The Beginning of The End and The End

EMILY STANTON, age 35, is a marriage counselor who lost her husband four years ago. However, she’s not a grieving widow. She is content in the fact that she at least had one shot at true love. She simply wants to focus her energies on her counseling practice located in a downtown Los Angeles office building.

One day GEORGE NELSON moves into a vacant office adjacent to Emily’s. He’s a sharp witted divorce attorney who, after handing numerous nasty divorces, has become romantically jaded. At first, Emily’s objection to George is a professional one. She believes that having a Divorce Lawyer located next to a Marriage Counselor has to be bad for business. George of course sees no problem with the situation. He believes that he and Emily are just part of the inherently flawed romance food chain. She being the beginning of the end - he being the end. George wins round one as Emily’s petition to the building landlord to move George to another location provides no relief.

And that’s when the office wars commence. George and Emily battle over everything - parking spaces, noise, client stealing and other issues that eventually end up escalating into a series of sophomoric office pranks that would make any fraternity or sorority house proud. Although she maintains a public hatred for George, the office battles serve an odd purpose for Emily. They re-energize her. They convince her that she has been treading water since her husband’s death and it is time to really move on. She’s going to date again.

Of course her first efforts are a disaster. Not only is Emily a little out of practice, the man she dates, although very attractive, is too reserved, low energy and a just bit too polite. There’s just no spark there. Unlike there is with – damn – George Nelson? No, it can’t be. He after all is still the asshole that won’t move out of the building.

Due to a power outage, Emily becomes trapped in an elevator with, of all people – George. At first, it is business as usual – nothing but sarcastic banter between them thinking that surely the power is going to be restored any minute. No luck – the outage is city wide. They are really trapped. As they enter hour four of their captivity, they start to really talk – share life experiences and start to learn a little about each other. A nice start to an adult relationship, but sadly, at the end of their captivity George can’t keep his foot out of his mouth and as the elevator doors finally open their office battles begin again.

Those battles come to a halt when shortly after their entrapment together, a fire destroys Emily’s office. George overhears Emily breaking down as the building landlord explains to her that she’ll need to vacate to allow for repairs. That weekend Emily returns to the building to remove her personal items only to discover that George has vacated the building and instructed the landlord to give his office to Emily. She is overwhelmed by the gesture.

Emily fools George into returning to the building and in cahoots with the building landlord arranges for her and George to be trapped in the elevator again. This time, they’re not leaving until they figure out where they want to go in life and if they want to take that journey together. By the time the doors open, we know the answer is yes.