Terence Donnellan
Terence Donnellan
Terence Donnellan
MIDNIGHT MOVIE IN MANHATTAN
Logline: A young woman flees her fiancé and family to go into Manhattan to meet a troubled movie star who is trying to finish his independent film about the tragedy of American democracy and the degradation of Hollywood.
Synopsis: Chloe Hope doesn't want to settle for a mediocre life. She dares to believe there is more than marrying your high school boyfriend, working a dead-end job, and growing fat and old in your hometown. That's not going to happen to her. She's going to take action.
On the day of the rehearsal dinner for her wedding two days away, she tells her fiancé and family she is going into Manhattan to do a voice-over for a troubled movie star, Finnegan Greeves. She promises to be back in a few hours for their big dinner.
Deep down, Chloe feels that if she returns, her life is over. She doesn't know what she's going to do. Doesn't know what will happen. Yet, somehow, she feels the movie star will help her change her life. But Finnegan has troubles of his own and wants nothing to do with her. He tries to get rid of Chloe and send her back to New Jersey.
Finnegan has had all the material success possible. After a difficult childhood, he has achieved fortune and fame. But it's an empty existence. Instead of acting dramatic roles that express the complexity of human nature, like his heroes, Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, he has been reduced to being a greenscreen actor embodying a comic book superhero. He rejects all this, denounces Hollywood, and finds himself alone and broke trying to make an independent film.
Midnight Movie in Manhattan is a story about two people who need help. Chloe, a young actress of 24, and Finnegan, twice-divorced at 48. If anything is going to change they need each other. It is not, however, a rom-com or romance. It's a comedy with drama. And a drama with comedy. It is both as it is a film-within-a-film.
Finnegan needs financing to finish his film, Biting the Hand That Feeds Me, which he plans to take to the Cannes Film Festival. Chloe forces herself into his life to try to make this happen. Together, they race around Manhattan trying to raise funding. When this proves futile, Chloe invites everyone she knows (family, friends, fiancé) to a midnight screening of the film--still a work in progress--hoping those who see it will contribute financially.
In the film, Biting the Hand, Finnegan plays a semi-autobiographic version of himself, a Hollywood star who reluctantly runs for president of the United States.
The film isn't a light-hearted comedy as Chloe expected. It's a dark drama about the tragedy of American democracy. Disappointed she didn't get the anticipated happy ending, Chloe returns to her hometown with her fiancé. It is only through their breakup that Chloe understands the film's denunciations of politicians and celebrities was done to celebrate ordinary people following their dreams--which is what Chloe is doing. Chloe wasn't just the voice-over person or narrator of the film, as she feared; she was the film's star.
This realization allows Chloe to leave her home, go back into Manhattan to meet Finnegan, and fly to the Cannes Film Festival to try to sell the film. Thus, the film we have just watched is the film Finnegan wanted to make and the film Chloe wanted to star in. By helping each other, they have started to make their dreams a reality.
THE FILM IS IN DEVELOPMENT
Midnight Movie in Manhattan is an arthouse film inside a mainstream movie. It is also a mainstream movie inside an arthouse film. It is both as it is a film-within-a-film.
Budget: 7.8m
Shoot: 23 days in New York City.
2025