I'm in a Screenplay - Comedy, Romance Screenplay | Kinolime
I'm in a Screenplay
An initially conventional romantic comedy is disrupted when its screenwriter inserts himself into the story and appears to be a better match for his leading lady than his leading man is.
Genre: Comedy • Romance
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Screenplay Synopsis:
At a grocery store, handsome, good-natured ROB happens upon DANA and confidently flirts with her, and they casually agree to meet up there again the next day. At home, Rob chats with his cute, flirty neighbor BRANDI, but in the middle of their chat, we are shown that it’s actually a scene being written by ARTHUR, a typically introverted screenwriter on his laptop at home. Later, Arthur meets up with his friend LECIA for a night of pub trivia, and we learn that he has just recently broken up with longtime girlfriend GABY. He tells Lecia how he is finding ways to distract himself from the sadness over this, including having started writing a new romantic comedy.
The next morning, Rob wakes up in bed with Brandi, but he quickly remembers his “date” with Dana. He heads back to the grocery store and finds her there, but it’s soon clear that they have nothing in common; she works at Netflix and is into poker and old movies, and she plays violin in a gypsy jazz group. Rob, despite sharing none of her interests, agrees to come see her band play at a gig the next day. On the way, he stops at a Starbucks, where he spots Arthur typing on his laptop, and recognizes him from having passed by him at the grocery store. Rob starts chatting with him, and when Arthur steps away for a moment, Rob glances at the laptop and is shocked to see that Arthur's script is depicting his life. Arthur returns and has no choice but to explain the situation. Rob is astonished at first but gradually comes to accept it. He goes back and spends the day in bed with Brandi, contemplating his existence. Suddenly, he realizes that the script he's in is a romantic comedy, and he and Dana are the leads.
A lot of meta-confusion ensues as Arthur turns out to be a better match for Dana than Rob is, and Arthur is torn between his desire to make the Rob/Dana romance work out and his own developing feelings for Dana, who is the personification of his dream woman. Gradually it becomes clear that Arthur is writing the script to distract himself from his break-up with Gaby, who re-enters the picture as late-stage complication that enables Arthur to leave Dana to Rob and still have a happy ending, but this blows up in his face when Gaby comes over and is infuriated to see the script he's writing about them. In a drunken, desperate rage, Arthur prepares to delete the whole file and forget the script entirely, but Rob manages to get the laptop from him and write an ending of his own in which everybody wins.