he never did. She sobs, and he hangs up. His mother’s doctors call and tell him she’s had a heart attack.

In the hotel room, two years before, Dell finally works up the nerve to propose, kneeling at her bedside, but before he can finish, he ruins it with one narcissistic comment.

Kimberly tells him she hates, him leaves, and he flushes the ring down the toilet.

Two years later, in Kimberly’s apartment, Dell sees a photo of her and her new boyfriend, JACK. He realizes that they’re engaged, and she tried to hide it from him. He tells her that he’s been dreaming about her; that the dreams appear as a series of conversations they’ve had, from the beginning of their relationship up until then. He says he even dreamed of the conversation they’re having now, and it’s what convinced him to come see her. Again he admits that he’s come to win her back. With pain in her eyes, she tells him he’s pregnant with Jack’s child, and that she isn’t leaving him. Dell understands, and tearfully confesses that he did attempt to propose to her, years ago, and that without her

he feels he’s in the wrong timeline. The two share a minute of heavy silence, and as he leans in to kiss her one last time, the screen cuts to black.

SCORE:

10

9

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

*

CONCEPT CHARACTERS

*

PLOT

*

PACING

*

DIALOGUE

8

*

TOTAL SCORE: 45/50 ANALYSIS: In the beginning, Dell is unlikeable, sardonic, and dry in an unredeemable way. His love interest Kimberly barely has any personality, aside from a random handful of traits the writer might’ve to found attractive or common in young women. Dell’s misanthropic personality isn’t unrealistic, but Kimberly’s captivation with him is.

Through a deft use of non-linear moments between the two characters, their interactions steadily build in quality, intensity and believability. Even as the story goes backwards and forwards through time, Dell displays a fuller range of emotion and vulnerability, and Kimberly becomes a complex and contradicting character. The writer creates fully fleshed out individuals who are a far cry from the couple introduced on the first page. Viewer sympathy is quickly gained after the first six-year jump ahead, and a picture is painted of an epically inevitable romance.

At first, their conversations are stilted and deeply uncomfortable. Intimate moments feel forced, and awkward in a way that is painful to read. As the story progresses, however, conversations become snappier. The dialogue is wittier, the hooks are sharper, and both Kimberly and Dell have clever moments. It’s as though the two of them teach each other what it means to be real people.

It’s a captivating example of a non-linear storytelling, made successful in large parts by the dialogue hooks and call backs. Dell’s assertions that he and Kimberly are fated for each other could not be more baseless and ridiculous in the first fifteen pages, but by the end it’s clear; there is something profound and meaningful about their pairing, however ill-fated it may be.

The best thing about the script is its dynamism; the progression and development of Kimberly and Dell’s relationship, how they see each other and how each of them sees the world, their individual finest and worst moments as depicted through seemingly meaningless banter. The journey they take, and the final crushing blow of the last three pages is what make this story devastating, beautiful, and one worth being told.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT: WRITER: RECCOMMEND SCRIPT: RECCOMMEND