One Last Save

ONE LAST SAVE
Feature | Drama | Set in LOS ANGELES
In the vein of MANCHESTER BY THE SEA.

Quarterfinalist, American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition (2020)
Quarterfinalist, Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition (2020)
Official Selection, Script Summit (2020)

It’s the first time two young sisters have ever seen the ocean. Their truck driver father brought them there on Christmas morning. It’s clear, they travel with their father, they’re trailer trash poor with an unbreakable sister bond.

Years later, as adults, they've become two bickering sisters with two very different lives. TERRY (40s) is a suicidal LA attorney with a failing practice. The other is BILLIE (40s), an uptight hippie mom who is a failing artist. Terry blames Bernie for the crash of her law firm, from the years of buying Billie’s art. Billie believes she ruined her law practice on her own. After a fight, Terry kicks Billie and her sensitive nephew, JAYDEN (12) out of her Malibu home. Billie vows never to forgive her sister. On the way out, Billie throws her paintings in the hot tub.

With very little cash to get back home to the southwest, Billie attempts to cash in her son’s education fund, but fails. As they cross the scorching Mohave desert with no AC, Billie reveals to Jayden that he almost died in a drowning accident, when she was pregnant with him, but Terry saved them. While it seems like Terry is doing all the saving, Jayden learns that Billie saved Terry from a major suicide attempt. Billie wants a release of responsibility, without the guilt, but doesn’t know how to get there. In the desert, Billie begins to collect tarnished metal that she finds.

Back in the southwest, Billie works two jobs. She and her sister don’t communicate for months. Billie reads online that Terry was disbarred. During this time, with the found metal, Billie begins to create a sculpture of Terry. Unannounced, Terry shows up and takes Billie to a casino. Billie gets a chance to repair their relationship, and to forgive -- but she doesn’t. Terry flees from her creditors and moves to Costa Rica. Time passes, Terry calls, but Billie ignores… she knows it will be the same. Billie wants to move on, yet she really wants her old sister back. She unveils the sculpture – it’s Terry as a child.

A landlord from Costa Rica calls. Terry has been missing for weeks. After a journey to get there, Billie relentlessly searches for Terry, until Billie finds a suicide note. Officers find a body. Billie goes with them, and when they lift up the bag, it’s not Terry. Months later, Billie stops searching. She is racked with guilt and a gut-wrenching emptiness -- all the pettiness doesn’t matter anymore. She could have forgiven her, but it was too late.

In a flashback, a PAINTING floats in a hot tub. On the back, it reads: “For my sister, Terry.” TERRY’S HAND turns it around... It is a beautiful painting of two young sisters. Five years later at SOTHEBY’S in NEW YORK… on the auction block, rests the painting of two young sisters, Billie and Terry, running hand in hand on the beach. KNOCK OF THE GAVEL. SOLD.

On a foggy beach, we see someone up ahead... a moment passes... the fog clears... it's Terry, Billie and Jayden playing in the ocean's waves.