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THE NEWBIE

THE NEWBIE
By Cynthia Garbutt

GENRE: Comedy, Romance
LOGLINE:

Business post-grad that's deep down, a romantic and a dreamer, who's trying to make everything work out for the best. She moves to the UK and lives with her estranged, drug-addicted, rehabbed mother that forfeited raising her.

Pilot for intended series.


SYNOPSIS:

Synopsis

(feature film screenplay: romcom/coming-of-age/holiday)

Tiffany Wells average-looking young woman living in a working-class neighbourhood of NW London. Fresh out of business/marketing grad school, is the result of a torrid fling between, a Southern-white, artsy, black sheep, that raised her. And her estranged, self-involved, Irish/African mother, living in London. She moves to London to make a go of their sorted relationship, cope with her mother's undisclosed rehab status, establish her career and struggles with the cultural differences that she's inherited. Tiffany is the result of a shipboard romance, whilst they were crew members on board an ocean liner that was based in New Orleans, her father, Darren’s hometown. After leaving the ship, her mother, Katie was struggling financially and could not cope emotionally with the challenge of raising her up as a single mother, after an injury that cost her dancing career and has kept her living below the standard that she wants to achieve. So, both parents thought it best – for Tiffany to live with her father, who came from a very wealthy, traditional and conservative southern white family, of which he is the maverick and black sheep. Although the separation is difficult for both, he promises to come to London for a traditional Thanksgiving with her and Katie.

As soon as Tiffany lands at Heathrow she’s met with the British-American, English language issue and learning to cope with life in a metropolis. She meets a young man, named Enrico, on the tube that is kind, but possibly out to take advantage of her. She dreamt of leaving the US and living in London with her estranged mother, since childhood; and now that she’s finished university, where she earned an MBA and marketing degree, she’s ready. She has no major career plans, except to work where all the excitement is - in central London. Her mother is now a freelance choreographer and dance instructor at an Argentine dance club and can’t afford to pay Tiffany’s way, even with them living in a rundown house share, with 8 other foreign, mostly untidy housemates, which her mother shares no interest in or concern for. Katie is eager to move and Tiffany finds the accommodations extremely unpleasant, since she hasn’t had to share anything before, as an only child. So, Tiffany’s under pressure to find some kind of gainful employment ASAP, so they can both move into a flat of their own. She goes on interviews within her field but lacks experience and knowledge of the UK financial and business systems. She finally gets a menial job, shortly before Christmas, as a processing clerk, at Acme Movers & Shakers, an office of misfits whose only saving grace is, that helps her to further understand office politics and assimilate into London/British culture. Enrico has just opened an Italian restaurant, in the same area, with his uncle and needs someone, part-time, to help market it properly and a romance starts between them. Although he can’t afford to pay her, she’ll gain valuable experience and all the vegan food she can eat, that he's learning to cook. Her father ends up extending his stay. And they both rekindle the attraction toward each other, after 20 long years.

She and her mother face challenges of getting to know one another and living together, now that Tiffany is an adult. As well as life in a country that she is connected to by blood; the idiosyncrasies of being of two cultures American and British and learning to fit in without losing her American identity; in other words, a life in two worlds.

THE NEWBIE

View screenplay
Nathaniel Baker

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