Viewfinder by R. J. Cardullo | Script Revolution

Viewfinder

A photographer with hook-hands comes to a suburban homeowner’s door, trying to sell him a picture of his house—and selling him more than that.

Type:

  • Short

Status:

  • For sale
Page Count: 
6pp

Genre:

  • Drama, Family, Mystery

Budget:

  • Shoestring

Age Rating:

  • 13+
Based On: 
“Viewfinder” (1978), a short story by Raymond Carver.
Synopsis/Details: 

Suburban America, 1977. A middle-aged man is visited at his home by an older photographer with prosthetic hooks for hands. The photographer wants to sell the homeowner a picture of the latter's house. The homeowner seems to be obsessed by the fact that the visitor has hook hands, and invites him into his house partly to see how the hooks will hold a cup of coffee. Both men subsequently reveal that their families have left them. The homeowner then suddenly decides to have the hook-handed man take more pictures of the outside of his house—and of himself with it. At the end, the homeowner climbs onto the roof so that his picture can be taken: in motion, as it were, as he jumps up and throws a rock off the roof.

Submitted: May 4, 2021
Last Updated: May 4, 2021

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R. J. Cardullo's picture

The Writer: R. J. Cardullo
A former university film teacher, I turned to screenwriting several years ago. I have also written film criticism for many publications. A New Yorker by birth, I grew up in Miami and was educated at the University of Florida, Tulane, and Yale. My last U.S. address was in Milford, Connecticut; I am now an expatriate residing in Scandinavia. Many of my scripts (both long and short) are adaptations of lesser-known works by well-known authors. I am happy to re-write, collaborate, or write on demand. Thanks kindly for any attention you can give my work. Go to bio

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