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Last Embrace by MJ Hermanny - Short, Drama - A loving, elderly couple cannot bear to be parted and take matters into their hands with disastrous results. 8 pages - pdf, format
Well done. Very similar subject matter to another script currently on the boards.
This was handled deftly, with good characterization and set up. Descriptions were tight. Only complaint, if you can call it that, is that I saw the end coming. Don't know if you wrote it that way on purpose. It seems you might have because the depth of the story was enough to carry this without the benefit of a big end reveal.
Ok, I don’t ever really do this but I’m going to try to predict how this will turn out on the basis of the first scene alone with the police handcuffing Edmund, his advanced years, the body bag being wheeled out while keeping the title in mind…I’m guessing that he has killed his wife as per her request due to illness or something, a kind of homemade euthanasia and the moralistic choices that go along with it...Anyway, reading on…
Having finished, it was what I initially expected but that didn’t take away from a well written, emotionally honest script. In such few short pages you managed to generate a real sense of connection between Winnie and Edmund, of lives shared and a mutual love that has never wavered in their 60 years of marriage. So when the time for separation comes, due to one becoming incapacitated by their illness, it’s too much and drives them to take the ultimate steps.
With the shotgun shown in the second scene one presumes was the method of killing so it was a nice, though still tragic, twist in that Edmund chose a more gentle way for her and him to go…Of course, when his body rejects the pills, he has to take the more grizzly option.
I did wonder though if he couldn’t consume the pills, wouldn’t he not have known this earlier and taken other measures? I understand why you chose to play it like that so he would have to resort to the shotgun thus alert the neighbours with the wayward shot and it works as you have it, I just questioned that oversight on Edmund’s part since he looked to have planned else fairly well.
Anyway, not much complaints from here regardless of forecasting how it was gonna go form the first scene (like I said, I don’t normally do that and realise it’s a annoying for the writer) but I can still appreciate the writing both technically and plot-wise. You write natural dialogue too, something that’s very difficult to learn.
Mj, You need to sharpen that flashback transition in the beginning. I found myself into another story all of a sudden. I had to back track to understand. What I liked: The panic in the end when the pills didnt work. Perhaps start your story there. All the hand holding drama in the middle could be cut. I'd spend all your eight pages on the suicide going wrong.
Mj, You need to sharpen that flashback transition in the beginning. I found myself into another story all of a sudden. I had to back track to understand. What I liked: The panic in the end when the pills didnt work. Perhaps start your story there. All the hand holding drama in the middle could be cut. I'd spend all your eight pages on the suicide going wrong.
The hand-holding drama in the middle is the build up to the end. What you're proposing is a completely different story. Why don't you write it?
I like the story and the never ending love that old couple have throughout. But like mentioned above i'm not so sure about the shotgun.
Perhaps if Winnie died in Edmunds arms and then he took some pills would be more of a suited ending? Smothering Winnie with a pillow in my opinion is not really loving or a gentle way out to kill someone, if there is such a thing?
You write for so long how they love each other and show numerous examples of their love, but then the end just contradicts almost everything you have written. I know Winnie is not well and he eases her suffering but like I said before killing her I don't think should be the answer.
These are just my opinions of course. I thought this story was beautifully written.
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Last Embrace
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