an awkward moment
A Comedy of
the Ant and the Grasshopper
The next Pink Panther: light classy international humor, one of the
series, based on
The books and the videos
Carefree
colorful gigolo Toby—the grasshopper—comes to a holiday island with elderly and attractive Beverly—and the owner of their little hotel, Ariadne, sees
immediately what he is.
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Ariadne is
the ant—serious, struggling, still in black a year after her husband’s death. She doesn’t approve of Toby—especially when
Beverly dies in her sleep and he leaves the arrangements to Ariadne.
No mourning for
him—he takes nothing seriously, not
even death. With Beverly's cards he
cleans out her cash accounts—and what the hell writes himself a check in her name. He’s got to eat!
But he can’t leave the
island till the check clears so he parks his money in the hotel safe. We’ll have to count it, says Ariadne. So they count it together and come
up with different sums. Let’s split the
difference, he says. He takes nothing seriously, not even money.
A developer who has acquired Ariadne's mortgage and is buying up the island, arrives
at the hotel and threatens to foreclose on her unless she makes good her
arrears.
His patient dutiful wife wants something better out of life, and
soon realizes it’s Toby. Also with them are their niece and her lesbian lover (he’ll put a stop to that!), butch and
abrasive, and the co-mother of their niece’s daughter. She, the co-mother, snarls at Toby whenever his gaze wanders to one of the women in the party.
At the desk
withdrawing some money, Toby overhears the developer threaten Ariadne with
foreclosure and simply slides him over a stack of cash. Keep the change. At this she weeps—and, well, it happens. Her mourning is over.
But not her
problems. She must go to Athens and get
a loan to cover the mortgage, and leaves Toby in charge of the hotel—a risky
thing to do but who else is there? The
humiliation she suffers trying to get a loan is bad enough: the only creditor
she can find requires that she sleep with him—and then dies in her arms! Big help.
But while she’s
gone the worst that could happen happens: a family feud, the hotel catches
fire, a bulldozer knocks some of it down—and the daughter accidentally kills the developer, which Toby, her family and
the villagers conspire to cover up—for the developer held several mortgages.
Ariadne comes
back to a half-demolished hotel and police all over the place. Where’s
the body? Well, don’t order the mousaka.
Pretentious Pictures presents
an awkward moment
A Comedy of the Ant and the Grasshopper
Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.
“I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.”
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