EFFERVESSENCE

Screenplay by Guido Valentin

Beautiful, sexy, fractured tale of amour, more high-brow euro art film than anything else. Actors and audiences will likely be reminded of The English Patient. Gripping romance between Sugar, an ex-model turned clam diver who risks her life on a commercial fishing boat, and new boyfriend Charlie, handsome Brooklynite, an “oil consultant” held hostage by ISIS militants in Kurdistan, near death, unable to communicate with Sugar, who’s caught in a terrible storm that threatens to drown everyone on board. Engaging script has the two lovers dreaming of their first meeting at a motel in sweltering Abilene, Texas, followed by kinky sessions in bed; Sugar finds her true calling under the sea; ex-Mafia hitman Charlie joins the CIA to fight jihadists and ends up in captivity. Sugar survives her catastrophe but Charlie isn’t so lucky (it’s unclear if his rescuers arrive in time to save him). Last scene finds the two of them 69-ing* back in Abilene, hinting this might be Charlie’s final thought, or, more hopefully, a flash-forward to their reunion in the not-too-distant future. Best script so far this year.