INT-SOMEWHERE-SOMETIME
Closeup on a pen, cursiving across a diary. Then pen is girlish, topped with pink feathers. We see at the top A DATE SEVEN YEARS AGO. We hear the words as we see them written:
AMY (V.O.): I’m so crazy, stupid happy.
INT-BROOKLYN APARTMENT-NIGHT
AMY ELLIOT, 30s, gorgeous, is in a crowded party of hipster media types. Dude-heavy. She weaves her way through the guys
AMY (V.O.): I met a boy. I met a boy and he’s so perfectly, fantastically different.
She spots her friend deep-flirting a guy, so she’s stopped short in the center of the room with two beers.
AMY (V.O.) (spotting a blazered douche:): Not some bemused Ivy Leaguer who thinks he’s a character in a Fitzgerald novel.
(a guy in a novelty T:) Not some ironic hipster who’s so self-aware he makes everything a joke
(a granola guy:) Not some deeply sensitive emo-dude who says things like “I love strong women,” which is code for “I hate strong women.”
She lands on NICK DUNNE, hanging out, not posing. He actually looks like a good guy to have a beer with.
AMY (V.O.): Nope, I met Nick Dunne: a great, gorgeous, nice dude, a funny, cool-ass guy. A boy.
Nick genuinely lights up at Amy, beelines over. Like everything in this scene, their talk is heightened, clever, cute: They’re starring their own Hepburn-Tracy rom-com.
NICK: Most people standing all alone at parties, they don’t generally stand in the absolute center of the party. All alone. It’s strange.
AMY: I didn’t know I was making such a spectacle of myself.
NICK (motioning to Ivy Leaguer): Mr. Gatsby is quite ruffled.
AMY (giving him a beer): Sweet of you to join me in my shame
NICK (clinking beers): I’m from Missouri—-they grow us sweet there.
AMY: Missouri?! That’s new.
NICK: Ah: native New Yorker!
AMY: World ends at the Hudson. I’m Amy.
NICK: Nick. So tell me the story, Amy. Who are you? What do you do?
AMY: A. I am an award-winning scrimshander. B. I am a moderately influential warlord. C. I write personality quizzes for magazines.
NICK (taking her hand): A. Your fingers are far too delicate for real scrimshaw work. B. I am a subscriber to Middling Warlord Weekly—you can’t fool me. So: C. Also, if you were a tree you’d be a willow.
AMY: And you? Who are you?
INT.-APARTMENT STAIRWAY
It’s a four-story walk-up. They walk down, tipsy, not touching each other, but thinking about it.
NICK: ...and every summer, I worked on a riverboat. Huck Fucking Finn.
She stops, studies him.
AMY: I can’t tell when you’re lying. I think it’s your chin. It’s quite villainous.
He places a finger over his chin.
NICK: No bullshit. 100% truth.
EXT-BROOKLYN-NIGHT
They are huddling together, trying to hail a cab.
NICK: I always love this part.
AMY: What part?
NICK: Stepping out into New York. All the possibilities.
They turn the corner and step into a huge cloud of powdered sugar as it’s funneled into a bakery. A sugar snowstorm. Nick grins, waves a hand: Like this! The sugar falls like snow. Nick takes a lock of her hair between two fingers and runs his fingers to the end, tugs like he’s ringing a bell.
NICK: You know we have to kiss now.
AMY: Is that right?
NICK: I would be a fool to let you walk through a sugar snowstorm unkissed.
NICK (CONT’D)
AMY
NICK
The sugar floats everywhere. A fairytale. They lean in.
NICK (CONT’D): Hold on
Nick brushes her lips clean. They kiss.
INT-NICK’S BEDROOM-NIGHT
A shabby garden apartment. Nick and Amy are in bed together: blissful, exhausted. Outside, a car’s headlights flash the room: On the wall, something illuminates. Their handprints, caked in powdered sugar, line the wall. They laugh.
AMY: Nick? I really like you.
