STORY MAPS: The Perfect Storm

(2000; screenplay by William D. Wittliff, based on the book by Sebastian Junger, directed by Wolfgang Petersen)

The Perfect Storm features one of my favorite page/minute 100 True Point Of No Return moments.

Backstory: This group of down-and-out fishermen absolutely NEEDS to make a big haul of fish as they're all broke; this is their last chance.  They go out to sea and find nothing; the crop is horrible.  There's a huge storm brewing; every hour they stay out they risk more danger. 

The captain decides to push on to the Flemish Cap, the most dangerous area to fish; the Cap is so far out it's PAST the storm. 

The gamble pays off; they make a HUGE haul.  Tons of fish, they're going to be sitting pretty for a while.  They're packing swordfish on ice in the hull, full to bursting.  The guys back at the mainland, those who wrote them off, are going to be eating their words when they return with this haul. 

They will return heroes.

Then the ice machine breaks. 

The fish are going to spoil. 

They've got maybe a day, day and a half, to get back home to save the fish.  They can make it, but only if they go full-bore straight home.

To do this...

They have to go THROUGH the storm.  The biggest storm in a century.


Do you risk it all to win it all?  Or do you play it safe and stay a loser?


Now that...is a TRUE POINT OF NO RETURN.


-Daniel Calvisi
www.actfourscreenplays.com
copyright © Daniel Calvisi 2005-2006

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