We Need To Talk Before You Die an elevated drama that walks through an emotional minefield. Using humor, the story shows that our past is full of secrets that we never knew and have ramifications in our present and future.
Logline A quirky teacher with a fantasy-prone personality, and his therapist wife, get more than they bargained for in their therapeutic strategy to obtain closure with people before they die. Concept We Need To Talk Before You Die, an elevated drama, is laced with dark comedy to confront your past, like combining The Big Chill with the TV show Ghosts. Daniel Costa, a teacher in his mid-40s, follows his wife Emma, a therapist, advice to create a closure tour with people from his past to help him cope with his fantasy-prone personality. Daniel's condition, like an over-active imagination, lends to his hallucinations. Emma can only virtually join him on the tour through his earbuds and Facetime. But Daniel sees her as a ghost only he sees, creating comedic and dramatic action.
Synopsis Meet Daniel Costa, our protagonist in this modern-day comedy, an English teacher/writer in his mid-40s. Daniel suffers from a fantasy-prone personality, which works like an overactive imagination causing him to daydream vividly. Daniel's wife, Emma, a therapist, works with Daniel to control this condition. The opening scene demonstrates his imagination as he tells a story, through a flashback, about his version of a funeral they attended the night before.
Daniel rants to Emma that he's not going to any more funerals as they don't provide closure, and instead, he decides to talk to people before they die. Daniel creates the closure tour, a list of family and friends he needs to see while they are alive. At first skeptical about Daniel's funeral substitution plans, Emma thinks it can be a therapeutic tool for him to move on from his past to control his fantasy-prone personality.
Emma can't join Daniel on his quest, so she instructs Daniel to keep his phone in his shirt pocket and earpiece in his ear to give him emotional support. That way, through Facetime, she is always with him. This approach, coupled with his fantasy-prone personality, allows Daniel, like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, to see Emma interact with him on the tour with comical results. Emma is the unique hook to this screenplay as she appears as a ghost only Daniel can see.
The first half of the tour is a fun romp starting with a slapstick visit with his dramatic old Italian Aunt. Then the touching moments with his childhood neighbor, Mrs. Wilson, caught Emma off-guard since she never knew she heard countless stories but never knew she was black. There was a warm and loving reunion with Mrs. Wilson. Next was the sophomoric reunion with his high school football buddies. Emma helps Daniel over his first emotional hurdle when he learns his best friend is gay and has always been in love with him.
The second half of the tour contains gut-wrenching moments tempered by dark comedy. Daniel finds his idol, the old football coach, drinking himself to death due to inappropriate contact with a minor. Next, he visits his ex, the Bitch, who spikes his drink to have her way with him. The visit becomes a hysterical escapade when the Bitch discovers Emma spying through Facetime.
The final stop is his estranged Father, who apologizes for the problems his drinking caused but insists he was always proud of him. He then drops a bombshell on Daniel by revealing that he is not his biological Father. Daniel's mother had an affair with their neighbor Mr. Wilson, who died when Daniel was a baby. Emma cajoles Daniel to accept his newly discovered bi-racial background and a fresh start with his Father, now step-father.
The tour uncovers harsh truths that give Daniel the closure he sought and hopefully gain control of his delusions. In my screenplay, Daniel comes from an Italian-American family, and Emma is from a Korean-American family, but I can easily adapt any heritage for the actors you may already have for this project.