Nail Salon
Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance (Romantic Comedy
Perhaps), Drama
Characters: 1. Qui Thu Beautiful Vietnamese woman, early
to mid 20s (Co owner and worker of a nail salon). Abused
house wife, insecure, and hates men because of her
experiences with her husband.
2. Eric Taylor Tall, dark, handsome man, nice body (yeah
I'm a woman writing this so HELLO!), mid 20s. (FBI Agent).
Insecure since his fiancé’s death, funny, thinks that he
will never love again.
3. Randy Morrison Eric Taylor's understudy and current
Vietnamese translator. Short, fat, dorky, and hyper. Loyal
to Eric, has a great sense of humor, good listener, and is a
straight forward guy.
4. Minor Characters: Eric’s secretary · Qui’s husband ·
Other minor FBI Agents · Head of FBI Headquarters (Eric and
Randy’s Boss) Target Demographic (Audience): · Women · Teens
· Some Men Tag Line: "Tina Turner once asked, "What's Love
Got To Do With It?" and we asked the same damn question..."
Synopses: Qui Thu, a 25 year old Vietnamese girl, and her
husband own a nail salon in town.
Qui is a young, abused housewife and worker for her
husband. She married him to move to the U.S, speaks a fair
amount of English, does not hold a driver’s license, and
still holds close ties to her family. The movie starts with
abuse scene at Qui’s home. To her surprise her husband has
been engaging in illegal activities (selling drugs out of
his business {the salon}, not paying taxes to the state and
the federal government, and is not a current U.S. citizen.).
Eric Taylor and his goofy sidekick Randy bust her husband
he was counting money after hours at the salon. Qui fights
against going with Eric and Randy, and is finally questioned
and returns to her house late that evening. As for her
husband, he is deported back to Vietnam. During this time
Qui shows her hate for men as Eric tries to help her get
control of her business and her life, by arguing with him,
making fun of him and just flat out not cooperating. Eric
dishes it right back.
On a day trip to N.Y.C they share with each other their
life story, expectations, hopes and dreams. Slowly their
insecurities fade, and they go from hating to falling in
love where the movie ends. Qui takes a trip back home to
Vietnam to see family when Eric's job ends. It’s been weeks
since they've seen each other, and Qui's mom has set her on
several dates with another Vietnamese man who she is
interested in. Prior to this new man (when she just arrives
in Vietnam), she complains to her younger sisters about
missing Eric. Eric, not being able to contain his feelings
any longer, has to fly to Vietnam to win her love, over her
new lover.
-- Script Pitch III Host Commentary --
by Lee Tistaert and Stephen Lucas
Lee's Analysis:
This sounds like a possibly tolerable version of the
almost intolerable sounding Beauty Shop…except maybe more
art-house in nature. A crucial factor is getting the viewer
to care about each of these characters, and reading
their descriptions, it’s hard to tell whether I’m going to
care to the level you want.
Maybe it’s just that I’m a guy and this is evidently
aimed at women to a substantial extent, but in order to
build a universally appealing story, these other ingredients
can help a lot. Appealing to both genders can make for not
only a more marketable movie, but also a potentially
stronger one in quality.
Stephen's Analysis:
I’m not sure if you ever saw the movie "Wise Girls,"
and I hope not: it’s tortuous. It’s a movie about a
mob-owned restaurant starring Mira Sorvino and Mariah Carey.
‘Nuff said? Why I bring "Wise Girls" up is that you have a
story that’s not about the mob, but powerful men and an
abused female lead.
What I don’t like about this setup is that we’ve seen
it before, dozens of times. How many TV movies have talked
about abused housewives and defenseless women? Not only
that, but you have genres overlapping. The girl falls in
love with another guy and feels safe; what message are you
trying to give?
The genres you have listed at the top of your pitch:
action and romantic comedy, anybody? I like the subplot
about her citizenship, but I think it gets lost in other
elements of this pitch. Work out clichés and find a
comfortable genre to write to; only then we can take this at
face value.
Rating: C-
