Fake Movie Friday Vol 2: The Home

The new season of Degrassi is out! Got this one done first.

The Home

Big Band music plays over black and white images depicting life in the 50s. There clips of teenagers dancing and having fun. There is a hard cut to a group of old people in staring at a TV set. No one is moving and it seems like a still picture except for the changing light from the TV. The shot changes to the TV and the show ’60 Minutes’ begins. An orderly walks over and shuts of the TV.

The old people are livid. A fit man in his 70s (Cyrus) stands up to put the TV back on but the orderly tells him to sit down and that there is a change of plans for tonight. An overweight man in his late 80s starts to mutter to himself “I can’t miss 60 Minutes… I can’t miss …”. A woman (Rose) puts her hand on the man’s shoulders and says “You know how much Fred needs his routine. He hasn’t missed an episode in years!” The orderly shrugs and puts a VHS copy of West Side Story into the VCR and says “We wanted to treat all of you with one of your favorite movies… and ice cream!” At that other workers bring in a cart of ice cream.

Most everyone is excited but Fred isn’t taking it well. Rose is trying to comfort him but isn’t getting very far. Cyrus goes over and tells him that he’ll get his son to get a copy of episode and they can watch it tomorrow. Fred isn’t happy but he calms down.

Cyrus calls his son who is first concerned that something went wrong but then just seems annoyed. The son starts talking about how if its not on demand he might have to torrent it, Cyrus clearly can’t follow. The son asks why he didn’t just watch it in someones room, but Cyrus reminds him that they don’t have cable in the tenant rooms.

The next day Cyrus’ son loads the episode on a tablet. Cyrus asks him to stay and watch it with his friends but the son says he is busy.

Rose, Fred and Cyrus crowd around the tablet and watch the show. It’s a hard hitting exposé about a retirement home conglomerate. The corporation owns a large number of homes. They have been aggressively cutting costs to raise their share price. The program goes into some of the horrible consequences, like unsafe working conditions, improper nursing care etc and they don’t even pay for cable in tenants’ rooms. At that they look at each other. The episode continues by telling the story of a woman how was bedridden. She got massive bedsores and ended up dying because she didn’t get the care she deserved.

The three old people are horrified by what they just watched. They confirm that their home is owned by the company and are pissed.

They are inspired to force a change. The three slowly begin to get everyone else on board by showing them the ’60 Minutes’ report. They start planning a take over.

There is a mad cap sequence were the old folks trick the various workers into the common area. They chain up the doors and call the authorities giving them a list of demands.

We see a local news program about the revolt. Police have barricaded the parameter of the retirement home and there are hundreds of demonstrators with supportive signs.

Inside after a tense first day, the tenants and workers start to communicate. The workers apologize for how they have treated them. They didn’t see their humanity. They talk about much pressure they get from the company and how that contributed to their understaffing and improper training.

We cut to a boardroom. There is a presentation about cost cutting and how much profit they are making this quarter. They then bring up the issue of the revolt. Someone starts reading out the list of demands but he is immediately cutoff. Someone asks how much the unit brought in that quarter. After hearing the number they say “The ROI is mediocre, add to that the negative PR, why don’t we just shut it down.” There are murmurs of approval. “All in favor of shuttering unit 418D?”

“AYE!”

“All opposed?”

The End