aSocial

Here's another project I've been shoppping around, (with varying success), but I feel pretty strongly about it. It's a fun, quirky sci-fi satire, (don't you know those have been selling like hot-cakes), along the lines of Orwell, Bradbury, Huxley with some Charlie Kaufman and John Hughes mixed in). Enjoy.

aSocial – a light-hearted look at depression

Tagline:

Get happy – or else…

Logline:

Set in a fun-loving future not far from today, depression and social anxiety are things of the past...for all but an unlucky few, who spend their lives desperate to fit in and buck up -- or pay the ultimate price. (“1984”/“Brave New World” meets “Logan’s Run”/“Freejack” meets “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”)

Inept citizen, Allan Arc struggles to blend into near-future San Diego, where depression, anxiety and old-fashioned shyness are more than simply taboo––they’re borderline criminal, weeded out and ‘corrected’ for the good of the populace.

(“1984”/“Brave New World” meets “Logan’s Run”/“Total Recall” meets “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”)

Synopsis:

Allan Arc has been tagged, tracked, doped, and dissed from the day he was born. A rare carrier of the inoperable ‘zero-gene,’ he’s a second-class citizen in a first-class utopia, where heredity, depression and social anxiety are all-but forgotten encumbrances of the past––and happiness is more or less law.
Mindful not to make waves, he lives out a hollow existence, sleepwalking through life with a vacuous smile, dependant on chemicals, empty rhetoric, and fear to get him through the day––and keep crippling anxieties in line. But when a deplorable crime turns him into public enemy number one, the term ‘social outcast’ takes on a whole new meaning as poor Allan finds himself on the run from the truly unsympathetic, forced to trust in things like friendship, sincerity, compassion, and the kindness of strangers to save him from lifelong imprisonment––and the ugliest side of human nature.
Unwittingly paired-up with him for the unsavory ride is Lucy, the woman of his dreams and typically ‘shiny-eyed’ party-girl. Mistaken for Allan’s knowing accomplice, (to an alleged crime, for which he has no clear memory), she joins his ill-advised attempt at escape in a fit of blind panic. Together they run from the relentless O.Z. Division of Social Justice, led by no-nonsense "Agent Norman" and his all-powerful superior, San Diego pillar of the community and political heavyweight, Max Mednick.

Cut off from his mood-curbing meds, Allan soon deteriorates fast, coupled with a monitoring implant at the back of his neck that leads trackers right to them. Now Lucy must think for them both, waking up to her own stunted individuality while receiving a telling glimpse into life through Allan’s frightened eyes, and the all-too-subtle distinction between sincere human motives and those merely skin deep.

Upon their inevitable capture, both are plunged even further into frank self reflection as they slowly come to grips with the inhibiting worlds of their making. Now they can either stand silent in mind-numbing conformity, or go boldly forward into genuine freedom, and a chance for true happiness.

The underlined motivation behind “aSocial” is to poke fun at our current mental-health-obsessed, overtly-medicated culture through the clean, sparkly prism of tomorrow. What generally separates it from other ‘cautionary allegories’ of similar vein, (ie: “1984,” “Children of Men,” “Minority Report,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and others), is its light, colorful sensibility and sharp satirical slant, (complete with quirky characters and a hip, eclectic soundtrack). Unlike those afore-mentioned tales of ‘utopia-for-some,’ or ‘dystopia-for-all,’ which tend to be drab, grey and intentionally depressing, this story’s tone is more Charlie Kaufman, or Wes Anderson than Stanley Kubrick, or Philip K. Dick, poking gentle fun at contemporary values and image-based anxiety by way of a light, up-tempo adventure.