On the walk to breakfast this afternoon (yes, debauchery reared its ugly head hier soir) a well-dressed and apparently well-heeled woman passed me on the sidewalk, hissing angrily into her cellphone: “I tried to tell you about her, Anthony, but you wouldn’t listen!” Unlike the one-sided bits of conversation I usually overhear, this one made me want to hear more. The hack writer in me said “Now that’s an opening line for a film, a novella, an epic poem–hell, it’s already haiku….” But what’s the rest of the plot?
Short story: Eugenie Leblanc married Anthony de Varville two weeks after her graduation from Sacred Heart Academy. The timing seemed right: Anthony was four years older and was graduating from college, preparing to move back to New Orleans with his business degree from LSU, starting work at the family business (shipping, mostly imports from the far east) that summer. After a month-long honeymoon in Paris, they began what would become a stereotypical Uptown marriage: Anthony went to work and to meetings with his Mardi Gras krewe–Comus, of course–and Eugenie passed her days chairing gala committees and attending Sunday tea at the Windsor Court. After five years, Anthony had his first clumsy affair–so clumsy that Eugenie learned of it less than an hour after its comsummation. She gradually learned to tolerate his dalliances–even his most recent, with their bottom-of-the-barrel babysitter, Rhonda. Unfortunately, Rhonda turned out to be a handful of trouble: you see, Anthony didn’t care much for condoms, and his careless, self-serving rutting eventually resulted in the impregnation of the surprisingly fertile Rhonda. Now Rhonda’s brother, Ronnie, was making threatening calls to Anthony at work, vowing to destroy Anthony’s home and business unless he “made things right.” As the story begins, Anthony has shared his burden with Eugenie, who is, as it turns out, somewhat less than sympathetic. Thirty pages later, Anthony has set Rhonda’s house on fire, killing both her and Ronnie. Eugenie learns of Anthony’s cruel and criminal acts over breakfast, but chooses to continue eating the omelette her housekeeper, Jeanette, has made for her rather than file for divorce.
Indie film: Same story as above, but set in an anonymous Midwestern town. Eugenie is now Mary (Joan Allen), Anthony becomes Tony (William H. Macy), de Varville is changed to White. Tony is a lawyer and his Mardi Gras krewe becomes a hunting club. The film ends with upper-crust Mary falling for a wise, handsome, penniless drifter (Johnathan Schaech or, in a pinch, Luke Wilson) and riding away with him on his motorcycle after she tells off Anthony and her grubby, ungrateful children over breakfast one Saturday morning.
Summer blockbuster film Anna (Angelina Jolie) was a bad girl. By the time she reached 9th grade, she was a chain smoker, an accomplished pickpocket, and addicted to 14 narcotic substances. During a bank robbery that her boyfriend planned as a treat for her 16th birthday, things go terribly wrong, and Anna is left alone to fend off a 30-member SWAT team. Wounded in the attack, she awakens to find that–a la La Femme Nikita and XXX–she’s been drafted into a top-secret government espionage unit. Her handlers, Bud Silvers (Keanu Reeves) and Daria Finnochio (Parker Posey), are a mismatched bungling duo, assigned to train Anna and keep her out of trouble. Their complete incompetence provides the film’s comic relief. The film concludes with an all-night car chase/shoot-out in which Anna proves her loyalty and mettle. Exhausted and scuffed-up, all three go to Denny’s (product placement) for a breakfast celebration.
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