The PlayFinder™

THE STORY: Laurie and Dan are an average blue-collar couple, he a warehouse worker, she employed in a restaurant, who have an eleven-year-old son; a tacky, cheaply furnished apartment; and an urge to get ahead like “other people.” In a series of seemingly inconsequential domestic scenes, separated by the sound of overheard television commercials, the two talk about the books they should be reading (instead of watching TV); the exotic foods they should be trying (in place of frozen meat pies); and the fine wines they should be enjoying (rather than the omnipresent cans of beer). Hungry for the “good life,” Dan is buoyed by the prospect of a promotion which has been dangled before him by his dashing new boss. When it falls through he explodes at Laurie and she, fed up with his pretensions, explodes back. But inevitably, and a bit sadly, they accept the truth—that what they have is all they ever will have, and what they hoped for, in fact, only a more affluent version of the bankrupt existence that is already theirs.