Revision #2: When a depressed drunk he assists claims to be a cupid, a widowered psychiatrist who?s forgotten how to feel love must see the world through the drunk’s eyes to uncover the truth and help him find a reason to live again.
Mike PedleySingularity
Revision #2: When a depressed drunk he assists claims to be a cupid, a widowered psychiatrist who?s forgotten how to feel love must see the world through the drunk’s eyes to uncover the truth and help him find a reason to live again.
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This version of the logline is an improvement.
However, the goal should be for the psychiatrist to help cupid (Or the crazy person who claims to be cupid) believe in love again. (and in doing so help himself believe in love again as well)
Think of cupids motivation. Nobody stays in love anymore.
He shoots his arrow, people fall in love, then a year or two later: a messy divorce.
Cupid has lost his belief in love.
The psychiatrist believes if he can convince his patient (Cupid) to believe in love again he will help him regain his sanity.
But of course,?as the story goes on the psychiatrist begins to believe the patient really is Cupid
This causes conflict with his boss and the people in his life who care about him.
They are worried because he has become too invested in this one patient.
I am not sure if it actually matters whether the patient actually turns out to be Cupid or if he was crazy all along.?A story like this is about the Journey.
Too bad Robin Williams isn’t alive, I could see him in the part of Cupid.
“When a foul-mouthed, depressed, man claiming to be Cupid is ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, a widowed?psychiatrist determines he must convince his patient love truly exists if he is to help him regain his sanity.”
>>>>>>must reopen his eyes to the world of romance to uncover the truth
At face value, this version of the logline seems to say the protagonist already knows the true nature of his subjective problem/emotional needs when he undertakes to treat the drunk.? ?That from the git-go,? after the inciting incident, his intention becomes to take the case so that he can reopen his eyes to romance.? ?IOW: his goal is deal with his subjective needs because he immediately realizes that he must heal himself in order to heal the client.
That he must reopen his eyes is an epiphany that usually would come no sooner than the midpoint of the plot.? Consequently that means “reopening his eyes” is extraneous to the logline.? ?Why? Because a logline is only concerned about the intentional goal the protagonist decides upon based on his knowledge and awareness at the end of? the 1st Act.
And all the protagonist knows at the end of the 1st Act is what he wants to achieve — his objective goal. To repeat, by dramatic convention, he is in ignorance of or in denial of the true nature of his subjective problem, much less the remedy.?
Even if he’s a shrink.? Because shrinks are only human; they are subject to all the defense/coping mechanisms of denial, repression, rationalization, intellectualization, etc. — to all the failings and foibles that hobble their clients . (That he’s a shrink adds dramatic irony to the situation.)
>>>before the drunk loses his will to live.
I suggest this could to be reworded.? ?Would it not be the case that by the time drunk seeks therapy, he’s at the end of his tether?? He’s lost almost all his will to live?? So isn’t his subjective need to find the will to live?? (IOW:? in loglines, spin the desired outcomes positively, not negatively.)
fwiw
Thanks for the clarification.
>>>drinking is a symptom of the depression
Well…? It is also the case that the drunk has to be a person who is vulnerable to abusing alcohol.? Any reason, any excuse will do.? Because there are other people who suffer from depression but don’t resort to getting drunk.? So? it seems to me?to be accurate to say the the therapist’s objective goal is also to sober up the drunk.? His alcoholism entails his depression.
And, more important for the script,? whether you believe his primary problem is drinking or depression, getting and staying sober is the objective indicator that the shrink has succeeded in helping the drunk.? (What other objective indicator could there be?)
BTW:? I suggest another reason why it is not necessary to discuss the therapist’s subjective need in the logline.? And that is, it is not the story hook, the factor that will make movie makers sit up , pique their interest in the script.
The story hook is a drunk who thinks he’s cupid.? That’s what piqued my interest.? Not the therapist’s personal problems. Just as in “Equus” the story hook is not that the shrink is burned out, trapped in a loveless, passionless marriage.? The story hook is that he’s asked to treat a teenager who has blinded six horses.
And in real life,? a similar hook was what inspired the author, Peter Schaffer, to write the play.? He heard about an shocking incident where a stable boy had attacked some horses under his charge.? This piqued his interest, got his creative juices flowing.? ?He knew no other details , never found an explanation for the? crime.
It seemed incomprehensible to him.? So,? as he says in his introduction to the published version of the play,? he set out to “create a mental world in which the deed could be comprehensible.”