I’ve decided to open myself up to a world of criticism. This is the treatment for the screenplay that I’m writing at the moment. I want brutal honesty.
Treatment for “The Pact”
Our story is set in Montreal in winter. As those who have witnessed a cloud-covered and moonlit night in this city would know, the sky takes on an eerie shade of soft yet vibrant orange. We come around a corner and walk down the stairs into Moe’s Diner.
It’s a Montreal landmark – the ultimate greasy-spoon that never closes. Day and night there are always customers: some noisily filling their alcohol-soaked stomachs, others sitting quiet and alone, seeming to have no other place to go. When we enter the diner, there are only a few people present. It is nearly 5am, and the breakfast crowd is yet to arrive, yet the late-night drinkers have mostly dwindled.
There are a man and woman in what appear to be their late twenties sitting in a booth in the centre of the room. They seem incongruous together. Lila is Montreal hip: short funky hair, a labret piercing, very little make-up, and dark rings under her eyes. You can see the edge of a tattoo where her shirt doesn’t quite cover her shoulder. She has bandages around her wrists. Her clothes are dark in colour, and she wears chunky earrings and jewellery. She is very attractive, but perhaps more cute than striking. Her companion is a well-dressed business type. He is clean-shaven, although he too looks very tired. Dan has short curly hair, and is not exactly handsome, but is quite pleasant to look at. While she appears not to have been home, he appears to have just showered and changed for work.
They appear to have arrived fairly recently. Their coffees are still mostly full, and there is steam rising from the cups. Dan looks directly at Lila and asks her the question that has been sitting uncomfortably between them since they arrived:
D: Did it hurt?
L: Yeah. Well, sort of. It was weird; I didn’t really feel it when I pressed the knife into my skin, but then it started throbbing. And I started to get dizzy pretty fast. Not really what I had hoped for. You know – I wanted it to hurt, but the throbbing…it just wasn’t what I expected.
Lila goes on to describe how it felt. How she felt like even more of a failure because she hadn’t even managed to kill herself successfully. They try to keep their conversation as light as possible, and even begin to joke about suicide, and all the reasons why they want to do it. Dan asks when she tried, and tells her that he had attempted it two days before.
L: Do you think it worked?
D: What do you mean?
L: Well, maybe we both succeeded and are now sitting in Satan’s playground.
D: Who knows? It would be fitting if Hell were a seedy luncheonette where I can’t get the fucking French toast I ordered.
Their conversation flows smoothly. They fill one another in on the past decade of their lives, both amazed at the synchronicity of their suicide attempts and at how unhappy they both are. They had each thought the other to be really happy. They discuss reasons why life isn’t worth living, seriously, philosophically, and at times in a darkly humorous way. Lila goes for a cigarette and when she returns, Dan is making a list of the reasons why his life is no longer worth living. Lila takes over, insisting that he needs to be more creative.
L: Dental floss.
D: Dental floss?
L: Yeah. Dental floss.
D: You’d kill yourself over dental floss?
L: It fucking destroys me. Every time I go to the dentist, the oral hygienist gives me shit about not flossing. And every time I leave, without fail, I have two or three more packs of the shit. I already have about thirty packs of it all over my apartment. In the medicine cabinet, on the shelves, in my jewellery box, my bedside table, in my handbags. But I never use it. I fucking hate flossing. And I feel so guilty about it all the time. It’s like those little blue and white boxes are mocking me.
D: Well, tooth decay and gum disease are important considerations.
L: They won’t be when I’m dead.
D: True. Okay…I’ll add it to the list.
They sit in the diner and open up to one another. Their banter goes from light and casual to really heavy and uncompromisingly honest. The waitress, magenta-haired, pierced and tattooed, brings them food, and refills their coffees from time to time. Dan tells Lila about law school, about getting married to the perfect woman. He tells her how much he loves Sarah and how great his life should be, but how completely debilitated he is by the feeling that he’s trapped and sinking into a vortex of his own making. Lila tells Dan about working in clubs, floating around the hipster scene: all of the partying, the drugs, the superficiality and loneliness that have come of it. She feels like the past ten years are a meaningless blur, but that she’s in so deep that she doesn’t know how to change.
It is still dark outside, yet the sky is beginning to change from the eerie peach to a pale pinkish mauve. Lila suggests that they go for a walk for a change of scene. They exit the brightly lit diner and begin walking through the oddly silent streets. There is a fresh layer of snow on the ground which crunches like Styrofoam under their feet, but aside from this, all is silent.
They arrive at the park, having walked there without speaking. Lila lights a cigarette and takes a long deep haul. Dan asks if he can have a drag and she passes it to him, giving him a quizzical look as he takes it. Momentarily their eyes meet, before he quickly averts his and inhales. They talk about high school. About being best friends and unexpectedly falling in love. About what happened between them, why it didn’t work out: what might have been, but was so far gone. You can feel the tension building between them. It’s cold enough that you can see their breath, but they’re standing apart, almost close enough to touch, but not touching. Dan bumps his leg into hers, and they both look down as he awkwardly apologises. He reaches his hand out to touch her when she’s looking away, but pulls back. They share another cigarette, and it feels as though they’re breathing one another in with each drag.
Clearly very cold, they decide to return to Moe’s for a coffee. It’s just beginning to get light, and there are a few people out on the street. They walk back into the starkly lit diner, and return to the same booth they were sitting at before. Lila fiddles with the ancient-looking jukebox at the table. They start talking about suicide again, this time discussing how they would do it. They go through all of the options before agreeing that a bullet to the head would be the best way. Lila proposes a pact: that if Dan is as serious as she is about ending his life, then they should do it together. He agrees and she makes him pinkie-swear, something oddly adolescent, but fitting.
Having agreed on how, they start discussing when. Getting guns is an issue, so it will have to wait a few days. Lila invites Dan to a show that weekend, and he mentions that he would have to ask Sarah first.
L: Why? It’s not like she can get mad at you when you’re dead.
D: Yeah. But what if they think we’re having an affair?
L: Us? Let them think what they want.
D: Maybe we should have an affair. (They laugh)
L: You are kidding, right?
D: Yeah. Well…actually. It would be nice to sleep with someone who doesn’t make me shower before and after and sometimes-
L: God, I haven’t had a sex in I don’t even know how long. We could, you know. It would be sort of fitting.
D: Oh right. Because you’re my type.
L: I was once.
(Silence)
D: Yeah. That was a long time ago. And a lot’s changed since then.
L: I know. You’re married. And I’m really fucked up.
They sit in silence for a while, each of them lost in thought.
D: So?
L: Tomorrow night? Same time, same place?
D: Sure.
Lila stands and pulls her coat on.
L: I guess I should get on with it. Looks like I’m not dead yet.
D: Hmm.
The camera follows Lila as she walks away raising a hand in a wave. She pauses with her back turned to Dan and breathes in deeply. The camera cuts back to Dan at the table, still looking at the door she exited, shaking his head and smiling sadly. He grabs the list and carefully puts it into his coat pocket, pays for their food at the counter, leaves a big tip for the waitress, and walks out of the diner. The day is clear and the sun is shining brightly, reflecting off a fresh coat of white snow. There are people rushing around going to work.
The camera cuts back to Lila who has walked around the corner and lit up another cigarette. She takes a few drags before she starts sobbing. She leans back against the wall and slides down into a squatting position, still crying and shaking.
We cut to Dan as he walks to his car. He takes the list out, looks at it again, and scrunches it up and throws it away. It begins to snow gently, although the sun is shining. Dan looks up at the sky as it snows. He gets into his car and sits there for a few moments, looking at the clock on the dial and sighing deeply.
Lila sticks her tongue out to catch a snowflake and starts laughing and crying at the same time. She stands up, brushes herself off and begins walking though the crowds of early morning commuters, pausing momentarily to look back over her shoulder at the diner before walking on again.
