EricMBloggie

I wrote a short film tentatively called ‘Keeping Secrets.’ Normally, Sweaty Robot’s early drafts are cloaked in intrigue and mystery. I thought I’d throw it on here to see your reaction.

Whether we make this or it sits around collecting dust, I think it’s worth putting out there.

Give it a read, after the jump.

KEEPING SECRETS

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

DENNY TURK lies in bed, reading. His girlfriend, LESLIE PORTER, gets ready for bed.

LESLIE
…and then Angela couldn’t find her purse, so we ended up having to go BACK to the restaurant, but she found it there, though, so it was okay.

Denny looks up from his book.

DENNY
Uh-huh.

Leslie hops into bed, snuggling up to Denny. She plants a kiss on his cheek.

LESLIE
Come on, Denny, talk to me, reading is boring.

Denny sighs, putting the book down. Leslie sighs back at him, mockingly. Denny smiles, relenting.

DENNY
Fine, fine. What else did you get up to today?

LESLIE
Well, I was working on that stupid phone list thing…

Denny focuses in on Leslie’s shoulder. He goes wide-eyed. He plucks a long BLONDE HAIR from her shirt.

LESLIE cont…
..the one that Francine has me doing, which I don’t even know why–

Denny holds up the hair.

DENNY
Wha– what is this?

LESLIE
What?

DENNY
This, Leslie! This hair. Where did this come from?

LESLIE
I don’t know, probably Pam or something. Anyways, it’s like we don’t even need a phone list for the company, because–

DENNY
I’m not letting you just ignore the issue. Don’t think it’s the first time I’ve found one of these, either!

LESLIE
Denny, where are you going with this?

DENNY
Leslie, I want you to be honest with me. Are you seeing someone else? Just, be straight– don’t play with my emotions.

Leslie really doesn’t know where he’s coming from– this is pretty crazy.

LESLIE
First of all, Denny, no, I love you, you know that. Second, that’s a pretty long hair, so unless I was fucking Fabio or something–

Denny relents.

DENNY
Okay, okay…I’m sorry. Can I just have a minute alone to sort things out.

Leslie is weirded out.

LESLIE
Uh, sure…

Denny sulks, she leaves. As soon as the door closes, Denny POPS out of bed. He whips open the closet door–

A half-dressed BLONDE CHICK crouches in the closet.

DENNY
Come on, come on, you’ve got to get out of here.

He ushers her out the window. Denny jumps back into bed, breathing hard, relieved.

LESLIE (O.S.)
Denny!

DENNY
Yeah!

LESLIE (O.S.)
Whose high heels are these?

Denny’s face = ‘Oh God No.’

THE END.

Notes: I wrote the script out so that the idea is there, and plays out the way I saw it. What I’m not happy with in this draft is their back and forth once he find the hair, especially when it comes to getting Leslie out of the room. I’m at work, so I wrote it quickly. I think there’s some opportunity in there for some great Gender Reversal stuff. I mean, the whole finding a hair, accusing of cheating thing is almost 100% a woman’s domain, so I think it’s funny putting a man in the situation. Playing it to exploit that reversal is where some really clever funniness can come out.

I’m not sure where / when we’ll use this, but I wanted to throw it on the pile.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.