THE LIFE & TIMES OF NO ONE FAMOUS LOGLINE: After plagiarising his family dynamics into a comedic bestseller the author faces the consequences at his sister’s wedding and encounters the anguish of the woman who broke his heart. Okay. This doesn’t sound much like a comedy from the logline, but I can assure you it is. It features every comedy trope, including flashbacks, V.O., 4th wall breaks, and the invention of imaginary characters to help the protagonist deal with his past issues and unwavering self-depreciating humour. It’s an R Rated (for language and sexual references) British comedy with 90% of the action taking place in a small village in Surrey (think of the picturesque landscape in the film The Holiday) The protagonist is British, 30 years old, and there’s a juicy part for an American actress co-lead and love interest in her 30s to boost the international sales. Thumbs up. Like. So let’s begin the layout. Interviewed on a London morning show, self-depreciating author, William Broom (Sweep to his friends and family) is chastised by the female presenter for the views expressed in his latest comedic bestseller ‘There’s Something Wrong With You’. It seems the novel’s characters (all in the pursuit of comedic gold) reveal certain home truths about women that hit a nerve and have caused a storm on social media. William claims the novel is pure fantasy, not autobiographical. On the journey home from the studio William receives a Facetime call from his sister Juliet informing him of her planned Valentine’s Day wedding after only knowing her fiancé for a month. William and his Canadian actress girlfriend, Natasha, are invited. When William is dumped by the social media-conscious Natasha after she reads his book and embarrassed by the fact that the novel’s protagonist thinks the clitoris is an island off Greece, he imagines scenarios where he could win her back, including being an MI6 agent and Indiana Jones. William goes home to Surrey for the four-day wedding event and suffers the animosity of his two other sisters, a pair of twins who accuse him of plagiarising their love lives into comedic flair. He also encounters the anguish of his past love, his old neighbour Jennifer, who stole his virginity and broke his heart as a teenager. Jennifer was born in Boston and her family moved in next door to William when she was 12, and he’s been in love with her since he was 7 when his failed flirting ritual (copying crane birds) resulted in her punching his light out. She’s married now, with a 4-year-old daughter, Alice. She’s taken over the village Vet position and blames William for using their backstory as juice for his novel as William flashes back to their time together when he was 17 and needed an imaginary sex education teacher to instruct him on his virginal love-making. The only person not angry with William is Juliet, but William manages to upset her by criticising her spontaneous wedding plans. Even after William discovers Jennifer’s staying in the village and is pending a divorce, his attachment to his past issues create internal conflict and the arrival of Model William invades his psyche. A literal model version of himself, with a shit American accent, Model William tries to instil confidence into the broken-hearted doppelganger, much to William’s annoyance and disgust. Jennifer decides to make the first move and during a Hen’s Night gathering she seduces William, and when Juliet’s fiancé gets cold feet William gets the blame and he sets out to solve the problem. William misunderstands Alice when she tells him her daddy, Ben, is a killer and when Ben arrives William knows he doesn’t have a chance of winning Jennifer’s love without a big gesture, so he buys her a Titanic pendant she liked 13 years ago. At Juliet’s wedding William watches Jennifer and Ben dancing and sharing a kiss and he knows all is lost, so he takes his drunk father home and packs to leave. Jennifer opens her bridesmaid gift from William and is emotionally bowled over on seeing the pendant. Jennifer arrives to stop him leaving and confesses her love for him and the Ben kiss was a test, to see if his kisses still set her on fire. They don’t but William’s do. Ten months later it’s Christmas and William and a pregnant Jennifer live together as William attends the same London morning show with his new novel - ‘The Life & Times of No One Famous’. A more joyous, less cynical, celebration of love than his last outing. The movie rights have been sold in galley form and the film we’ve been watching is an adaptation of his latest book. All ends happily and the audience leaves the cinema with a smile and joy in their heart because this low-budget (I’m guessing under 5 million) comedy has taught them that to find, enjoy, and prosper from love you can’t judge your future relationships by your past. You need to let it go because it’s past and you can’t change it.
