Please come again

• Main Author: Seah, Freeman Wangda
• Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication::Visual communication
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/59592
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Logline: An upstart young lawyer has to convince an obstinate shopkeeper with Asperger's Syndrome as well as his perpetually inebriated father to relinquish the provision shop that they hold so dearly. Project Introduction: I will not begin with pressing statistics and facts, like how Asperger's affects 1 out of 250 people, how little people know about it and how many dismiss it because it is an invisible affliction (Attwood, 2006). Wait a minute… Jokes aside, the starting inspiration for my script came from reading this article by Harmon (2011) about a couple with Asperger's Syndrome. I watched the video clip of an interview with the couple and was fascinated by the way they spoke, behaved and stuck with each other despite the affliction (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/navigating-love-and-autism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Autism in movies has usually focused on the more severe side of the spectrum like in Levinson's (1988) Rain Man with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. With the Asperger's couple's story haunting me, I thought to myself, why not come up with a script that featured Asperger's. From then on, just like Kirsten in the script when she found out about Jack's Asperger's, I read up on many articles about the syndrome and developed Jack's character. One of the key emphases of my screenplay was the dichotomy between Jack and Kirsten, the "normal" girl who represents you or me. "Please Come Again" is the result of all of the factors combined and is a 90-minute feature film that attempts to create an accurate yet entertaining portrayal of Asperger's. Just like the real life couple, who I have named my characters after, the screenplay takes a more light-hearted approach toward the subject matter. It is mainly a family comedy-drama that aims to be authentic but at the same time accessible.