Just Deserts is a perfect low-budget, edgy, erotic psychological thriller using three characters and two simple locations. The story is in the vein of the movie Hard Candy with aspects of Fight Club. Our protagonist, Fonda, is a 45-year-old black female author who plans revenge against an aged award-winning director, Peter Brooks, for the sexual abuse he perpetrated on her 25 years ago. The hook is Precious, a 19-year-old black female who provides comedy to a serious topic, and we don't realize she's a figment of Fonda's imagination until the climax. The story can be set outside any major city.
Logline
A bestselling female author avenges her sexual abuser by reversing the power dynamic to make the abuser feel the degradation and lifelong shame he dished out to others and to give her justice so she can finally live in peace.
Synopsis
Fonda Muhammad is a Black Muslim female in her mid-40s who wrote a best-selling novel. Fonda's book is about the failings of the me-too movement to get the abused any real justice. Peter Brooks is an Oscar-award-winning director whose career was derailed by a series of sexual abuse allegations. Despite five Oscars, Peter is desperate as no one will let him work again. Directing this movie based on Fonda's book is Peter's only chance to regain his stature and remove the stigma of me-too allegations. Fonda capitalizes on Peter's desperation, knowing he will do whatever she asks to make this career-saving film. Precious, Fonda's sidekick, is a cute, sharp-tongued 19-year-old black female who dresses in a retro style that gives her the look of a member of Destiny's Child. We are unsure if Precious is Fonda's daughter, sister, or intern, as their relationship is a secret until the end.
Fonda systematically works to reverse the power dynamic with Peter. She is very touchy-feely with Peter but talks to him as a subordinate. Fonda uses social media to pressure Peter by announcing that several Feminist, Black, and Muslim directors have approached her about purchasing her novel's rights. Precious assists Fonda in this plan, which is obviously about personal revenge for both of them, as Fonda has no intention of letting Peter direct her film. Fonda also uses his age as a detriment, making him prove he can think young in the same way he made her young age force her to feel she needed to do more twenty-five years ago.
Peter visits Fonda's apartment to share his vision for the movie. Fonda persuades Peter to act out three intimate and erotic scenes from the script with her. Fonda then switches the roles, and she will take the male lead, Pierre Ruisseau, and Peter will play the female character, Serena Taylor. Precious assists Fonda throughout the day as they turn a desperate Peter into their submissive. They abuse him in the role-playing as they want him to feel the same degradation his sexually abused victims felt.
In the climax, Peter discovers Fonda has been talking to an invisible Precious that only Fonda sees. He thought she was talking to the cat all this time. Fonda reveals that her birth name is Precious Garrison, and Peter realizes he abused her when she was an aspiring young actress. Precious, Fonda at age twenty, is a coping mechanism that Fonda uses to work through her post-traumatic stress of being sexually abused by Peter at Precious's age. Fonda videoed Peter's entire degrading day for her lasting revenge. That video is her leverage to torture Peter for the rest of his life, just like sexually abused women are tortured for theirs. Fonda also divulges that the French name Pierre Ruisseau translates to Peter Brooks in English. Thus, the book is about Peter's evil doings. In the last scene, Peter walks away, dazed and defeated, and Precious says goodbye to Fonda as they have come to peace with their past. Fonda no longer needs her coping mechanism to appear to her anymore. Fonda finally gave Peter his "just deserts."