Script (completed) written by Francesco Bonelli: a noir comedy which realistically and dramatically explain the very Italian Personality and their POV for life, through these we try to discuss and try to give a definition of absurd part of modern life.
Enrico Brignano as one the most famous comedy figure now days in TV and cinema, personally found this script very interesting, would like to be the leading role.
Born in Rome, Brignano graduated in 1990 at the Laboratory of Performing Exercises under the famous Italian actor Gigi Proietti, who later chose him for several of his play between 1994 and 1997 and as a sidekick in the TV-series Il Maresciallo Rocco . After appearing as a comedian in several variety shows, he had his breakout with the role of Giacinto in Un Medico in Famiglia. Mainly active on stage, he played a number of main roles in TV-series and films, such as “Stai lontano da me” (2013), “Ci vediamo domani” (2013) and “Un’estate ai Caraibi”(2009) and in 2000 he directed, wrote and starred in the romantic comedy “Si fa presto a dire amore”.
SUBJECT:
There is an immense park, with pines and autumn leaves all over the place. An old marble swimming pool where nobody swims. Cats. And wind. And memories of the gone times, when in Italy roared the charming wave of the sixties, or fifties, or twenties, before world war one.
The immense roman villa is one of the most beautiful mansions in the whole world, but…
But…
…We don’t see any journalist here. No fashion. No party. No music. Only on old woman, a little eccentric, a little stoned. Elegant. She wants to sell and get rid maybe, of all of those memories.
Memories of an happiness that has always been supposed to be within those wall, and maybe yet
never really was.
Two young guys on the other hand are trying to make a living with a franchise real estate agency.
Mike and Sam. Mike is full of life. Sam is calm. Mike is very disordered and loves luxury and beauty. Sam is simple, would like to have a girl friend and just a little house for himself. Together they compensate each other on many things. They really have little to sell. Nobody cares about them and they are about to fail, when the phone rings…
It’s the old lady. She wants to sell. Yes, the big Villa. And why did she choose them? Two little agents? She says big agents are boring. Since they are failing anyway, Mike and Sam decide to go and see this unbelievable chance.
The old lady shows them the Villa. They immediately understand that she sees the Villa as it was, not as it is. Luxury, fashion, marbles are still clearly there, but everything is broken, old, and to be restructured. Also, the old lady still dreams to sell at a price that would be reasonable if the house was perfect. She wants at lest the double of the real value.
At this point the two young real estate agents think to refuse the offer to represent and sell the villa,
but…
… Their boss calls them. They are fired. No agency. The last thing they are still entitled to sell is that crazy place. They change their decision. They accept to sell the Villa and exactly at the crazy price the old lady is thinking to obtain.
At this point they have a problem. They have to show the old lady that at least they are TRYING to do something. They decide to hire actors, dress them ad business people, or rich guys from all over the world. And then they walk them up and down the park. Near the pull. In the bathrooms with pink marbles. The lady is very happy. They don’t sell but they have the full confidence of the owner.
They ask for an extra fee. She agrees. And at this point…
Mike and Sam begin to have very different opinions about this crazy job they are doing. Mike finds it beautiful. Sam finds it horrible. Mike is seduced by the old fashion beauty that breaths in those parks, in those rooms, or even in the garage, with a perfect Bugatti, that is there, wheels completely broken, but still working. He repairs it. He keeps chasing old art masterpieces round the house, and starts finding the old lady even charming.
Sam hates to lie. Finds simply humiliating hanging around for the whole day with financially and mentally broken variety actors, that will never even buy a lunch, pretending they would be the buyers of that fortune. As a matter of fact, Sam is still confident that one day or another his friend will come back on the planet earth, and will understand that a real job, with real people and in the real world would be a lot better, even if eventually it will not be as pleasant as this one.
But…
But…
Sam and Mike that night are evicted from the apartment where they were living, in town.
They spend a long a night in a pub, drinking with friends and playing the part of the rich agents that manage villas, buildings and maybe skyscrapers… But at 2 am they are desperate and alone with each other.
There is only a nice girl with them, Maria. She only sees Mike. She loves his elegance. Sam loves her, but she barely acknowledges his presence.
Having the problem of where to sleep, Mike and Sam say goodbye to Maria. Starts raining. They have no money for a hotel. And Mike has the idea. They already have the keys of a kingdom. What kingdom? The Villa. It’s not our home. It will be.
In fact they go and pass that night in the villa. They leave in a dream. Without a penny, they sleep in immense rooms, with old kind of masterpiece all over the place. The villa is so immense that they can stay in one aisle, and be sure that the old lady will never know about their presence.
Early in the morning they get out of bed. Have shower, eat, and then they get out only to ring again at the door from where they have just exit. Now they are again the real estate agents. With their actors, they can be sure to do this life for all the time they want and Mike is out of himself for happiness… But…
But…
There is a strong, old, fat waitress that lives there. Magenta. Magenta one day stops Mike in one corridor. Puts her hand on his throats and just whispers in his hear. I know what you are doing.
Mike turns pale. Magenta leads him down in the laundry basement. And tells him the truth.
I know what you’re doing.
I am selling the villa.
No, you’re not.
Magenta has taken trick of Mike and Sam behavior right from the beginning. She can tell and prove what they are doing. She knows the names of the actors. To make a long story short she knows everything. Mike surrenders to the evidences she has got in her hands. Mike and Sam are ready to make their excuses and go. But she stops them.
You are not the first here… you can stay.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Magenta explains. The old Lady is trying to sell the place from decades. Nobody will succeed. And there is a lot of people that live there in the basement. The lady does not know. Basically it is all the people that once had a good job and that now are destroyed by the global economy. The catalogue is vaste. There is family the doctor. A barber. A stylist. There is a barman and his family. A tailor that once made handmade shirts, business totally cancelled now days. There is a painter and a poet. And also the son of the lady, lives there. He has made a false escape from her mother’s kingdom fifteen years ago. He returned after a few days, but only secretly, to live in the basement. He send fake postcards from the Canarian Islands… Maybe he is the only one who has lost his brain, maybe not…
Magenta rents everything, at a very reasonable fare. And so Mike can stay. Mike’s happiness explodes. Sam breaks with his friend. They have a very rough fight. Sam decides that his friend has lost his head.
Now Mike is alone in the Villa.
He becomes friend with the old family doctor. Uses the Bugatti. Sells paintings. Swims in the swimming pool. Gives parties, also with the old lady, pretending he is coming from the outside.
Little by little he becomes a noble man. A man of no time and no place, that lives his life in elegance, out of time. A stranger to himself, when he passes in front of a mirror.
In the same days the relationship with Maria goes on.
Maria and Mike have their romance, in the new style Mike is living. She has a lot of fun with him thinking that one day he will renounce to that funny mask, to be a normal and brilliant worker. She is wrong. Little by little the insanity that Mike hidden in himself gets control. He has to despair living Maria in movie theater, or into a hotel room. He has to go back and stay in the old villa. He has to touch wood, marble, art. He can not see plastic, fast foods, and happy meals.
He never reveals Maria where he sleeps.
One day Maria has to put his back against the wall.
Where is he going every time? Does Mike have another woman? She is in love with him but she feels that something insane, something terrible is happening to the man she loves.
Where is he getting those expensive dresses? Why is he suddenly trading art? He was a good worker once. Why now he despise workers and wage people?
Mike promises to tell her the truth… But not that night…. because before… Before…
What? Mike please. Don’t lie to me! Don’t lie!
There is a huge party at the Villa that night.
A party given from the old lady in person.
Mike has been invited. And also Magenta. And the doctor, the barman, the tailor. Everyone can emerge from the basement and return for one night at the life that was once, when the lady was young, the country thrived and the villa was new.
And during that party the old lady wants to drink. She wants to sing and dance. She wants to dance… with Mike.
Outside the villa Maria reaches Sam. She asks him to talk. She has to know the truth about Mike…
Mike and the old lady dance together. Maria arrives. Sees him with the old lady. Mike tries to hold on, to explain, but she leaves him forever. Goes away with Sam, who can promise her a simple and honest life. Mike doesn't have the time to cry, because an old hand falls on his shoulder.
The old lady smiles at him. She wants to dance again. And again… Forever. With her friends. Her style. Her old villa. And that party will take place every year. And they will dance forever.
THE END
Copyright @ Francesco Bonelli, all rights reserved