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SAND CASTLE DAY                  by Robert T. Roe             (503)998-2479                

 

 

Logline: (comedy) “ An out of control genie and a wayward father tangle over a dysfunctional wish.”

 

RICHARD had become a crotchety, bitter old man who was on the brink of complete alienation from his family.  After he tosses a rock at his oldest son, TOM, who had only arrived to invite him to dinner, and fights with his ex-wife DORIS, over the death of their youngest son, BOBBY, it appears his self-destruction is near completion. However, A STROKE OF GENIUS slams into him as if struck by a meteor from space and sends him twenty years into the past with a priceless gift- a chance to change his rotten life. All this from something so cliché that it couldn’t be real, but it was.  

 

It was the lamp! Doris, now owner of the antique store that was once their home in better times, and who allows Richard to live and work there, purchased a lamp at a magician’s estate sale in Hollywood.  She jokingly likens the lamp to Aladdin’s lamp. After the ‘rock throwing fight’, Richard, drunk and miserable, rubs the lamp in a moment of remorse and wishes he could spend a rare day with his kids, TOM, JANET, and BOBBY, with one simple goal- remember their faces when they were young.  The next morning his young son, Bobby, joggles him from his sleep.

 

Richard explodes into the past with a joy that surprises even him, but this journey would not be a piece of cake. The Genie of the lamp, GENIUS, was not as cliché as his lamp. Genius, tweaked in spirit, would barely give Richard the time of day and thus irritates Richard by popping in and out on him as if he were a sudden thunderstorm. As Genius mumbles the RULE that Richard cannot purposely change anything in his past or he will lose his wish, it becomes clear that he would just as soon see Richard fail. Once at the beach, the animosity becomes hilarious when Richard is changed into a crab, chased by a dog, but saved by his daughter, JANET, who saw it all. Genius shows himself to Janet but lets her know she will not remember any of it. Janet, a budding psychologist, nails the genie for his rotten attitude and thus impresses Genius. Later in the story, Janet and Genius’s on-going banter turns to friendship, which leads to some fascinating twists.

 

As his day unfolds, Richard realizes that it was this very weekend, the weekend his family travel to Cannon Beach, Oregon’s SAND CASTLE DAY, that his wife and her boss, WADE, must have begun the affair that ended his marriage.  He begins to realize that this weekend can mean more than just remembering his children’s faces. Can he turn it all around and make this journey in time have much greater meaning?  Can he change his mistakes despite the RULE? The genie elders, THE WILLIES, are watching every move Richard and Genius make.  As time runs out on Richard’s day, his re-ignited love for his wife, his family and his own life leads him to attempt some ‘genius’ moves around the rule. Will he succeed in changing the future? You can only know if you read A STROKE OF GENIUS.      

 

 

 

Cinematic Moments

 

Page one: 

q       At a yard sale, our invisible Genie, GENIUS AGULHAS, comes through the front door of the house and yells out- a baby cries, leaves shake,

“Noooooo!”

q       DORIS ARNOLD has arrived to pick up a special lamp left to her by a famous magician.

q       Inside the house, Genius breaks things, sending people inside running.

“You might need a Priest!

“You have no soul, Dad.  You can't remember a single one of us kids when we were young.”

q       When Doris drives up, Genius is riding atop her car

q       Later that night, drunk, Richard, thinking it a joke, rubs the side of the lamp. He pulls out of an old chest a photo of them around a sand castle dinosaur.

“Dad, Mom says you have to work.  She says you're not coming to the beach.” 

 

Richard’s eye pops open and he falls from the bed

q       Bobby runs away laughing, and telling the other kids that Dad just fell off the bed

q       Richard jumps up, looks at himself in the mirror, and almost faints

q       He sneaks into the living room where a much younger TOM is, and beside Tom is Genius dressed like a biker.

Doris sprays him the with water hose and tells him to go to work.

“My wife and her boss...they went to dinner with a client, except there was no client...”

 “And you'll probably upchuck from displacement sickness...it comes from speed…remember the rules.”

“It’s okay honey, we had fun without you, didn’t we kids”

 “Don’t try to change a single thing.  That’s the rule. Break it and you lose.

"Here, Turkey, take this shovel and go play in the wet sand while I do goo-goo eyes at your wife, Turkey."

“Because diggin' up wet sand keeps you away from the dinosaur...and when you’re away from the dinosaur you're away from the cave woman…” he goes on,

“If I kill him today will I be guilty twenty years later tomorrow?”

Turns Richard into a giant crab just as a German Shepard comes along

“Never insult your genie, crab face”

On the way up the beach, Richard pinches Wade on the butt, then hides under a bucket from the dog

q       Genius then turns Richard into a Seagull.

 “My concept of reality has been ...seriously challenged.  We need to talk”

“That three wish business is a bunch of bunk.  One wish, girlie, is all anyone gets….and at sundown, your dad’s out of here.”

Richard wakes at home thinking he was in a dream, then he sees in the sandcastle day picture that they won was the BLUE RIBBON instead of the green

Then he goes to crush the lamp, and Genius appears

Three Genie’s show up to settle the dispute over the wish and decide that Richard indeed got his wish

Genius turns Richard into a cute little dog and he runs into the restaurant and leaps right onto his wife’s lap

Richard wakes up in Hawaii. Doris is there and so is Bobby along with some grand kids. Richard is overcome with joy as he realizes he actually was able to change things. Wow!

 

Genius shows up- a changed man from his therapy with Janet- then they all live happily ever after as we………fade out.

 

Robert T. Roe                            503-998-2479                          rjroe72@msn.com