INT-SOMEWHERE-SOMETIME

Closeup on a pen, cursiving across a diary. Then pen is girlish, topped with pink feathers. We see at the top A DATE SEVEN YEARS AGO. We hear the words as we see them written:

AMY (V.O.): I’m so crazy, stupid happy.

INT-BROOKLYN APARTMENT-NIGHT

AMY ELLIOT, 30s, gorgeous, is in a crowded party of hipster media types. Dude-heavy. She weaves her way through the guys

AMY (V.O.): I met a boy. I met a boy and he’s so perfectly, fantastically different.

She spots her friend deep-flirting a guy, so she’s stopped short in the center of the room with two beers.

AMY (V.O.) (spotting a blazered douche:): Not some bemused Ivy Leaguer who thinks he’s a character in a Fitzgerald novel.

(a guy in a novelty T:) Not some ironic hipster who’s so self-aware he makes everything a joke

(a granola guy:) Not some deeply sensitive emo-dude who says things like “I love strong women,” which is code for “I hate strong women.”

She lands on NICK DUNNE, hanging out, not posing. He actually looks like a good guy to have a beer with.

AMY (V.O.): Nope, I met Nick Dunne: a great, gorgeous, nice dude, a funny, cool-ass guy. A boy.

Nick genuinely lights up at Amy, beelines over. Like everything in this scene, their talk is heightened, clever, cute: They’re starring their own Hepburn-Tracy rom-com.
NICK: Most people standing all alone at parties, they don’t generally stand in the absolute center of the party. All alone. It’s strange.

AMY: I didn’t know I was making such a spectacle of myself.

NICK (motioning to Ivy Leaguer): Mr. Gatsby is quite ruffled.

AMY (giving him a beer): Sweet of you to join me in my shame

NICK (clinking beers): I’m from Missouri—-they grow us sweet there.

AMY: Missouri?! That’s new.

NICK: Ah: native New Yorker!

AMY: World ends at the Hudson. I’m Amy.

NICK: Nick. So tell me the story, Amy. Who are you? What do you do?

AMY: A. I am an award-winning scrimshander. B. I am a moderately influential warlord. C. I write personality quizzes for magazines.

NICK (taking her hand): A. Your fingers are far too delicate for real scrimshaw work. B. I am a subscriber to Middling Warlord Weekly—you can’t fool me. So: C. Also, if you were a tree you’d be a willow.

AMY: And you? Who are you?

INT.-APARTMENT STAIRWAY
It’s a four-story walk-up. They walk down, tipsy, not touching each other, but thinking about it.

NICK: ...and every summer, I worked on a riverboat. Huck Fucking Finn.

She stops, studies him.

AMY: I can’t tell when you’re lying. I think it’s your chin. It’s quite villainous.

He places a finger over his chin.

NICK: No bullshit. 100% truth.

EXT-BROOKLYN-NIGHT

They are huddling together, trying to hail a cab.

NICK: I always love this part.

AMY: What part?

NICK: Stepping out into New York. All the possibilities.

They turn the corner and step into a huge cloud of powdered sugar as it’s funneled into a bakery. A sugar snowstorm. Nick grins, waves a hand: Like this! The sugar falls like snow. Nick takes a lock of her hair between two fingers and runs his fingers to the end, tugs like he’s ringing a bell.

NICK: You know we have to kiss now.
AMY: Is that right?

NICK: I would be a fool to let you walk through a sugar snowstorm unkissed.

NICK (CONT’D)

AMY

NICK

The sugar floats everywhere. A fairytale. They lean in.

NICK (CONT’D): Hold on

Nick brushes her lips clean. They kiss.

INT-NICK’S BEDROOM-NIGHT

A shabby garden apartment. Nick and Amy are in bed together: blissful, exhausted. Outside, a car’s headlights flash the room: On the wall, something illuminates. Their handprints, caked in powdered sugar, line the wall. They laugh.

AMY: Nick? I really like you.