THE STAGE 32 LOGLINES

Post your loglines. Get and give feedback.

ALL THE ANSWERS

ALL THE ANSWERS
By Fraser Kee Scott

GENRE: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
LOGLINE:

A badly translated billboard in India mistakenly advertises the girl in the ad as a Guru, resulting in the troubled actress being hounded by people burdened by disastrous problems. Whatever she says to stop them believing in her only results in her followers swelling, until when she helps others to find their answers, she finds her own.

SYNOPSIS:

Sheena’s an insecure young actress whose demanding fiancé’s begrudgingly given her one chance at her acting dream before a life of servitude to him, but her small part in a forthcoming film’s threatened when its star falsely accuses her of flirting so the director threatens to cut her scenes.

Sheena seeks instructions from her fiancé, who, through a series of comical misunderstandings, while himself attempting to steal data from his company and sell it to its competitor, unknowingly advises Sheena to make duplicates of her film contract and consult a lawyer.

Sheena’s forgotten that day an ad she shot for “Krishna Translations” is released on hundreds of billboards and full page ads, mistakenly translated to read “Are you having troubles understandings in life? I help you solve your most difficult ones. FIND ME FOR ALL THE ANSWERS.” There’s no contact details, only Sheena’s huge smiling face surrounded by religious iconography.

As Sheena sets out to solve her own troubles she’s chased by people with every conceivable (and inconceivable) problem, begging her for answers. Sheena’s unaware of the ad so doesn’t understand why they unburden themselves on her. She angrily shoos them away, but via farcical comedy, the harder she attempts to shake them off the more they believe she’s a guru. Her following swells, and her attempts to make copies of the contract are thwarted.

Sheena’s ex has heard of her following and she asks him his advice, but the reason Sheena broke up with him in the first place is that rather than answer her regular questioning of what to do, he asks her to answer her questions for herself. This frustrates Sheena, they argue and she tells him to leave.

By the time Sheena’s used all her energy to battle the crowd to make it to the printer for duplicates, their numbers have reached such proportions they’re impossible to pass and the only way she can make it to her lawyer is offering them answers for her passage way through. As Sheena listens to her followers and attempts to help them, her mood lifts and in exchange they help her.

Sheena’s fiancé’s heard of her followers and calls to tell her to monetize her new found fame – reminding her she must always do what he tells her. He’s in his competitor’s office, attempting to sell his stolen data; when the competitor enters he puts his phone on silent, so whatever he tells the competitor is heard by Sheena but he can’t hear her. Her fiancé is furious because the competitor won’t buy the data so threatens him, which comes across to Sheena as instructions to threaten the director to stay in the film.

She reaches the Director with time to spare so asks the crowd to show her the ads which caused them to follow her, but before they reach one the star who accused her of flirting has goons throw her in a limo and violently threatens her against speaking against him to the director. Before he can carry out his violence Sheena’s ad appears to him like a vision behind her head as the limo drives past it, and he desperately seeks her advice for his problem with narcissism. Sheena helps him understand his problem and in exchange he promises to tell the Director he flirted with her, not the other way around.

The star tells the Director the truth and he sees it’s wrong to cut Sheena from the film but just when it seems she’ll keep her role, she idiotically follows her fiancé’s instructions and threatens the Director if he doesn’t keep her in the film. The Director doesn’t take kindly to being threatened and kicks her both out of the office and the film.

Sheena seeks her fiancé’s advice but he tells her she’s had enough chasing her silly dreams - it’s time to come home and cook for him. Distraught, Sheena asks the crowds advise what to do and they give her the most ridiculous ideas, each relating to their own issues.

Sheena starts the journey home to the loss of her dreams when she bumps into her ex. As a last option Sheena asks him what to do - he tells her as she’s asked everyone else, isn’t it time she asked herself? Sheena says she doesn’t know what to do, but seeing as there are no other options, she asks herself, and low and behold the answer arrives.

Sheena goes to the director, apologises and helps him find the answers to his own problems, leaving him with the greatest realisation about existence in his lifetime of searching. He offers Sheena anything in return for her help so she says she wants to remain in the film. He apologises, that’s the one thing he can’t give her – through her help he realised his answers don’t come from prayers or priests, but from within; keeping her in the film will ruin it as the star’s wife has such a social media following, one sniff of scandal and this family film would bomb.

Sheena’s distraught, but at least has learned a lesson to listen to herself. When Sunny calls from jail after being caught selling the data, he orders her to come and bail him out and start her work in the kitchen, but she does what she’s never done before and tells him “no “– she’s not following his or anyone else’s orders anymore, she’s listening to herself.

The crowd, who’ve grown to thousands of people and press, make so much noise they disturb the director who comes out to see what’s going on. He can’t believe Sheena has so many followers chasing her onto the streets – the star’s wife doesn’t have anything like that, so Sheena can keep her role in the film.

Overjoyed, Sheena’s last wish is to see this damn ad that’s caused all of her trouble and finally her salvation, so the crowd take her and her ex ex (they kiss) to see her billboard. But the company heard of the misunderstandings so when Sheena reaches, the mistaken ad’s been replaced with a standard one for “Very Good Translations Services”, it’s removed the religious iconography and straightforwardly advises people of its services to help them with troubles understanding foreign languages.

Bathed in TV camera lights, thrown into a deep confusion about why they are following her, Sheena begs the crowd for the answer.

ALL THE ANSWERS

View screenplay
Harish Kumar V

This sounds very original and fun. I am from India. let me know if you need any help in accuracy of setting, dialogues, people, culture or any other stuff.

Harish Kumar V

Rated this content

register for stage 32 Register / Log In