When Dale Gingrich, a bank robber who has just escaped from jail, meets and falls for a troubled socialite, Leighton Meister, next to an abandoned superstore, which he has been using as a lonely Utopian hideaway, their lives begin as the assiduous detective Rick Savage is on the hunt for Dale and the leery private investigator Marlowe Spade is on the tale of Leighton; a woke Paris Hilton meets a working-class Willie Sutton in this often hilarious satiric crime story that climaxes in a mixed-use development left abandoned by the housing crises of 2008. 

SYNOPSIS:

Sales Pitch:

The story “Born Days” is a launching pad for two young early twenties budding movie stars to get some street cred so that they can eventually don some tights, spit out some one-liners and save the world just enough to leave room for a sequel. “Born Days” Can do for your production company, what Sonic Youth did for Geffen records. Sonic Youth is one of the most influential bands in American history and many bands signed to Geffen because they were home to Sonic Youth. Bands, such as Nirvana, asked the lead singer of Sonic Youth, what record company should they choose. Sonic Youth said Geffen was their choice. Sonic Youth never made Geffen Records a lot of money but they had lots of influence, and the record company was able to attract bands that would eventually lead to Geffen making a lot of money.

Synopsis:

Born Days is a movie about survival. The main character’s name is Dale Gingrich. Dale Gingrich is in his early thirties and was an Army Ranger. He is serious and quiet in most situations. He is crafty. He adapts to his surroundings and circumstances. He lives in the moment. On the outside, Dale Gingrich is a model citizen being that he does not express his views and is polite to strangers. He doesn’t drink, smoke, and rarely cusses. On the inside, he has a rebellious spirit that he lets run wild on the weekends. The story begins with him robbing an ATM. He does it methodically and with a well thought out precision as to not get caught and he does not. He is a seasoned artist of robbing establishments and not getting caught. His preference is a fast food restaurant called Chunky Charlie’s. It is for the same reason that people eat at fast food restaurants it is easy and convenient. Dale’s approach to burglary is very methodical and mathematical. He has an engineer’s brain so he is constantly figuring out how things work and how he can use his knowledge to his benefit of survival.

Alan Silver’s introduction happens during the financial crises of 2008. Alan Silver is the CEO of R. Baron Brothers, a global financial systems firm that is going bankrupt during this scene. Alan Silver is a tough man that doesn’t back down from a fight, and his scowl is almost like a comic book character in its intensity, focus and facial lines. He also has a development deal with Nixmart to make a mixed-use development that has now become abandoned. Nixmart is the WalMart of the Born Days world.

Leighton Mannix is introduced in the next scene. Leighton Mannix is an independent woman that is dependent on her mother but would never admit it and crazy in a way that women that grow up with money tend to be. Her family is in the top one percent of the wealth in the United States. Being uncomfortable in her skin leaves her trendy in ways her agent thinks will keep her in the tabloids, which she graces the cover for all the wrong reasons. She is the American dream, which means to be famous for nothing. She is beautiful in a Hollywood skinny way, which is an unnatural way. An excuse is all it takes to get her world shaken in a way that she thinks will finally make her happy. Although she is strong among people, it isn’t unusual for her to cry herself to sleep.

Leighton Mannix gets kidnapped in this scene, which she stages with her friends. She is rebelling against her parents to try to get money from them. She is on a court-ordered allowance because of prior indiscretions. She begins to realize the emptiness in living her life in front of the lens. This kidnapping has comedic moments that can only happen to bush league kidnappers as Leighton’s father Sailor Mannix would describe it. There is a car crash, one of Leighton’s friends gets shot and most importantly Leighton’s only friend Rachel Frieberg ends up with the gun that will show up later in the screenplay. Leighton’s mother Tipper Mannix, is a Kris Jenner type, ends the robbery when she gets tired of playing games as she states, “Cut the shit, Leighton. We got Joe’s rent-a-car out front. We watched the tape. We saw Rachel. You know how I know? I’m sure she’s one of the few idiots out there in the world that would get a grammatically incorrect “rebel flower” in France translated wrong onto her and did Chris get shot?”

Marlowe Spade learns about the kidnapping, and it piques his interest. He is the Anthony Pelicano of this story. He has eyes and ears in everything in the Los Angeles area. This begins his wiretapping of the Mannix’s to use whatever information he can gather to his advantage. He is unconventional, vulgar and as cruel as they come. His entrance into the story begins with a woman, who has a gun to his back in the men’s room. She says, “You really do look creepier than I imagined.” Marlowe Spade responds, “books and covers.”

Rick Savage is a police detective that has been chasing Dale Gingrich for close to five years with no luck. He is a detective that always gets his man. He is good at his job, but he is frustrated by it. He is burned out because he has lost everything important to him outside of his job of chasing bad guys. Rick is driving a beat-up car that is on its last leg. Rick pulls up to the ATM crime machine and has to roll down the window to show his credentials. The badge is next to a picture of his son. The wife isn’t there because he does not have one. He pulls up to the scene and steps out of his car in his cheap suit, his unpolished shoes and walks up to one of his cop colleagues that knows some information. When he catches Dale, he’s looking to do more than put him in jail. He wants the money that he stole.

Dale loses his job working on the Santa Carla construction job and decides that it is a good idea to hide his money underneath a Minuteman statue thinking it will be safe because it is vacant and he has grown found of the statue. He goes on another robbery, as he does, breaking into a Chunky Charlie’s, which is a fast food restaurant. Besides Dale gets caught by two rookie police officers that happen to be driving by a Chunky Charlie’s during one of the times that he is committing the robbery. This is the beginning of a theme regarding security and law enforcement officers. A lot of the times security is useless because they are distracted by the monotony and repetition of their job. Dale’s arrest infuriates Rick because he was not the one to catch him and get Dale’s money. Dale was caught by sheer luck. There are two other instances where Dale evades law enforcement during inspections. Once when he escapes from jail during a work-release program as a metal fabricator. He builds a plate that can fit underneath a truck at the loading dock. He finds his moment, and he places the plate underneath the truck, as the inspection mirror does not see him as he curls his bed on top of it in his compartment. The security jokes with the driver as they normally do. Security goes through the routine but their senses are off because they have job routine fatigue from doing it day after day for years. Dale escapes and eventually finds his way to Nixmart and starts building his home next to it in an abandoned electronics store called Breaker Barn. He builds a passageway so that he has access to the Nixmart at night to make his own private community. Rick is excited that Dale has escaped from jail so that he still has time to get the money that is still missing.

Leighton at this time realizes that she wants something more out of her life than a reality show so after having a conversation with her agent John Sikoman and her parents are not listening. Her last straw is their attempt to be a pop star’s beard. She runs away on the set of a celebrity news show and makes her way out of town to escape herself. She goes to the one place that she can remember going to as a child. They have the best pretzels. The place is her family’s first Nixmart. She is running to find something, but she does not know what yet. The pretzel is a symbol of love. It is in the shape of a heart with interlocking arms. It becomes Leighton and Dale’s first date as they begin their courtship in the newly inhabited neighborhood of Nixmart. Because when she arrives, she realizes that Dale has made himself at home in the superstore. She watches him, and she finally gets up the courage to approach him. They walk through Nixmart like Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunset.They lose themselves into each other, and eventually, things get complicated for them as Leighton becomes pregnant and they realize they cannot stay in their perfect bubble forever. Dale makes a plan to get his money and realizes that they are going to remove a Minuteman statue and possibly find his money on April 19th. But before they get Dale’s money, they decide to do one more round of home burglaries. Leighton comes up with the idea of breaking into homes of teenager celebrities in the Hollywood Hills at the biggest teen award show of the year. The same one where John Sikoman was going to have Leighton announce her relationship with the pop star. She knows everyone is going to be in New York at the time and they are not responsible enough to have security. The award show falls on April 17th. In the meantime, Leighton’s parents have hired Marlowe Spade to find her, and he has eyes in Hollywood. He becomes aware of the burglaries, as they are happening and tips off Rick Monroe that is on the tale of Dale. They catch them in one of the Hollywood Hills homes, and Leighton and Dale are separated. Dale gives an inside clue to Leighton letting her know that Rick is not going to take him into the station. Marlowe drops Leighton off at her estate, and Rick beats the location of the money out of Dale. Dale and Rick travel to Santa Carla setting up the third act.

Dale digs for money as Rick leans against the statue watching. This scene is set up like a modern-day Sergio Leone movie. It is a perfect location for a modern-day Mexican standoff. This is where the ruler, the peasant, the enforcer, and the aristocrat meet their fate. Alan Silver has set up a noose in Town Square because his life fell apart because of the financial crises. He is the fall guy for the housing crises and his plan is to go down with the ship. The arrival of Dale and Rick interrupts his plan as he watches from one of the abandoned houses. Leighton escapes from her parent’s house and is taken to Santa Carla by Rachel. Rachel gives her the gun that she has kept this entire time. Leighton races to save Rick. Rick is about to shoot Dale when Leighton distracts him. This leads to a fight between Rick and Dale. Leighton gets close enough and kills Rick. Alan sees his opportunity and comes out of the house and walks past the two and hangs himself in front of them. Dale sets up a murder-suicide between Rick and Alan. Dale and Leighton travel to Mexico with Rick’s ID and car. The border agents are doing their job, but they have job routine fatigue as they compare Rick’s ID to Dale’s face. Dale’s face is too badly beaten to tell the difference in the picture. The border agents tell a joke and leave Dale and Leighton to drive off into the sunset. Dale and Leighton end up on a beach interlocking arms like a pretzel and walking past a sand castle into the ocean that bears no effect of their weight.

Settings:

The screenplay is set in Los Angeles because of the striking difference between what the city sells to people and reality. There is darkness beneath the glamour of the city. Los Angeles lacks glamour in this screenplay. Even the celebrity, glamour, and popular culture strived for in this screenplay is being packaged and sold like a sales agent trying to sell a timeshare in the middle of Juarez, Mexico.

The other important setting is a fixture in every town in America, and that is the pervasive ugliness of the American strip mall. The strip mall becomes another character in this screenplay. The California strip mall in 2008 represented in this screenplay feels almost like a town after a gold rush. This is the beginning of the age of the decline of the specialized retail superstore. Only the strongest of the superstores will survive. These are massive abandoned retail centers that are mostly vacant.

Nixmart retail has survived in the destruction that Internet shopping has left in its wake. This is the main location in the screenplay. It is a store where the main character calls home. The main characters end up living in this store. It makes sense because Nixmart has everything that a person would need to survive. American culture has become consumerism and production. We work enough to buy enough. Most Americans buy their products at a store equivalent to a Wal-Mart. It would make sense for our main characters to live in a Nixmart because most of us do.

The last important location in this screenplay is the town of Santa Carla. This was my homage to the fictional town in the movie “The Lost Boys.” I chose the name because it is fictional and sounds like a Los Angeles type name. Santa Carla is a fictional town resembling Rio Vista California. It lies close to the Mexican border and is a development that ran out of money. The main tenant was going to be a Nixmart. Street signs and lights were placed, but only six model half-finished homes rest next to each other. It is a ghost town with no ghosts. Santa Carla is a dry, dusty abandoned development that represents a stark contrast to famous Western showdown locations such as the O.K. Corral but serves the same modern day purpose.

Symbolism:

The coyote shows up throughout the screenplay for two reasons. The first reason is that urban coyotes are found all over Los Angeles. Coyotes represent a duality of wisdom and foolishness. The coyote represents the spirit of both Dale and Leighton. Dale is the wisdom and Leighton is the tomfoolery. Dale is the type of person that can adapt and overcome. Leighton is the person that is a free spirit that gets herself into troubling situations. Coyotes adapt to their surroundings. Dale and Leighton find ways to adapt to their ever-changing circumstances within the script and find humor in difficult situations, and truth behind the illusion. These are all qualities of a coyote making it a perfect cinematic symbol to personify the union of Dale and Leighton.

The Lexington Minuteman Statue that is at the center of Santa Carla is a duplicate of the Lexington Minuteman statue found in Lexington, Massachusetts. The statue represents the first skirmish between the Massachusetts Minutemen and British soldiers. The British soldiers were instructed to destroy the stockpiled ammunition. Many of these Minuteman used their own guns to defend themselves and what they thought their right was to the ammunition. “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, and disperse.” It is a quote that Dale says when he sits under the Minuteman statue. Dale’s ammunition is his money. He is stockpiling his money to create his independence. That is why the Minuteman statue is important to him and why is money is buried underneath it. The date April 19this the date of “The Shot Heard Around the World,” the start of the revolution. This is also the date that everything is going to change for Dale and he gets his financial independence.

The sand castle is a powerful symbol of the fragility of both our physical and mental constructs. We spend our lives building them up but eventually wind, water and time wear them away. It can take one event or a series of smaller events to have it come crashing down. The sea is time, and the wave is unforeseen events. Alan Silver recognizes this when he looks at his life and everything that he is worked for washes away so easily by a market crash. He realizes that the American dream that he worked for his whole life can be taken away easier than built. “All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.” –Ecclesiastes 1:7- The sea represents time. Time has a way of swallowing things up and making these pursuits meaningless.

Ecclesiastes plays a big role in this screenplay. Ecclesiastes translated means teacher. The teacher writes about vanity. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” is quoted in the screenplay. This is directed at Leighton and the path she has chosen to live her life. Vanity translated from the Hebrew text as meaningless. This is a direct dig at Leighton’s pursuit of celebrity as being vain. This will leave her living an empty life. She only begins to reach her happiness when she gives up the frivolous goal of celebrity. Dale is her guide in evaluating herself. Nothing is more meaningless than chasing vanity. The last Ecclesiastes verse that is quoted is, “indeed; there is no one on Earth who is righteous no one who does what is right and never sins.” - Ecclesiastes 7:20 – Dale quotes this verse to Leighton because he is foreshadowing Rick’s motives in getting the money at Santa Carla. Dale knows that Rick is not going to do the noble thing. Ecclesiastes is important to the screenplay because of its message and questions of the way humans should live their life if God only looks at things from far away and does not intervene. The message is to try to do the right thing but lead a full life filled with adventures because, eventually it is going to end. It ends the same for everyone.

Many people use the idiom, “in all my born days” to describe something in the negative. I have never heard of something so strange in all my born days. It is about not experiencing things. Dale and Leighton live their lives about experiencing things. They can look back and need to say, “in all my Born Days” because they spent their lives experiencing it to the fullest.