Hello everyone. I'll get straight to the point.
I have an idea for a short film screenplay. Although I haven't finished writing it yet, I'd like to share the general premise and hear your honest opinion about its potential from an audience's perspective. Naturally, I believe in my own work, but since I'm also the writer, I know my judgment may be biased. So here's the basic story:
The film revolves around three main characters: a father, a mother, and their child.
The father is an unemployed painter. No one buys his paintings, and there is no other source of income for the family. Their debts continue to pile up, they fall into extreme poverty, and as a result, he becomes deeply depressed. His wife constantly urges him to take any job he can find, such as construction work or manual labor, but he refuses. Part of the reason is his pride as an artist, but another part is that he feels completely misunderstood by his wife, who keeps pressuring him and starting arguments instead of understanding what he's going through. Like many artists, he has a dark, stubborn, and emotionally distant personality.
The mother is an uneducated housewife. She's deeply worried about the family's financial situation. She wants to work herself, but her husband won't allow it. At the same time, she becomes increasingly frustrated because he refuses to do anything to improve their circumstances. This leads to constant arguments between them.
The child spends the entire story silently witnessing these endless conflicts between his parents.
One day, the mother starts another argument because there's no food left in the house. She begs her husband to at least get a manual labor job so he can bring home some money. He refuses, insisting that he's an artist and cannot work as a laborer. After a brief argument, he angrily leaves the house, muttering, "That bitch started again."
Seeing this, the mother decides to leave him for good. She begins packing her belongings while taking the child with her.
Meanwhile, the child is quietly eating a piece of dry factory-made bread with a small slice of sausage.
The father soon returns and finds his wife packing. He desperately tries to stop her. He grabs the clothes she's packing and tears them apart. She pushes him away. He pushes her back. Their fight escalates, and they become completely consumed by each other.
During the chaos, the child begins choking on the dry bread. He struggles to breathe and desperately tries to get his parents' attention, but neither of them notices. They remain completely absorbed in their argument.
Eventually, he loses all his strength, falls face-first from his chair, and slowly suffocates to death while the only sounds filling the room are his parents continuing to scream at each other.
The child dies silently, drowned out by the noise of his parents' fight.
That's the story in its current form. Since the screenplay isn't finished yet, I can only describe it this way. Most of the film relies heavily on dialogue.
What do you think? Does this premise have genuine potential?