Lunch

LUNCH

A LIFE WITHOUT MIRACLES

a treatment for a feature film

In Brief:

LUNCH is a story of love, politics. compromise, and lasagna. It is a story about voices - private and public.

Alex is a poet who defines his life as a quest for the perfect lasagna, a clownish attitude partly motivated by his older half-brother's "success" as a politician on the rise. An unlikely alliance develops, with Alex as Laurence's speech writer, which tests both men to the limit. Alex tastes power and likes it. Laurence begins to wonder if the prize is worth the escalating personal cost.

Katya and Melanie are two friends, former airline hostesses who become involved with the brothers. Katya is attracted to Alex's insight and talent. Melanie admires Laurence's practical competence.

Alex begins a romance with Katya while she is working as a waitress. His brother comes to visit. He wants Alex to write speeches for him. He says "With your help I could be Governor in two years."

Alex is tempted by his brother's offer. The man of evasion and inaction is tempted to action. The man of power realises he has no gift for winning hearts and minds. He needs the poet's voice. He can't buy it, but he can ask his brother.

The political and romantic threads weave together. The politician is killed in a plane crash just when his career is beginning to take off. Alex loses his waitress. He is alone again, but he does find a perfect lasagna.

Less Brief:

Alex is in a cafe having lunch - lasagna, of course. His flatmate, a painter, joins him and asks him not to come home tonight as he will be having female company. Alex is annoyed but agrees. When the painter leaves the waitress (Katya) who has overheard the conversation between the two men invites him to a party. She says: "Lots of people stay over. My boyfriend won't mind."

Alex is not too impressed by the reference to a boyfriend but the invitation does at least offer a way to be absent for the night.

It is a pleasant party at first but the boyfriend becomes jealous of Katya's new acquaintance and starts to smash up the flat. Katya hides Alex in a cupboard. Friends restrain the boyfriend and take him away to cool off for the night.

Alex emerges from the cupboard and sees that Katya has been hit. Over coffee she admits that the boyfriend hit her occasionally. (Alex's expression reveals that he knows he is talking to a nutter, but she is a very attractive nutter). She says she doesn't like it but she can't escape her attraction to him. Alex is appalled but tries to be understanding. He also doesn't want to lose his chance of a spare bed for the night. He is also a writer observing.

In the morning Katya throws the boyfriend's belongings out the window and tosses Alex a key to the apartment as she leaves for work. He cleans the flat while she is gone. The boyfriend returns. He is polite and sarcastic. He asks: "What do you do fella?" Alex answers that he writes poetry. The boyfriend slaps himself: "Poetry! I never stood a chance."

Evening. Katya is cooking. She says he can stay as long as he likes. Alex is writing. He has begun a new poem. He is stuck on the first line of "she has three voices" - this is something that he has noticed about her. She does have three different voices for different contexts. Katya brushes this aside saying all women have three voices.

A week or so later Alex mentions that his half-brother Laurence will be visiting soon from Albany. Katya suggests her neurotic well-meaning friend Melanie to make up a foursome for dinner the first night Alex's brother is in town.

At the dinner Laurence realises Alex has told the women nothing about him. He explains his Union background and his position as a Representative in the State Legislature. He also explains their family situation i.e. their father's story. He doesn't explain it completely. There should remain a little mystery about it. When they talk of "our father" we might almost get the sense that they are talking about God.

Laurence says of his brother: "I like his poems. I don't like poetry but I like his poems. He sees things. He hears things. Alex says "All I do is look." Laurence: "I look. I don't see. Not that way."

After dinner Laurence takes them to a party. It is a discreet party organised largely for his benefit - he is beginning to be courted by business leaders. He is on his way in a career sense and these people know it. Laurence disappears into a private room to discuss serious matters.

Next day at lunch alone with Alex, Laurence asks Alex to write speeches for him. Alex at first treats this as a joke. Laurence insists - he can take the nomination of his party for Governor in an internal brawl but he needs to win hearts and minds to win a general election. He needs his half-brother poet to do that. "I can grab one kind of power. I can bully that. I can finesse that with a few promises. a few deals, a few undertakings. I can do it with hints, some people are so thirsty to get their snout in the trough. I need another kind of power. I have to beg for that. I have to beg you for that."

Alex objects that he lives in N.Y.C. Laurence says he can do it all by fax machine and computer. The only question is which flat does he want the equipment installed in - his own or Katya's. The computer and fax machine and modem etc. are installed in Katya's flat.

She doesn't like it, doesn't like what she sees happening to Alex as he uses his skill with words to manipulate rather than communicate. ("An audience," he says, "is a mass of people who don't know what they want yet.")

In the Legislature Laurence makes his "these unwise men and women" speech, a major attack on the Government.

In Katya's flat a newspaper lies open on the coffee table. It carries a front-page report of Laurence's speech and favourable speculation about his future.

Alex is still struggling with his "she has three voices" poem.

Laurence accepts his party's nomination for the Gubernatorial election.

The next time Laurence comes to visit Alex and Katya are not getting along very well. He himself is becoming closer to Melanie. (Marriage might also be a smart move at this stage in his political career.)

Alex is increasingly evasive and difficult. Laurence, a sentimental man in many ways, is shocked by his brother's callousness to Katya. "You're a hard bastard, and I thought I knew hard bastards."

Laurence makes a savage speech about trust and betrayal. Which words are his and which are Alex's?

Lunch scene with Alex and Katya. Her skin shimmers resentment.

Laurence is killed in a plane crash, in a light aircraft on his way to make a minor speech in an unimportant country town.

Alex is alone again, in a cafe. He has found a perfect lasagna at last. He can't eat it.

Expanded Synopsis:

Alex is lying on the grass in a park, near the kiosk, listening to "Honey Hush" on his walkman. His POV of the clouds and sky.

Alex strolling along, at ease among the transvestites, derelicts, junkies. He acknowledges some of them by name.

Alex's POV of the clouds.

Alex in the newsagent. He is attracted to a pile of notepads on special at $1.15. He counts his loose change and buys three. The girl at the counter knows him. She hints that he could come over to her place for dinner. He tells her that this is not a good idea. He is evasive. She says she still wants to be friends. This appeals to him even less. "I'm up to my ears in friends. I'm trying to work out which ones I can lose." During this conversation other customers interrupt buying cigarettes, newspapers, lottery tickets - a glimpse of addictions, events, and hopes beyond out control. Could there be news of a plane crash on a newspaper poster?

Alex leaves. The woman is hurt, resentful. She flirts with the next customer.

Alex on the grass. His POV of the clouds.

Alex in a bookshop. The girl here knows him too. She has a new magazine in which features several of Alex's poems. She enjoys telling him that his name is spelt incorrectly in the table of contents. She asks if he has been writing much lately. His evasiveness suggests that perhaps he has not. She teases him about his tendency to live in his own head. She says he lives a double life. He says he has more fun than that. He has a triple, a quadruple life.

Alex in the lounge of a brothel. He has his own bottle of cognac on a shelf. He confides in the madam. She is like a psychiatrist to him.

Alex is in a cafe. A waitress brings a lasagna to his table. He inspects it carefully. He sniffs it, prods it for texture. The waitress says she could not help noticing that he has been coming in every day and ordering the same meal. He explains that his life is a quest for the perfect lasagna. This is the best he's found. When he finds a better cafe and a better lasagna he will go to it. She says she hopes that won't be soon.

Alex's flatmate Jeff (a painter) finds him and takes a seat. He asks Alex not to come home tonight as he will have company. Alex is annoyed but agrees. When Jeff says that this is the kind of favour a friend must sometimes ask of another Alex says he has just helped him with a problem of subtraction. Jeff does not comprehend this to mean the end of their friendship. He is accustomed to Alex being a little enigmatic.

Katya has overheard parts of their conversation. She invites Alex to a party. Her parties go all night. Her boyfriend won't mind. Other people will be staying the night

The party. Pleasant at first, but the boyfriend becomes suspicious and jealous, and violent. He starts to smash up the flat. Alex offers to leave. Katya hides him in a cupboard. Inside the cupboard Alex hears Katya ask the boyfriend if he has forgotten to take his tablets again. The cupboard door opens, boyfriend looming. Friends restrain him and take him away to cool off for the night.

Alex inspects the wrecked flat. He notices that Katya has been hit. Over the last of the wine she admits that the boyfriend hit her occasionally. She says she doesn't like it but she can't fight her attraction to him. Alex is mildly shocked, and jealous. He is also a writer observing.

This scene establishes the odd fact that Katya's voice changes according to her emotional state.

Alex is asleep on the couch. Katya is casually throwing the boyfriend's clothes out the window, glancing at him as she does so. Leaving, she tosses a key to him.

Alex cleaning the flat. The boyfriend re-appears, polite but edgy. He collects small items and leaves, asking Alex to take care of Katya.

Back at his own flat Alex finds a young woman in a leather jacket and not much else posing for Jeff. Jeff is in a kimono, mixing martinis. The girl interrupts her pose to do some stretching exercises.

The girl tells Alex she thinks Jeff is doing some kind of survey of womanhood. She doesn't mind being part of it, one of many. Alex appears uninterested in this kind of survey.

Evening. Katya is cooking. Alex is writing. He is stuck on the first line of a new poem: "she has three voices". Katya says all women have three voices. She feels they should not become involved. She is Trouble. Alex invites devastation.

Alex at the brothel. Talking of Katya he tells the madam that this relationship could be the one for him. The last one, the one that goes to the end of the road. He is tired of having the same unfinished conversations with a series of women. He wants to get past that stage and on to something else he's never had. He is tired of romance being like a rehearsal for something else, something that never happens.

Katya visits Melanie in her shop, which specialises in South American artefacts, charms, fabrics etc. They go to lunch. Katya confides in her. She quit being an air hostess because she literally wanted to get her life back on the ground, but it goes from one confusion to another. She tells Melanie about Alex.

Breakfast. Alex and Katya. Alex mentions that his half-brother Laurence will be visiting soon from Albany. This is the first Katya has heard of his family. She is pleased, excited. She suggests a dinner. She will invite Melanie to make a foursome.

At dinner Laurence realises Alex has told the women nothing about him or their relationship He explains his position as a Representative in the Legislature. Melanie is impressed. She admires people who are competent and useful.

Laurence also explains their family situation as half-brothers i.e. their father's story. When they talk of "our father" they could almost be talking about God.

Laurence says of his brother: "I like his poems. I don't like poetry but I like his poems. He sees things. He hears things." Alex: "All I do is look and listen." Laurence: "I look. I don't see." Katya is impressed by the man of insight. We don't know yet that Laurence has a favour to ask of his brother.

All four in the street. Alex is taking them to see something special. Alex and Katya walk ahead. Laurence and Melanie linger behind. We begin to see that Laurence enjoys the company of a woman who needs a little protecting.

Scene at a jazz venue. Dick Hughes is playing piano. In Hughes' playing style Alex hears a kind of reverence he wishes he had himself. He wishes he could write the way that man plays. He is also in his own mind daring them to hear what he hears. Katya senses the effect this music has on him. Now she begins to love him. Laurence and Melanie are getting along fine. They do not have the temperament to share Alex's kind of ecstasy. Katya partly shares it.

Laurence rises on the Floor of the Legislature to make a speech. Few Members are present. It is a dull speech about fruit canning.

Katya and Melanie at lunch. She has bought some books about politics, unfamiliar territory for her.

Laurence in his small Albany office. His manner on the phone suggests more influence than we would expect of an average Representative. Between calls he appears worried, impatient. When his secretary finally connects him with Alex in Sydney he relaxes. This is the most important call (and gamble) of his career. He invites Alex to lunch on the following day.

Lunch. A little banter between them, then Laurence becomes more serious in challenging Alex to do something useful with his life. Laurence puts his plan. A year from now he will bid for the Party leadership. He has a good chance but he needs an extra edge, something that will enable him to make more of an impression in the Legislature, in the media, and in the voters' minds. He asks Alex to write speeches for him. He will provide drafts and facts, research material and references. All Alex has to do is polish them, add his own touch, give the speeches emotional power. Together they can be pen and sword.

Alex tries to treat this as a joke but he can see the logic of it. Despite some past bitterness between them there is mutual admiration and even envy of each other's differing talents. The ambivalent Alex admires Laurence's direct and active nature. Laurence envies Alex's deeper understanding of people - and recognises its usefulness. Also "I envy you your unease."

Alex's objections are ticked off one by one until he can scarcely refuse to give it a try. He can work from N.Y.C. with a computer, modem, and fax. The only question is where does he want the equipment installed - in his own flat or Katya's?

Alex is at his old flat. Jeff is painting. His model is a tall glamorous type, a rich bitch, disdainful of her surroundings, of Jeff's artistic pretensions and his cheap champagne but excited by the ambience nonetheless - she wants to have this kind of experience before she marries her reliable but dull lawyer fiance.

This information is drawn out by Alex's hostile questioning as to why she is wasting her time there. Alex changes tack to some general questions, testing her on social issues. She has no time or pity for those who cannot make their own luck and fortune in life. Her fiance earns $150,000 a year now and she expects him to do better.

Jeff is unperturbed by this confrontation. It merely adds spice and heat. Alex appears to relax. He pours himself a glass of champagne and refills hers. He kisses her aggressively. She doesn't know she has made up Alex's mind for him. He wants to hurt people like her.

The equipment is installed in Katya's flat.

Alex and Katya watching a video of head-kicking question time in the Legislature. Alex is making notes.

Laurence in the Legislature Reps. dining room. Some significant business has just been concluded favourable to his leadership aims. Over port a senior colleague drops a hint that he might think of marrying. The voters would like it.

Melanie alone. She is talking to herself, or rather it becomes clear she is conducting half of an imaginary conversation, flirting with an imaginary companion.

Laurence in a corridor. Another Rep. is warily hinting around the subject of timing a bid for the nomination and his own aspirations for a senior position if Laurence wins the Governorship. Laurence cautions him that the time is not yet, but soon.

The four together in Katya's flat: the two brothers at ease with each other and their ladies, the two friends putting on a special dinner for their men.

Laurence in the Legislature. He begins lightly, amusing both sides. He quickly becomes acerbic, scoring points against the incumbent Governor. There is surprise, relief, and awakened interest on his own side. The Governor's own party soon stops smiling. Laurence is enjoying himself.

Katya alone listening to Laurence's speech. She is restless, seemingly angry with the radio itself.

Melanie and Katya. Melanie is ecstatic relating the progress of her romance. She thought she was too old, too stupid, too clumsy etc. but now it is really happening. Katya tries to be encouraging despite her growing ambivalence to Laurence.

Alex alone, pacing the floor. A Dick Hughes record is playing. Alex is thinking aloud, freely associating. As he becomes more coherent his manner suggests that he is conscious of an unseen audience. He appears cynically amused by his own skill.

The four together in Katya's flat. An argument is brewing. Katya points out that comments of Laurence as reported in the newspaper are not strictly true. Laurence holds that an audience is a mass of people who don't know what they want yet. The ends justify the rhetorical means. Katya wonders what has happened to truth. Laurence says he is not Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln. He is an ordinary man doing the best he can, a nuts and bolts bread and butter politician. He says such leaders do the least harm. Katya wonders why he can't do better and do more good.

Melanie and Alex do not say much.

Friction between the two women in the kitchen afterwards.

Alex and Laurence. The fax machine in the corner is almost a silent third party. Laurence asks Alex if he wants to back out of their arrangement, if it is creating too much tensions between him and Katya. Laurence suggests that he can live without the top job now he's found Melanie. Perhaps he can be simply happy and make his small contribution as a humble Rep.

Alex is too tempted now to back out. His words can be effective in the real world. They can build roads and hospitals. He tells Laurence to look in a mirror and ask himself if he doesn't want the top job. Who is manipulating whom?

Laurence is relieved though his offer was partly sincere. He thought he knew hard men. He is beginning to see Alex's hardness.

Alex and Katya at the zoo, near the monkey cage. She is telling him that this ghost-writing has changed him. He is becoming a ghost. His standards are falling. He is becoming cynical and manipulative. Somehow he and Laurence are becoming not the same person but two people constantly mutating with no fixed personality or principles. "Maybe that's what it takes." Inter-cut this with shots of a melancholy monkey courting a scornful mate, and a manipulative orang-utan amusing the crowd.

Alex visits his old flat again. He sees Jeff first, who makes a glowing comment about the sexual enthusiasm of older women.. He is stunned when Melanie emerges from the bathroom. He draws her aside, gathers she has had a spat with Laurence. She is full of self-loathing and self-pity. She had no idea Alex knew Jeff. She was only looking for someone who might be nice to her for an afternoon. She is upset and embarrassed.

Alex helps her to find her shoes etc. and leads her away. Jeff is complacent. He has his martini. The city is full of women.

Melanie is shopping for a wedding dress, something appropriate to a small ceremony conducted by a civil celebrant. Katya is helping her, without much enthusiasm.

Laurence making his "these unwise men and women" speech, a harsh attack on the governor. He is emotional. He speaks of betrayal and failure and doing the right thing. Are all these words Alex's?

Alex alone, trying to write but too drunk to be effective.

Melanie alone in her flat, in her wedding dress. The radio news carries a report of a light plane crash. Laurence is dead. He was on his way to make a minor speech in a politically unimportant rural town.

Alex and Katya at lunch. She tells him he is not the same man she fell in love with. Her skin shimmers resentment. She walks away.

Katya passing a newsagent. She sees the news. She begins to walk back to the cafe.

Alex in the cafe. He hears the report on the radio. He prods his lasagna but can't eat it. Though near tears he seems to be grotesquely amused by something.

Katya sees him through the glass. She walks away.

Alex at home. He reads the completed "she has three voices" poem.

Fade to black. Credits.

Audio: "Honey Hush", lyrics and music by Fats Waller, as performed by Dick Hughes (recorded on “The Last Train for Casablanca Leaves Once in a Blue Moon”, Larrikin Records, Sydney, 1986).

oh how I love you honey hush

your lovely cheeks make roses blush

your lips are divine, they taste like wine

they seem to whisper of love

(That's what the poet says)

oh how I love you honey hush

my heart is beating with a rush

I'm dreaming my dreams

and scheming my schemes

please say yes my honey hush...