The Clairvoyant Coverage by Kiki Prager

ANONYMOUS CONTENT – COVERAGE Title: The Clairvoyant

Subm'd To: Anonymous Content

Author: Marian Thurn

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Form: Novel

Company: N/A

Genre: Dramedy

Budget: N/A

Setting: New York, NY

Date: 09/2020

Circa: 1990s Reader: Kiki Prager ____________________________________________________________ LOGLINE: Professional clairvoyant Victor Mackenzie finds himself thrown into the thick of NYC drama when he becomes infatuated with a female client trying to escape her anal-retentive exboyfriend and chaotic ex-husband. ____________________________________________________________ COMMENTS SUMMARY: With life-like, catchy dialogue, this engaging story deals with the fragility of romantic and familial relationships and could make for an adaptation that puts a quirky, paranormal twist on classic romantic comedies such as This Is 40. ____________________________________________________________ EXCELLENT GOOD FAIR POOR PREMISE

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SUMMARY VICTOR MACKENZIE, long-limbed and slender with a handsome face and piercing blue eyes, saw his first ghost just a few weeks after turning eight. His ghost, MURRAY WEINBAUM, was the owner

of the candy store where Victor and his friends spent every afternoon of their childhood. His unique paranormal ability is a gift that runs in the family, but his parents warn him not to flaunt it, so as to avoid the reputation of being “nutty” like his grandmother. Analytical, attractive, and mysterious, he resides in an turn-of-the-century Manhattan townhouse where he conducts his work as a paid clairvoyant. Despite his eccentric way of dressing and rather androgynous style (hair in a ponytail, hoop earrings), women find themselves easily attracted to him. Confident and perceptive, he finds himself privileged to open up the deepest details of people’s lives and share what he predicts is to come. Not far from Victor in SOHO resides failed painter KATHA RANDALL (late 30s), mother of JULIA (8), a smart and sassy child who has bore witness to her mother’s zany history of men. In honor of Katha’s freshmen year roommate and best friend LUCY’s (late 30s) birthday, Katha arranges an appointment with Victor, whom she heard about during one of her boyfriend’s office parties. She makes an appointment for herself as well. Her boyfriend, PARKER, is an unfaithful pretentious germaphobe/mysophobe with expensive taste. He looks down on TOM, Katha’s ex-husband, who is a Stanford grad and part-time sociology professor at NYU, part-time pothead. Julia refers to Parker as a geek and is uncomfortable with his presence, as she both misses her real father and feels that Parker doesn’t like kids. Lucy and BUDDY SILVERMAN (late 30s) and their suburban New Jersey family are just returning from a vacation. The pair describe themselves as an unlikely couple, Lucy a tall AfricanAmerican woman, and Buddy referred to as the “Jewish dentist.” The women arrive at the appointment together. Victor encourages Katha to get out of her ten-year art career slump and predicts that she may hear some upsetting news about Parker. Despite being a skeptic, Katha finds herself drawn to Victor and his magnetic energy. As hard as he tries, Victor can’t seem to convince Katha that he is an ordinary guy, which he certainly is not. A few days later, Victor says he urgently has something to tell Katha and calls her, asking her to come over so he can deliver the news in person. She is hesitant yet complies, and Victor informs her that he forgot to tell her that she is under “divine protection,” meaning that someone who died is watching over her. He tells her that he assumes that it’s her mother, and the two share an intimate moment in his living room where she admires his collection of spiritual décor and alluring aquarium. A month later, Katha is hosting a birthday party full of private school third grade girls in her loft when ALLISON FRASER, fellow PTA mom acquaintance, tells Katha that Parker sent her his business card with the phrase “call me” written on it,

responding to her ad in the personals column of a magazine. Immediately after, Katha calls him out, and Parker responds that he needs to play these games every once in a while to prove that he’s “still desirable in the marketplace.” After Katha informs Parker that Victor predicted this, Parker suggests that Victor is dangerous and begs for Katha to avoid him. A few days later, Parker shows up at Victor’s door in the middle of one of his appointments and threatens him. He asks for a reading, which Victor initially refuses, but then offers a prediction of Parker getting into a car crash, recommending that he avoid driving through New Jersey or Connecticut. Later that night, the ghost of Murray Weinbaum reappears, and he’s nothing like how Victor remembers. This time, Murray scolds Victor on how his parents would love to see some grandchildren and how it’s not too late to go back to medical school. Victor is completely turned off by this and tries to ignore him, but Murray tells Victor that he is under his divine guardianship and therefore is around much more than Victor knows. He also encourages Victor to ask Katha and Julia to move in with him. Meanwhile, Buddy has fallen into a deep depression that has him bed-ridden and in a constant state of calling himself “no one.” He requests that Lucy go to the store and shop for a pair of loafers for him, comically claiming that there’s a “hole in his sole.” He hands her cardboard cutouts of his feet and asks her to bring them to the salesman, which she does. Lucy is meticulously preparing for her thirteenyear-old son MAX’s bar mitzvah, and is having trouble deciding on a theme. She pays a Rabbi a visit, and the two discuss her husband’s possible agoraphobia over the cardboard foot cutouts. As predicted, Parker gets into a major car crash and ends up hospitalized, much to Victor’s amusement. Victor sees Tom, who has now quit smoking, and predicts that he will live until age ninety-nine. A recovering Parker asks Katha to move off to L.A., which she quickly rejects. At a vacuum store, a physical altercation ensues when Parker chokes Victor after blaming him for Katha’s decision not to move with him to L.A. He claims that they have not made love in a long time and questions the things Victor has been telling her. Shortly after, Parker moves off to California, and Tom asks Katha if he can crash on her floor indefinitely, which she regretfully agrees to. While Katha is off at her new job in the art department of Forbes magazine, Victor takes Tom apartment hunting in the city. A few months later, Victor and Katha are making dinner at Victor’s house when he asks her to move in with him. Katha is vague in her response, claiming that she’s crazy about him, but he’s still a mystery that she can’t seem to crack. Suddenly, Victor has a vision and urges Katha to call Tom immediately. Full of guilt for having predicted that he’d live until age

ninety-nine, Victor sees Tom dead in his apartment, joints and half-empty bottles of Valium and sleeping pills on the night table. A funeral is arranged, and Victor and Katha stop talking for a while. In the months that follow, his death seems to haunt Victor even more than Katha. Months later, Victor gets a reading from an old friend and master psychic/clairvoyant named LORRAINE, who tells him that he has disappointed Julia and owes her an explanation. She also predicts that he and Katha will be at a wedding where he’ll be “dancing like a madman.” Buddy has now moved on, situated with his new sports gear business in the mall, and has recruited Lucy as his salesperson. Lucy is dissatisfied with this and fears that he’ll be depressed forever. After a passionate ghost-free moment between Victor and Katha, Katha receives a call that Julia has gone missing. Victor immediately resents himself for not telling Katha that he saw something bad coming, but suggests that she is at the cemetery. They go on a drive looking for her, and they find her there, at Tom’s tombstone. Katha thinks it is miraculous and this finally confirms for her that Victor’s powers are for real. All of the characters join together in a synagogue for Max’s bar mitzvah, and Lucy almost publicly breaks up with Buddy, but not before Victor takes the microphone and offers to give out free readings to all of the guests. COMMENTS This engaging ensemble deals with multiple characters and storylines that thread together in their connection to the alluring protagonist, this novel also has elements of an ensemble dramatic epic such as Magnolia. This novel tells an original story while holding several major themes, including addiction, failure/not being good enough for your parents, spouse, or children, life and death, interracial marriage and divorce, family, mental health, and psychic powers. While there are tragic elements which make it feel soapier, the plot can be equated to those of a romantic-comedy/drama where the audience gets to see different aspects of the character’s lives and how they age, grow, and change over time. The production likely wouldn’t be COVID-friendly, with multiple locations and characters, but that is where the timelessness of the piece comes in handy. The multiple jumps in time in the story also fall in line with classic comedy/drama format and can be easily translated to the screen. The book itself had some stellar dialogue, with individual witty quips about vegetarianism and grappling with religion. There

were brilliant jokes and still culturally relevant lines, such as when Katha asks Victor, “Have you come to your senses?” and he responds, “All six of them.” I do think this author’s ability to write dialogue will translate well to the screen. Other jokes touch on things like the debilitation of mental illness and how people see race, such as when Katha asks Victor’s best friend Dan if he is clairvoyant, and he answers, “Clairvoyant? No, me I’m manic-depressive,” or when Lucy sarcastically suggested her son should have an interracially themed bar mitzvah. With mention of bipolar/manic-depressive disorder, depression, multiple personalities, specified phobias, and anxiety, there is no lack of portrayal of characters with a mental health condition. Aside from this, the other characters stand out in many ways, such as the precocious eight-year-old who’s writing a script about lesbians intended for Seinfeld. While, at times, Julia’s depth of knowledge on the adult world seemed unrealistic, it undoubtedly added comedy and light-heartedness to the dramatic dynamic. The injection of higher stakes in a film adaptation could keep the audience’s interest alive, especially when considering the length of the novel. While this book may be a bit older than other adaptations being considered, it certainly ages wonderfully and is still relatable enough to audiences today. All in all, the magical and poignant narrative is truly about seeing others better than we see ourselves. The central idea itself is a very original one and with some minor tweaks that take the story out of the novel, I see this having great potential to be a quirky romantic comedy.