When a relationship-shy young woman, who runs a dog adoption business in Silver Lake, falls in love with a single dad—she then panics when she discovers he is the adoptive father of the baby son she'd left at a hospital years before when she was a runaway teenager.

SYNOPSIS:

This is a romantic comedy with heart and a bit of goofiness, in tone maybe along the lines of “Bridget Jones’ Diary” or “While You Were Sleeping.” Ideally the lead actress would be along the lines of Jennifer Lawrence or, more realistically, Greta Gerwig, Anna Kendrick, or Gina Rodriguez. The male lead could be along the lines of Jason Schwartzman or Domhnall Gleeson.

Prologue:

FAITH, a homeless teenaged mother, sadly leaves her infant at a hospital since she can’t care for him. She attaches to his blanket a note telling him how much she loves him, and that she was only doing this so he can find a better life, and better parents. Leaving the hospital, she’s followed by a large homeless mutt.

Seven years later:

Faith--now the owner of the even larger mutt--runs a dog adoption business in Echo Park with her best friend OPHELIA, an Asian, tattooed earth goddess. Faith pours all her guilt and sublimated love into the dogs she saves. She also loses herself in classic films, and names all her dogs after movie stars.

One day while rescuing all the dogs from the city shelter--“no dogs die today” is her motto--she runs into RICK, a former lawyer and now professional dispute mediator, who's come looking for a dog for his young son TY (named for Tyrone Powers--Rick is also a movie buff).

When she has a fender bender with her somewhat creepy landlord WALLY, who has a secret crush on her and follows her around, Faith takes the problem to Rick. His sometimes absurdly chaotic business is transacted in the miniature golf park run by his offbeat, kilted, tatted father Randall. Rick, charmed by Faith, adopts one of her rescue dogs for Ty, another large mutt.

Rick and Faith are attracted to one another--but Faith has no trust in herself around men, and avoids him at first, only prodded into action by Ophelia (who begins to develop a crush on Rick's father, based on their mutual addiction to tattoos).

But Rick's ex-wife shows up: she wants to try again with him--he's a mensch, and she's lonely. She encounters Faith, and unwittingly reveals that Rick is Ty’s adoptive father. The circumstances she describes leave no doubt that Rick is in fact the one who adopted Faith's baby.

Faith, stunned by the coincidence and in a panic of guilt, flees to her safe-place, Catalina. Rick follows her and tries to make sense of it all. Ty, meanwhile, feeling abandoned by both Faith and his adoptive mother, runs away from home, at night, into Griffith Park. Rick's Dad--who’s been babysitting but distracted, realizes Ty’s absence too late. He calls Rick and tells him Ty has run away.

Racing back to LA, Rick and Ty are desperate to find him--when they realize where Ty is likely to have gone--and that their two dogs can track his scent. They arrive in the park just in time--the dogs rescue Ty from a group of menacing coyotes.

At Rick's insistence, Faith re-reads a note to Ty, and she realizes that fate has brought her back to him--and to Rick. Ty forgives her, and he and Rick beg her to “stay.” Ophelia--a Wiccan priestess--marries them, surrounded by the odd but loving characters who fill their little Silver Lake world.