Hallmark movie pitch:
Jack can’t catch a break. Ever since his mom tragically died when he was a boy by falling through termite eaten wood stairs, all he wants to do is fix things. The one thing he can’t seem to fix is his love life. Since his character driving tragedy, he has grown into a burly construction worker with a passion for bariatric retrofitting. After yet another skinny bitch dumps him for being too passionate about safety and repair, he decides to move to the big city, Austin, to start fresh.
Leaving it all behind, he strikes out in his new home with a new contracting business. Soon, he lands a plum contract with a new apartment complex. The architects clearly cut costs to build shiny new apartments that are dismally flimsy and built for waifish tenants under 300 pounds. Jack is dismayed at the potential hazards and soon, his concern is proven right. He’s called out to one of the new leasee’s pads to replace an eggshell thin fiberglass tub that has been destroyed.
He arrives and starts working. While removing the tub shell, he notices an intriguing contact lens case next to a collection of mailer sample lotions and a velvet bag of lipsticks. This tenant is mysterious, and he wants to know more.
After lovingly reinforcing the new, heartier tub and scrawling his usual message- “for you, big mama” concealed in the wall, he packs up his tools and gets ready to leave. He is curious about the mystery woman. He furtively looks around and sees dozens of unopened Amazon packages, bags of colorful clothing, and cigarette butts strewn coquettishly about the apartment. A bad girl, with a girly side.
A few weeks later, Jack returns to the apartment to fix a collapsed sink. Mystery girl is still a phantom, but this time he hears an unforgettable laugh emanating from a bedroom behind a closed barn door. The red dye splashed about the sink only entices him more.
Over the next year, Jack returns to the apartment again and again to fix busted appliances and fittings. The apartment changes with the seasons- Hobby Lobby and Marshall’s finest seasonal decor festoons the millennial grey apartment in cheery colors. But there are never any permanent decorations, pictures or art for the walls, to truly tell Jack what mystery girl is all about. She’s a tumbleweed, a fairy, always changing. While he fixes up mystery girl’s apartment, he is building his dream house, triple reinforced everywhere, with a host of craft rooms on the main floor so his future wife won’t have to climb the dreaded killer stairs.
A year later, Jack is once again called out to fix. He has truly fallen for this girl by now, but has never set eyes on her. To his dismay, he enters an empty apartment. All that’s left of his mystery love are a few piles of liquor bottles and a scatter of cigarette butts. A single box finally tells him her name- Anna. He falls to his knees in despair.
He turns when he hears a familiar laugh echoing towards the door. “…BHAAAT you know me, always forgetting something. I’ve gotta grab this last box from Disney and it’s on to bigger and better things.”
A figure looms in the doorway, phone in hand, animatedly grinning into the camera. Her face falls when she notices Jack, on his knees, tears in his eyes, in the center of the barren living room. Their eyes meet. Cut to black
Working title- “For You Big Mama” or “Bigger & Better Things”