Hilda

A heartwarming road-trip comedy, with a healthy dose of UK/US culture clash. The main characters are: Hilda (70s) - an eccentric ex-knitting champion Christopher (40s) - an emotionally stunted academic Abi (40s) - Christopher's domineering sister Moira (30s) - a no-nonsense literary agent Elena (60s) - a trailer-park mystic Wayne (20s) - a cemetery owner and friend of Hilda's Professor Jankowska (40s) - a rockstar prof with a drinking problem Synopsis Christopher Wade is at a crossroads. He’s a highly respected British professor who’s dedicated his life to the study of place names. Which, as it turns out, has left very little time to study what it means to be a functioning member of society. He’s an outsider. A grumpy, neat-freak perfectionist who, to the annoyance of his world-weary agent, refuses to turn in the years-late draft of his new book until he’s cracked the derivation of every major place name in Britain. ‘London’ is the missing piece of the puzzle. So there couldn’t be a worse time for Christopher’s long-lost, Boston-based Aunt Hilda to start showing signs of dementia. Nor for Christopher’s domineering sister Abi to demand he fly out to bring her home. And it’s not just bad timing because of the book. Christopher hasn’t spoken to Hilda since they fell out over a long-running pun contest when awry. After a good deal of arm-twisting, and the realization that he can kill two birds with one stone and tag on a place name conference in Chicago, he boards a plane and heads for America. Hilda’s a ray of sunshine in Christopher’s pit of darkness. Her laid-back ways grate on him, and his first instinct is to get her home as quickly as possible. But he quickly realizes that something strange is going on. Her house is full of useless inventions bought from a shifty door-to-door salesman. There’s a letter confirming her purchase of six plots at the local cemetery. And she’s on an extortionate retainer with a local trailer-park mystic. Christopher can’t just leave things alone, and decides to give a piece of his mind to the shameless snake oil peddlers who’ve been taking advantage of Hilda’s mental decline. But in meeting them, he realizes they’re not shameless at all. They’re her friends. And when Hilda insists on joining him on his road trip to the conference, they’re forced to confront their falling-out from years before. Christopher can’t help but soften, and realizes that the only thing stopping him finishing his book are his own demons. The words come flowing out of him again. And with her soul finally settled, Hilda can go to her gigantic six-plot mausoleum having tied up the final loose end in her life.