A hot-shot high school quarterback with a big secret makes a nerdy, eccentric transfer student his project when he takes the boy under his wing. *2010 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Semi-Finalist*
Synopsis: *Indian Summer - 2010 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Semi-Finalist*
High school, as Edgar Knapp knew quite well from his transient lifestyle, was a jungle, an exercise in social Darwinism that could leave even the bustiest and blondest of sorority girls-in training crying in the bathroom during lunch.
He also knew that he didn’t stand a chance at surviving.
Naturally, when Edgar, a socially-awkward outcast, moves with his free-spirited, independently wealthy parents from a dinner theater in Branson, Missouri to a Christmas tree farm in suburban Ohio midway into his senior year of high school, he fully expected to do what he had always done—what he had even grown accustomed to doing over the dozen or so transfers and moves, in fact—in the final months leading up to graduation at Hudson High School: keep his head down, get his work done, and get on with his lonely, wanton life.
The last thing that he expected was to be saved by the popular kid.
But, when Blake LaForce, a Harvard-bound, All-American football quarterback with the charismatic aura of a rock star and an awestruck fan base comprising everyone from cheerleaders to band geeks, decides to take a chance on the eccentric, irreverently hilarious transfer student from Branson—Disney World for the AARP, only with fewer comically mischievous cartoons and more half-eaten plates of inedible chicken parmigiana, as Edgar would affectionately call it—it changes Edgar’s very definition of life.
With Blake and Edgar both finding exactly what they are seeking in a friend, the two polar opposites develop an unlikely friendship. Soon enough, Edgar finds that Blake’s world of cheerleader-girlfriends, cell phone message boxes filling up with texts, and consistent streams of weekend plans is quickly beginning to turn into his own.
From painting his chest in the ultra-exclusive Super Fan section at football games to a permanent seat at the popular table in the cafeteria, Edgar finally begins to understand what he had been missing out on in his oppressively bleak past. Navigating his way through the trials and tribulations of life as a real high school student with Blake as his patient, ever-present tour guide, Edgar experiences an entire slew of firsts—his first football game, his first party, his first kiss, his first love, and—most importantly—his first friend.
Certainly, when Edgar first set foot in the hallways of Hudson High School, the last thing that he expected was to find a savior and a best friend in the Big Man on Campus. However, after Blake is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, it becomes apparent that Edgar isn’t the only one who needs saving.
Choosing to hide the truth from the world when his life gets sidelined, Blake turns to Edgar’s friendship for help and support in concealing his grim, overhanging secret. With Edgar by his side, Blake abandons the weight room and Saturday night keggers to focus on his life and, inevitably, his death. And, as it becomes more blatantly apparent that it was Blake’s destiny to save a life, Edgar begins to realize that it is his own destiny to help redeem one.
Acting as a conduit to bring back the girl and friends that Blake pushed away, Edgar sets up a Prom experience for his best friend that serves as the perfect coup de grâce for a life lived prominently on the center stage. Amidst the twilight of both high school and Blake’s life, Edgar endeavors to pay the ultimate tribute to the best friend who taught him how to dance, how to drink, how to connect, how to love, how to live, and—ever so cruelly—how to die.