SYNOPSIS:

This is about two enemies who create a love story, and fall in love in the process. They are college students filming and acting in a romantic comedy – and they spark to each other along the way. Craig has a good digital camera and a burning desire to be a film-maker. But his parents are pressuring him to register for pre-law classes next term. Corinne, in his film class, gives him a hard time about a short film he presents. The film is a silent in which a little boy tries to impress a little girl in a sandbox, and a bully takes the little girl away. Corinne wants to know: is the little girl a character with motivation in her own right – or is she just a prize? Craig is frustrated by her criticism and what he hears as feminist diatribes. But he realizes that the way to prove to his parents, his film teacher and himself that he has what it takes might be to collaborate with Corinne. She’s a dancer and a theater major; her film scripts are static and stagy. She does not have a cinematic eye. But she has a good ear for dialogue; she can do the character development stuff Craig cannot do. He suggests they make a film together. She jokes about it, warily. At last, she says she’d rather make a romantic comedy with him than a crime caper. They’ll come up with something cheap and simple, almost mumblecore: a “rom-com redux.” Craig wants her as the female lead and his roommate Sam as the male lead, but Corinne balks at acting opposite Sam. She wants to use a pretentious senior in the theater program, but Craig thinks the guy is ridiculous – and offends him, so it’s impossible. Craig and Corinne hold auditions for a funny guy – but the guys all use humor Corinne finds offensive. Finally, they agree they’ll play the two leads. They argue and find each other’s plot ideas ridiculous and corny. Corinne gripes about current commercial romantic comedies. Craig gives her a list of “visual” places around campus to work into the script. They film a lot in the playground where his silent film happened, using the same three little kids. Craig and Corinne play psychology majors who work in the faculty day-care center. The little kids in the film give their characters advice and help them get together as a couple. Craig drives Corinne crazy with his camera experiments: trying to stage a “match-cut” to connect two scenes, and playing games with rack-focus when they film in the college bowling alley. But she’s also amused by his intensity and impressed by his skill, and he’s impressed by the cool way she and a friend act a scene from Shakespeare. When Craig and Corinne go to the sculpture garden at night to improv the scene where their characters fall in love – they fall for real. Meanwhile, Craig’s roommate Sam gets together with a girl. One night, Craig, heavily asleep, falls out of bed, wedged between the bed and the wall, still sleeping; the room looks empty. Craig gets woken up by an argument about sex between Sam and his girlfriend that Sam would never have wanted him to hear. Humiliated, Sam, who dislikes Corinne, tells a creepy friend something that Corinne confided to Craig: that she dances alone in the dance studio on weekends; the studio has big picture windows and the creepy friend films her doing a wild, joyful dance and posts it on a campus gossip website. Corinne is humiliated and blames Craig. She tells him to finish the film by himself. Craig stops talking to his roommate. Sam finds Corinne and tells her that he, Sam, and his friend are creeps – but Craig isn’t. Craig did not knowingly betray her. And she should go to her movie’s premiere. Corinne does go, and she and Craig have a triumph with the film. As they stand in front to take their bows with the three proud little kids who were in the film, we see that Corinne and Craig are victorious – and reunited.

LOVE, UNSCRIPTED