INT. 1960S ROMANTIC DRAMA

Recent amnesiac SHAILENE WOODLEY arrives home with her wealthy husband, JOE ALWYN.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Well, this house is quite nice, Joe. I wish I could appreciate it more, but losing all memory of you has made me feel rather distant and awkward.

JOE ALWYN

Oh, that's not the amnesia. We've always been distant and awkward.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Always?

JOE ALWYN

Of course! We're British people with money. Just wait a day or two and we'll be silently reading different newspapers at opposite ends of a needlessly long dining table as if it were yesterday.

(goes off to fail to appreciate her somewhere)

INT. CONTEMPORARY ROM-COM

Reporter FELICITY JONES meets archivist NABHAAN RIZWAN.

FELICITY JONES

Hey, dickhorse, let me read through the archives for my assignment.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Hell no, bitch. Follow the proper protocol to get in.

FELICITY JONES

(does so)

There you go, asshole. Now get out of my fucking way.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

(does so)

Hope you find what you're looking for, you sack of shit.

She finds a MYSTERIOUS LETTER that has NOT A GODDAMN THING to do with her ASSIGNMENT.

MYSTERIOUS LETTER #1

"My sweetest S: I'm getting the fuck out of here. Dump the husband you don't love and join me without telling anyone else where you're going. It'll be fun. Yours ever, Pants."

FELICITY JONES

This is the most romantic thing I've ever read. You! Cocksmith! Want to ignore your actual job for days, maybe even weeks, on end while we figure out what this is all about?

NABHAAN RIZWAN

I'd rather swim in my own vomit than do an unpaid side project with your whiny ass. But sure.

INT. 1960S ROMANTIC DRAMA

Preamnesiac SHAILENE and JOE visit the SOUTH OF FRANCE.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

So, darling, how shall we spend our holiday? Take in the sights? Relax on the beach? Eat more than one meal per day together instead of sitting around alone while you business all over the place?

JOE ALWYN

Oh, Shailene, I do wish you'd cease your incessant complaining. I smiled at you once just now on the car ride to our hotel. Anyway, the weather is lovely and the scenery is breathtaking, which means there's no better time or place for me to business.

They meet journalist and world-record squinter CALLUM TURNER.

CALLUM TURNER

I should not say this to your husband, Shailene, but while interviewing him about his business, I came to dislike his businessing. What do you think?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Say that again.

CALLUM TURNER

While I was interv--

SHAILENE WOODLEY

No, no. The last part.

CALLUM TURNER

Ah. Um, what do you think?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Say it again.

CALLUM TURNER

What do you think?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Again!

CALLUM TURNER

What do you think?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

HARDER!

CALLUM TURNER

WHAT? DO? YOU? THINK?!

SHAILENE WOODLEY

(has mindblowing orgasm)

Whew. I love you. Let's make really squinty babies.

CALLUM TURNER

Even though I'm an alcoholic adulterer with the baggage of a child with another woman?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Yes. Because you don't business too much.

CALLUM TURNER

I should love to. But in case your husband gets a sudden attack of observance, it would be best if our letters referred to you by your first initial and to me by a false name.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

I shall call you Pants. He'll never suspect we're fucking.

CALLUM TURNER

And neither will anyone watching our painful efforts at chemistry.

INT. CONTEMPORARY ROM-COM

FELICITY and NABHAAN read through HARD COPIES of EVERYTHING EVER PRINTED IN 1965.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

So what does Shailene and Callum's story have to do with our story?

FELICITY JONES

Um, well... she's in an unhappy marriage, I just got dumped... he's kind of uptight, you're kind of uptight... I'm too good an actress for this shit, she's occasionally too good an actress for this shit...

NABHAAN RIZWAN

So, nothing.

FELICITY JONES

Not until the third act, when I REALLY get my meddle on.

INT. 1960S PERIOD DRAMA

SHAILENE and CALLUM openly FROLIC, CAVORT, and CANOODLE their way across both FRANCE and BRITAIN.

CALLUM TURNER

Look, your marriage isn't doing you any favors. Why not run away with me so we never have to worry about getting caught?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Because I'm stuck in my marriage for some reason. Besides, if we had to worry about getting caught, we wouldn't keep taking every opportunity to get caught. We just banged in a coatroom with no door last night.

CALLUM TURNER

But WHY are you stuck in your marriage? It wasn't arranged. You don't have kids. Joe's not a politician or a peer for whom divorce would be a scandal. As far as I know, he hasn't promised to give you one of his kidneys. So what is it?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

You've had affairs before and I don't buy for one second that I'm interesting enough for you not to have others.

CALLUM TURNER

...No. No, you're not.

SHAILENE returns home.

HOUSEKEEPER

Joe's blowing you off for dinner for the 924th night in a row.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Well, fuck it.

INT. AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Hi everyone! If you're reading this script, you probably think you know a lot about hoary old movie tropes that have devolved into straight-up viewer pandering. Let's test just how much you know with a little pop quiz!

1. SHAILENE has just run outside to meet CALLUM. What's it like outside?

(a) It's a sunny day.
(b) It's a rainy night.
(c) It's 6 a.m. and Pop-Tarts are falling from the sky.

2. CALLUM hopes SHAILENE will reach him in time. Where is he waiting for her?

(a) The library.
(b) On top of the world's largest mattress in Jefferson, Georgia.
(c) The train station.

3. Something happens to prevent SHAILENE from meeting CALLUM. What is it?

(a) She gets hit by a car.
(b) She becomes distracted by a flying plastic bag.
(c) She falls into a sewer, where the rat people take her in and hail her as their prophesied queen.

If you guessed (b), (c), and (a), you're right! If you thought any other answer would make a more compelling story, you're a more creative thinker than Jojo Moyes!

INT. CONTEMPORARY ROM-COM

FELICITY and NABHAAN hook up.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Wanna do this again some time?

FELICITY JONES

Nah.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

But I kind of like you now.

FELICITY JONES

Same here.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

So what's the problem?

FELICITY JONES

I'm afraid of liking guys, because the last time I liked a guy didn't work out so well.

They let that hang in the AIR for a moment.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

That's really the best we could do, huh?

FELICITY JONES

Actually, no. I was kind of a trainwreck in the book, and you found that out the hard way.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

That sounds like it could have made our half of the movie fairly fun to watch. How did we get saddled with the boring version?

FELICITY JONES

One of the screenwriters mostly works on procedural dramas for network TV.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Oh.

FELICITY JONES

In Canada.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Ohhhh.

INT. 1960S PERIOD DRAMA

Several YEARS later, SHAILENE runs into CALLUM and immediately gets her MEMORY back, plus her SEX DRIVE.

CALLUM TURNER

So are you ready to run away with me this time?

SHAILENE WOODLEY

No. I have my own baggage now.

CALLUM TURNER

Then I'll put my life on hold until you no longer have it.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

You mean until my two-year-old dies or something? Cold, man.

CALLUM TURNER

Ugh. Okay, I give up. You keep finding excuses to deepen your misery, and all your last-minute attempts to break out of it are beset by conveniently bad timing. Maybe we'll finally be able to make this work when our genitals are completely decrepit.

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Will you put your life on hold until then?

CALLUM TURNER

Of course I will. Any short-term affair is worth a lifetime of stalling when the love letters are overwrought enough.

INT. CONTEMPORARY ROM-COM

FELICITY tracks down OLDER CALLUM.

FELICITY JONES

We found some old letters addressed to S from Pants. Conveniently enough, Shailene dropped off a bundle of your love letters after you gave up, and they just kept them around. Apparently no piece of paper is worth discarding around there; you wouldn't believe how many takeaway menus we found from restaurants that closed down in the 80s. Anyway, tell me about your torrid affair.

OLDER CALLUM TURNER

It was so magical that I've been pining for Shailene for decades and making no attempt to contact her. Sometimes I wonder if she's been pining for me for decades and making no attempt to contact me, but I figure it's best not to find out.

FELICITY JONES

Oh, she has. She told me that after I showed up at her house despite her explicit request that I not show up at her house.

OLDER CALLUM TURNER

What admirable journalistic pluck you have. You really put your all into getting the story.

FELICITY JONES

What story?

OLDER CALLUM TURNER

The... one I assume you're writing about us? That's what this is about, right?

FELICITY JONES

...Oh, THAT story. Yeah. It sure is getting written, all right. Got my pitch approved by my editor and everything.

She dashes home to write ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL, to show editor ANN OGBOMO.

FELICITY'S ARTICLE

"We Millennials have killed the love letter written in longhand. We're entitled little shits who will never let ourselves find true romance with each other, because we're too busy fucking and texting and eating avocado toast. We should all throw ourselves off a bridge right now. We suck. We just really, truly suck. And to put our suckage in perspective, check out these love letters that didn't wither away to dust despite being locked in a basement for nearly 60 years."

ANN OGBOMO

Inspiring. We'll run it on page 2. Hey, did you ever get around to that other assignment about--

FELICITY JONES

GOTTA GO.

She then dashes off to NABHAAN's place.

FELICITY JONES

Sorry I hit and quit, but Shailene and Callum inspired me to start talking to you again, in case we wind up pining for each other for decades and making no attempt to contact one another.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Um... thanks.

They arrange for OLDER SHAILENE and OLDER CALLUM to reunite at last.

NABHAAN RIZWAN

Just so I know, is our relationship going to be based entirely on meddling in other relationships?

FELICITY JONES

Yeah, what's wrong with that?

NABHAAN RIZWAN

The fact that I can't think of any reason why anyone would give a shit about theirs.

END