The Wrong Title is a short film project on sweet revenge, structured as a film-within-a-film.
### Summary
I am shown version after version of The Wrong Title opening scene, asking the editor to remove the typo in my name, it's Barbara Lagrant not Barbra Largent, and to stop putting her childhood
tormentor into my detective story. There's a beautiful piano player who's playing the movie's music, and with whom I have an embarrassing moment.
We go through a sci-fi scene where I attempt to write myself out of the time-loop catch, a brief horror scene, docu-drama, a kitschy romantic phase (with the embarrassing incident), and a scene where our screening is done on a theatrical stage in front of a full applauding house.
In the final scene I discover, according to the script, that I was the teenage offender, and Fatilda, sorry Matilda, now very beautiful, who played the editor, wrote this movie and had me casted for it, as sweet revenge.
The movie is over. The titles are going up, and we are in a "Behind the Scenes" section. I turn the camera and show my face. I'm a smiling man.
There's a typo in my family name. She wrote Bully Revenge instead of Billy Ronvege. Then I notice the names of the other stars. Matilda Madgirl as the piano player and Rita Radcliff as the editor. Matilda? She smiles. Fatilda, and that's Retard. I'm her first client at Sweet Revenge.
### Plot
The movie Titles are being shown:
The Wrong Title. A Sweet Revenge Inc. production.
Starring...
I am the movie author. I'm holding the camera. You never see my face. Only a glimpse of my long curly hair. In the opening scene with the movie titles, I am walking innocently, hearing my own steps as I pass from a dark room through a sunlit corridor, exit into a rainy garden, and then continue along a sunny, flowery path between tall green bushes. I pass a piano and reach a door to the editing room, where I hear the piano played. I explain to the editor: It was supposed to be a detective movie, that music is too bright, and there's a typo in my name. It's Barbara.
I forgot the editor's name. She has a wonderful smile. She tells me about her own traumatic encounter with a childhood bully that caused her to drop out of high-school. He used to call her Fatilda. But I don't really have time to listen.
In the next couple of versions of the opening scene we go through a sci-fi story, a horror scene (quickly aborted), a kitschy love affair scene, and a docu-drama scene. Each of these scenes follows a misunderstood suggestion or remark that I made to what's-her-name, the editor.
I keep on passing the beautiful piano player whose music pours into the opening scene version and then continues into the editing room. I gradually get acquainted with her. and then embarassed, after the failed kiss scene. Each time I meet the editor's childhood tormentor with increasing details, despite my protests and her promises to fix the typo, which seemingly only gets worse.
The sci-fi scene follows a short movie that Fatilda saw, where that movie's author erases herself from the movie script in order to eliminate herself from a time-loop she's stuck in, repeatedly writing a movie she does not like.
In our version of the sci-fi scene, someone else is walking down the path holding the camera, taking my roll as 'the author'. It worked. I wrote myself out of the script! When he enters the editing room there's a man replacing the editor, giving me hope that things will get better. They don't. His elevator joke is not funny, the ambient piano music is boring, and I insist that the movie should be realistic. No waking up from imaginary scenes, no hallucination or time travel.
Just before the final scene I'm on my way to solving the mystery. I tell myself that all that is needed is fine tuning. I pass the piano player who is tuning the piano. Opening the door I hear loud applause. I'm on a stage with the piano player and her piano outside a door and the editing room is there with the editor sitting at her desk. I really don't like this and say so in a whisper. I don't have stage fright but this was unexpected. She is much older now, and so is the piano player. She tells me that she doesn't like this either. Over the years I've been pouring money into it, but in the end she is losing money on all these scenes and its taking her nowhere. The crowd claps.
In the final scene I'm back to the first scene (And the original typo is back too). I come into the room and tell the author that this is banal. And that I'm out of money to continue this. She says there's no need for my money anymore. Oh and its not Banal Its Matilda. You can call me Fatilda.
While the titles are going up there's a behind the scenes section behind the titles. I'm standing, and you get a full view of my long curly white hair, (which you glimpsed in the first scene when it was beautiful in full color). I'm watching the titles on a small screen. How was my acting? I ask, Its easy when you don't see me. I flip the camera around and now you see me. I'm a man with a big smile. Closeup back to the titles: The Wrong Title. A Sweet Revenge Inc. production by Rita Radcliff. Starring Billy Revenge as the author, Matilda Madgirl as the piano player and Rita Radcliff as the editor.
I look at the piano player, shocked: She's smiling. Matilda?
She extends her hand: Fatilda. And that's Retard from Sweet Revenges. I'm her first client.