In order to save his life, a grief-stricken mother must simultaneously rely upon and fight the medical system that caused her son's brain injury, all the while learning to let go of the boy he would have been and accept the boy he has become.

After a botched medical procedure, a mother struggles to let go of the boy who might have been and accept and take care of the mentally impaired boy he has become.

The battle with the medical system is a secondary and complementary plot line to the primary plot line, the battle to take care of and accept what he has become and will be for the rest of her life — and his. As formidable and frustrating task it is to take on the doctors, medical bureaucracy, insurance company, et al in the United States (where I presume this is set), the emotional guts of the story is dealing with her son.

Lara,

“Hospital error” is okay, but I think it is weak. “Botched operation” or “botched medical procedure” (or something with equivalent emotional punch), I submit, is more effective. After all, an effective logline is a sales pitch: it focuses on selling the sizzle more than selling the steak.

“Own demons”: Literal demons? As in demons that require CGI to manifest on the screen? Or metaphorical? And if metaphorical, what are the subjective demons that prevent her from attending to her son: Paralyzing depression? Uncontrollable anger? You need to be more specific.

Further, if “own demons” is metaphorical , then it relates to her subjective problem, But a logline is primarily about the objective struggle. Which, in this case seems to be about taking care of her son after the botched surgery.

The subjective problem is what prevents the protagonist from constructively and effectively dealing with the objective problem. It is usually implied in adjective or two describing the character’s flaw or weakness. Like “grief stricken”, or more specifically “depressed”.

While you could tag the mother as “grief stricken” or “depressed”, I think the emotional anguish she would suffer — that any parent would suffer — is so obvious, it need not be explicated in the logline. People will immediately grasp and identify.

Unless her mental suffering is of such a nature that it jeopardizes her son’s life and maybe her own will to live. Like chronic, unremitting, paralyzing depression.

Ditto all the above to the new version you’ve posted.

fwiw

My opinion is that so many films have been made about parents who have to cope with tragedies (death or disability) that afflict their children, that it’s a given the parents will have to weather their own emotional hurricane in coping with all the consequences. And it’s something any normal adult, all parents, can immediately identify with and empathize.

Addiction, however, is a good complication and character flaw (for dramatic purposes). So I am inclined to omit “anger” — save it for the story, for the pitch — and focus on addiction in the logline.

Loglines are skeletons of the concept — not fleshed out bodies. Ideally in 30 words or less. Never more than 40. The madness of the method.

fwiw.

>>> a nice juicy piece of irony

I love stories that tease out and build to an ironical denouement. It takes skill and insight to pull it off convincingly.

But I don’t suggest working it into the logline because you are, in effect, giving away the ending, the solution to the dramatic problem.