email: lugojean36@yahoo.com
818.648.5931
A Movie?
Well, this was not planned. Ever. Not even in my rosiest of dreams!
At the last moment, just before the book went into print, I decided to write a foreword. By that time, however, the book was already professionally edited. I scribbled several lines but wanted to step up to the plate and have my English polished.
I enlisted the services of an English professor. After he read my two pages, he looked up and said that this is quite an unusual story, possibly worth a romantic movie. For one, our 31-year age difference. Then, overcoming a seemingly unbridgeable separation (7500 miles) at the very beginning of the relationship. Lastly, conquering the adversity of time, lots of it, by now a decade-plus, and we are still together! Not married, and not living together, a great plus.
I wasn't aware that my teacher was also a screenwriter. The rest is history and the big-screen project was born. Of course, an agent, a producer, or studio has to like it to take the 'bait' and agree with the above-mentioned assumptions. If remaining faithful to the narrative, the movie will have to take the viewer to exotic places too. In this case the Promised Land an added plus to attract the viewers. He knows. He is in the business.
Together we wrote a proposal, the DECK - as it is known in the industry. It consists of a short logline (as it is called) and a Synopsis. Obviously a few changes have been made for the movie to make it dramatic too.
Logline
After losing his wife, the grief-stricken 73-year-old surgeon decides to retire and returns to his distant homeland. Serendipitously, a 31-year younger woman, whom he had met beforehand, brings an ageless passionate love lasting over a decade when, unexpectedly, tragedy is about to strike again.
Synopsis
A Los Angeles surgeon, GABRIEL (aged 72), tragically loses his devoted wife of 24 years, BRENDA (aged 66), in a horrific car accident. Stricken with unthinkable grief, it immerses him in complete hopelessness. Everything reminds him of her -- their empty home and office, which she used to manage, and his empty existence. Despondent, he decides to retire and return to his place of origin.
Months later, to set things in motion, he pays a brief visit to the Promised Land. He chooses a posh neighborhood in Tel Aviv, opens a bank account, contacts a realtor, and gives his cousin power of attorney.
Gabriel returns to the US and drastically scales down his practice. Ad interim, looking for some fun, he enlists the services of a sexplicite website. In two weeks, he intersects with a gorgeous single mother of two kindergarten-aged children, VRONICA (an 'e' less Veronica), aged 42.
They meet one December afternoon just five months before the planned departure. Gabriel is taken aback by her beauty and overt sensuality. Pleasantly surprised, he discovers that the attraction is mutual, and to her, the inglorious age difference is irrelevant, and they begin an intense physical relationship.
A few weeks following their first date, the realtor from overseas has a piece of good news for him, and Gabriel must start paying rent. With the office closed and home sold, their sexcapades relocate to a nearby hotel where unpredictably, their friends-with-benefits relationship morphs into a genuine love affair.
Since his retirement plan has scorched Gabriel’s American livelihood, it compels him to leave her against his heart’s desire. After months of passionate togetherness, the time arrives to say the last goodbye. On that fateful day, Veronica hands him a sendoff card, expressing the hope that one day he would return, and they would be an item again.
Sixteen hours later, he was standing on the sacred grounds of the Holy Land -- a seemingly 7500-mile unbridgeable separation. Nevertheless, they remain in touch with every electronic means possible, Skype sex included.
Six weeks following their farewell, he hears a knock on his door. With two suitcases by her side, an unexpected Veronica has arrived to spend with Gabriel his 74th birthday. They crisscross the country, and for 12 days they have an intoxicating time that ended with her returning to her motherly duties.
Unable to live without each other, at summer’s end, Gabriel leaves everything behind, and they reunite in the City of Angels. For well over a decade, their implausible love affair will defy all sensible rationale.
On a starry night, just days after their ten-year Anniversary, the hand of fate reaches down on them. During a casual dinner outing, Gabriel collapses in a restaurant. The emergency room MRI discloses a massive brain hemorrhage, and he crosses the frontiers of eternity in Veronica’s loving arms. Fate thus awards him the “kiss of death” he wished for himself all his life.
To see the entire film DECK, please check: www.agelesslusthefim.com
To read the detailed book synopsis, please go back and click on the Synopsis link existing on the dashboard.