Saturday, October 20, 2012

Setting the scene

I'm trying to evoke the essence of a power dynamic between a couple for the screen. I'm trying to explain how at first the man has the power in the relationship but that when he has a setback the balance of power moves to her. Whilst at first it was fun to have him all to herself the gloss of that wears off. She's not happy and neither is he.

He recognizes that things are amiss between them and within him and he decides that he can't wait for the doctors to get him off his lithium or to reduce the dose. So, he takes matters into his own hands and plays with the dosage himself.

It works. His libido is back; big time, and more than that, he's asked his girl what she wants, she's told him and now he is pushing the point.

Suddenly, she has information that he's not going to stop when she demands it, necessarily. He's going to take over, force her to admit what she really wants and do what he wants after that. There's that between them now, even if it never happens again. The power has shifted back.

The sex is great. They're both ravenous. It's happening in every room, on every surface; multiple times a day.

He is struggling to stay on top of his condition without the full dosage.  The change in dosage is causing him to finish people's sentences. He's becoming just a little bit manic. But, hey, the sex is great and that's what is important. They're marvelously happy.

They marry and already on the honeymoon there's an incident and the facts must be faced. He's mentally ill, needs his full dose and depression kicks in.

She wants them to get on with their lives. That's what young people do, right - get on with their lives?  She wants a nice apartment in New York City, even if he can't afford it; even if her parents mostly pay.

He starts to feel more like the wife than the husband, he tells her. It's not going to work. And, so he finds the courage to end it - to leave her and allow them both the freedom to move on with their lives in their own ways.

You might say that this story is about all sorts of things but I see it through the lens of power and what the illness does to the subtle balance of that power; what the relationship can't withstand; what it might have withstood if the girl had been willing to hand over more power to a man who had a condition that had to be managed; that left him with limited arousal, but who was a natural leader with perhaps permanent incapacity to lead.

She wanted the healthy and virile husband but felt forced to provide some forward momentum when he was stuck. In fact, she wanted the life she had anticipated whilst he came to understand that his life wasn't going to go that way; he wasn't going to measure up in her eyes, or in his eyes, either. He needed to find a new way to live and that meant going solo.

What I am finding is that I don't have a lot of words to describe this when we are talking about a screen script. I've got to say, by using dialogue and setting up scenes, how that power exchange between them ebbs and flows and why it is so imperative to the success or failure of the relationship. I'm really reaching into the pits of my limited talents to achieve this...

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