All Accolades & Coverage
BlackList Coverage — 7/10
Strengths:
Both characters and plot pop in this screenplay. SAM and MAGGIE'S second chance at life is an old story standard that finds easy champions, especially when played out against an assisted living facility where other residents are not granted the same reprieve. Their attempted suicide is handled well, their ocean plunge portrayed as a last, desperate act of tired lives. Sam's drive to reclaim an unfulfilled career as an entertainer plays a solid opposite to Maggie's need find contentment in more quiet successes. PETER, Sam's estranged sixty-something son, offer the hero's story a great emotional arc and poignancy. JACK, Sam's octogenarian "buddy" also provides an interesting wedge - visualizing both the animosity percolating below the surface of this elderly community as well the twelve year old that can come out in even the oldest among us when the right buttons are pushed. The media attention that follows these media darlings is plausible, but the real meat and potatoes of this screenplay resides within the rooms - and lives - of "God's waiting room."
Prospects:
Both concept and script have independent potential. The story terrain does stray close to the The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons (not the movie) — but hides that enough to warrant exhibition of its own.
