Cousins
Cousins was produced by Paramount Pictures in 1992. It starred Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, William Peterson and Sean Young. It was directed by Joel Schumacker.
COUSINS
CREDITS OVER - A BUTTON NOSE
Sad eyes like wet blue saucers and tear streaked cheeks like buttercups. Blonde hair that has no use for a comb or a brush. CHLOE HARDY is five years old and desolate beyond words. She sucks her thumb.
She is holding a blanket to her cheek. Her favorite blanket. She’s heartbroken because it’s been washed. And now it’s drying. It’s on the clothesline dripping. And so Chloe stands, pretty as a picture in her party dress and patent leather shoes, stands rooted to the spot in the middle of a back yard, stands among the sheets and shirts and undies. She clutches her dripping wet blanket and she snuffles.
TOM (O.C.)
...I want you to listen to Daddy... Daddy is sorry he washed snuggly blanket. He knows what snuggly means to you...
TOM HARDY stares in helpless, frustrated fury at his daughter. Tom is a very good looking man and a former jock. He’s been heavily influenced by either Miami Vice or the Chicago Bears’ Jim McMahon and so, patchy beard stubble not withstanding, he wears a linen sports jacket, a silk t-shirt, pastel slacks and loafers with no socks.
TOM (cont’d)
But Chloe, you know how snuggly blanket is your favorite thing in the world?
And back behind Tom, sitting at the end of the driveway, we see it now... a gleaming BMW, it’s doors open.
TOM (cont’d)
Well, Daddy’s car is Daddy’s favorite thing in the world and...
Tom looks like he’s through with begging and is about to resort to yelling.
TOM (cont’d)
Chloe, snuggly blanket will dry soon but right now it’s wet and wet blankets don’t go for rides in Daddy’s beamer!
Drip - drip - drip. Chloe looks steel willed, adamant and immovable.
TOM (cont’d)
(beginning to yell)
Chloe...!
He stops himself as MARIA HARDY comes out of the house. He sighs, knowing he’s lost.
Maria approaches. Maria is a serenely beautiful woman surprisingly unaware of her beauty. Perhaps that’s why she has a tendency to dress in conservative clothes and muted colors. She too is dressed for a party or celebration. She looks at Tom expectantly.
TOM
I swear, she’s as stubborn as you are.
Maria looks down at Chloe. Chloe stares back. Maria kneels.
MARIA
It’s just a car, Tom.
TOM
Awww! Awww! No way!
Tom turns and moves to the car. He slams the doors closed.
TOM
Forget it, we’re not going!
Ignoring him, Maria winks and suddenly smiles at her daughter. Maria lights up rooms when she smiles.
INT. CAR – DAY
Maria looks quietly out the car window. It is a beautiful spring day. She turns and looks into the back seat. CHLOE sucks her thumb. She clutches an edge of her wet blanket. She is wearing a raincoat over her party dress and is sitting on several green plastic hefty bags. Maria smiles softly. And then she glances coolly at her husband. And then looks away, pointedly ignoring him. Tom, wearing shades, drives. He looks furious, disgruntled and put upon.
TOM
I just valvolened the seats.
Glaring into the rear view mirror, he clenches his teeth and shakes his head for the thousandth time.
EXT. THE BMW -
As it drives up a ramp to the Long Island Expressway we see that the blanket trails out the rear window, drying.
EXT. A CITY STREET – DAY
A silver dollar dances in a man’s hand. It disappears only to appear again. A flourish of a second hand over the first. The coin is gone. The second hand opens. The coin is there.
The sleight of hand artist, LARRY COSTELLO, wears pressed chinoes and argyle socks with the white bucks. He is sitting sidesaddle on a Harley Superglide motorcycle.
The bike is parked in front of an urban brownstone.
In the bike’s sidecar, Larry’s 15 going on 30 year old son, MITCH, chews with scornful impatience at the wad of gum in his mouth. Mitch is one cool kid; raggedly crewcut head, wrap around shades, dressed all in black. He has a video camera and battery pack in his arms.
MITCH
Go get her, Dad.
LARRY
Be patient.
Larry begins pulling coins from behind Mitch’s ear.
LARRY
Whoa! Look at this. I think I’ve discovered a “lost mind”.
MITCH
You’re always embarrassing me like this.
A flourish. The coins disappear. Larry holds out his two clenched hands.
LARRY
Okay, which hand.
MITCH
Dad, I know all your tricks.
LARRY
This is a new one.
And saying this, he drops all the coins. Larry and Mitch look at one another.
LARRY
Okay, so it needs work.
A sound. Mitch and Larry turn towards the apartment building.
MITCH
About time.
In the doorway of the building, feet come to an abrupt stop. They are lovely feet. In lovely shoes. PANNING UP - Lovely silken legs too.
LARRY
Would you look here? A vision of beauty! A veritable siren, yes! A siren waiting to lure helpless sailors onto the rocks!
Maybe. You really can’t tell. PANNING UP - The woman, Larry’s wife, TISH, is wearing a monstrously bulky parka, a scarf and a motorcycle helmet, the visor down. She looks like a member of the Eskimo chapter of the Hell’s Angels. She is holding a large compact case in one gloved hand. She suddenly snaps the visor up. Tish is indeed breathtakingly beautiful. And pissed. She glares.
TISH
You know, if you’d get a car, I wouldn’t have to dress like this every time we went out!
LARRY
Climb aboard. We’re late.
MITCH
As usual.
Tish glares at Mitch. Their relationship is that of a spoiled older sister and bratty younger brother.
TISH
Hold this.
Tish gives Mitch the carrying case and reluctantly climbs on the bike.
TISH
I want a car. Why can’t we get a car?
LARRY
And be like everybody else on the block?
ANGLE ON - The city street. If we hadn’t realized it before, we realize it now. The signs and the pedestrians all point to the fact that Larry and family live in China-town.
TISH
Larry, everybody else on the block is Oriental.
LARRY
What’s she talking about? Do you see any Orientals?
MITCH
I don’t see any Orientals.
LARRY
(to Tish)
You’re hallucinating.
Tish sighs. Larry starts the bike, revs it.
TISH
Why can’t we move to the suburbs, Larry? I want to move to the suburbs.
LARRY
You know how I feel about the suburbs. It takes too long to get a good delivery of mushu pork.
The motorcycle cruises up the street.
ON THE EXPRESSWAY
The BMW is parked by the side of the road.
IN THE BACK SEAT OF THE CAR Chloe is sitting as still as a statue. Her thumb is not in her mouth. Her hands are folded in her lap.
IN THE FRONT SEAT Maria sits in mirror image of her daughter, hands in her lap, tensely waiting.
OUT ON THE HIGHWAY, Tom is trying to get to a runaway blanket. Cars whizz by. Horns blare. Tom starts, stops, swears at offending motorists. He runs out onto the highway and picks up the blanket. His shades fall. He picks them up. Broken. Tom looks like Vesuvius, ready to blow.
EXT. CHURCH - DAY
The BMW pulls into a church parking lot and squeals into a parking place. Maria and Tom virtually leap out of the car. Maria collects Chloe from the backseat. They hurry across the parking lot towards the church.
CREDITS END AS - TOM, MARIA AND CHLOE
are half way up the church steps when suddenly the doors burst open. The organ is bellowing the wedding march. People rush hurriedly out. Maria gives Tom a scathing look.
ANGLE ON - Old faces, young faces, everything in between. Happy tears in some eyes. Pleased smiles on so many faces. Voices call out: They’re coming! They’re coming! Get ready! Here they come!
The radiant bride and groom come out of the church into a cloud of thrown rice. He is in a suit and she is in a dress. They are both in their mid to late fifties. EDIE KAZINSKI is a lovely, vital woman. She towers over her new husband, PHIL COSTELLO. Phil, Larry’s uncle, is tiny, slim and dapper. They beam and laugh at the well wishers. Phil kisses his new wife. Edie puts her arms around him and lifts him bodily into the air. Everyone applauds, cheers and whistles. Maria, holding Chloe in her arms, makes her way through the happy crowd to Edie. Tom follows.
MARIA
Congratulations, Momma.
Edie hugs and kisses them joyously.
EDIE
Wasn’t it a beautiful ceremony!?
MARIA
(a look at Tom)
Gorgeous.
They are all hit with a storm of rice.
PHIL
Hey! Rice! It’s for fertility!
EDIE
Phil, not to discourage you but at my age I need fertility like a blind man needs a flashlight.
INT. THE ELKS CLUB - DAY
A wedding reception! A Bobby Vinton look a like fronts a polka band. He is singing a polish drinking song. The reception guests all sit at bountifully laid banquet tables. Edie is in the midst of draining an enormous stein of beer. It’s so large she holds it with two hands. Beer drips down her chin and falls to the bosom of her dress. Phil, jacketless, a big cigar in hand, sits next to her, beaming proudly. Everyone is laughing and chanting - Go! Go! Go!
One table is all children, from kintergardeners to teenagers. They laugh and giggle excitedly. Chloe sucks her thumb, eyes wide and interested.
Maria and Tom are sitting with what look to be Maria’s sisters and their husbands. Maria and one of her sisters are all smiles, amused. The third sister - the “beautiful sister” - is obviously embarrassed.
Edie has downed half the stein of beer.
Larry, Tish and Mitch enter the hall. Now that she’s shed the parka and helmet, Tish indeed looks very chic and beautiful. Men stare. Tom among them. Tish carries her compact case.
Edie is almost finished with the stein.
One of Maria’s cousins, DEAN KOZINSKI, a very good looking blond man of about twenty, smiles across the room at one of Phil’s nieces, TERRI COSTELLO, an equally attractive woman, a brunette of about the same age. She sees him looking. She smiles, looks away. And then looks back.
Edie finishes off the stein of beer. Everyone applauds and cheers. Edie rises and bows. More cheers. Larry, Tish and Mitch make his way across the room. Phil sees him coming and moving to meet him, throws his arms open wide.
PHIL
Larry!
LARRY
Hiya, Uncle Phil.
They embrace.
PHIL
Edie, this is my favorite nephew, Larry! His beautiful wife, Trish -
TISH
(quietly)
Tish.
PHIL
- and this monster’s Mitchie!
MITCH
Heya, Uncle Phil.
PHIL
(throwing an arm around Edie)
Ain’t she somethin’, Larry?
LARRY
Edie, if you’re half as wonderful as my uncle says, you should leave him now. I will marry you.
Edie giggles, pleased.
PHIL
You! When you comin’ to work for me, you son of a bitch!
LARRY
Phil. I just don’t see an intellectual albeit muscular guy like myself working at a junk yard.
PHIL
Larry. Believe me. There is a future in garbage. By the year 2000 there ain’t gonna be no place to dump human refuse. Get in on the ground floor, clean up. Look, don’t say nothin’ now. Sleep on it. We’ll talk.
LARRY
You’re the greatest, Phil.
PHIL
You’re right.
They giggle. Phil reaches out, mushes Larry’s face into a pucker and kisses him.
AT THE BAR
Two men stand in seemingly stunned silence, drinking beer. They look selfconcious in their ill fitting suits and too-wide ties. JOE JASEK is tall and bald. HERMAN NORBERT is wide and blond and redfaced. Tom joins them. They perk up.
JASEK
Hi, Tom.
NORBERT
Hi, Tom.
TOM
Joe. Herman.
(to the bartender)
Chivas. On the rocks.
Silence.
TOM
How’s it going, guys?
JASEK.
Good.
NORBERT
Good.
Silence.
TOM
That’s good.
Jacek and Norbert nod. They fidget.
A SPOON
is banged lightly against a water glass. By Larry.
LARRY
Attention! May I have your attention, please!
VOICES
Quiet! Let him have quiet!
LARRY
I’d like to make a toast.
LARRY
A man is going along. Things are what they are. They not great but who’s complaining, they could be a hell of a lot worse. But then suddenly, one day, a man meets someone. Words are not necessary. Like a...
PHIL
A whatsamawhoozit!
LARRY
Thank you, Phil. Yes. A whatsamahoozit from God, boom, a man realizes how empty his life has really been.
The wedding guests all listen, spellbound, respectful.
LARRY
Can a man ignore what has happened? No. Can a man go back to what has been? Absolutely no. What can a man do? I will tell you what he can do. He can go...
(beaming)
... where the river takes him.
(looking at Edie)
Ladies and gentlemen, my family, friends... My uncle is in love.
Edie beams.
LARRY
It’s never too late. Nothing is more important. He loves and he cherishes. Edie, to you... you light up all our lives.
The wedding guests all cheer. They applaud and drink.
PHIL
An anybody who don’t agree wid’ that can kiss my ass!
Laughter. More cheers. Larry’s Cousin John calls out.
COUSIN JOHN
I don’t agree, Phil!
PHIL
I heard that! I heard that! Come on, come on! Where the sun don’t shine!
And turning, he unbuckles his belt and drops his pants exposing his rear end. Hoots of laughter. Edie screams, partly embarrassed, partly tickled. Some of the women, laughing, also fail to make very strong protests.
At the children’s table, amidst the giggling young people, Chloe is so interested she very seriously takes her thumb out of her mouth and stares. But only for a moment.
Mitch aims his video camera.
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