MovieChat Forums > Please Stand By (2018) Discussion > January 26; review and trailer

January 26; review and trailer


http://www.hilltopviewsonline.com/life_and_arts/live-long-and-move-forward-please-stand-by-offers-a/article_be38b710-bce1-11e7-ae6f-fbe3dca9d585.html
Trailer: https://youtu.be/w5fCDrk8Z8c

“Please Stand By” is one of those movies that captures the essence and struggles of a character so well that it becomes almost impossible to connect with the protagonist. The film follows Wendy (Dakota Fanning), a woman learning to live with autism and finds comfort in reruns of “Star Trek.” She feels a connection to the half-vulcan Spock, who praises logic above all else and has difficulties with emotion.

After being prompted to submit a script for a “Star Trek” writing contest, Wendy becomes obsessed with submitting the text. This has a deeper meaning, signalling that she can leave the group home she is living in, and when she wins the prize money, can buy the house her sister Audrey (Alice Eve) is selling. In Wendy’s mind, this will prove to Audrey she is responsible and ready to take care of herself, and they can become a family again.

When Wendy verbalizes this to her sister, Audrey quickly shuts it down, and the rejection triggers an episode. Wendy hits Audrey and then runs out of the home, traumatized by the visit to the home. This causes Wendy’s script to become impossible to mail, and with a strong resolve, Wendy embarks on a quest to hand deliver it to Paramount Studios. Her trek takes her across state lines, from Arizona to California.

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Dakota Fanning’s Character Describes Her Star Trek Script In This EXCLUSIVE Clip
https://trekmovie.com/2018/01/16/dakota-fannings-character-describes-her-star-trek-script-in-this-exclusive-clip-from-please-stand-by/

In this exclusive clip, Wendy meets a friendly woman on a bus to Los Angeles (Marla Gibbs) and describes her Star Trek script, in which Mr. Spock derives a mathematical equation for a sense of humor. https://youtu.be/pbzh-EJpBic

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Interview: ‘Please Stand By’ Screenwriter Michael Golamco On How ‘Star Trek’ Can Inspire Connection
https://trekmovie.com/2018/01/19/interview-please-stand-by-screenwriter-michael-golamco-on-how-star-trek-can-inspire-connection/

Can you talk about the original inspiration for your play, which you then turned into a screenplay for this movie?

I read this article in The New York Times Magazine back in 2007 called “What Autistic Girls Are Made Of.” It focused on this summer camp for kids with autism and particularly the girls. There were two takeaways for me from that. One was that girls with autism still have this emotional need to connect with people and with the condition making it difficult to pick up social cues, [it] kind of makes it a double whammy for girls because it is difficult to socialize properly. And they need those emotional connections. Autistic boys and men have been dealt with a lot in popular culture like with Rain Man and now with The Good Doctor and it is kind of more socially acceptable for boys to be awkward and weird, but for girls it is harder.

The second thing was that one of the girls in the article wrote fan fiction, specifically Lord of the Rings fan fiction, and I loved that so much, because it is what we do. We do storytelling and so the character emerged from that. The play was a short one-act play that is essentially the first act of the movie. In it we establish the three main characters: Wendy and her caregiver Scottie and her sister Audrey. By the end of that one-act play Wendy goes off on her journey and that is where the play ends, so we don’t know what happens. The response to the play was fantastic and so I thought we had something, so I expanded it to a feature. I kind of wanted to see what happens to her out there.

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I can't wait to see this movie!

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Limited opening today. Two clips:
https://youtu.be/E1hLqRe0qWk
https://youtu.be/rLxME5CSUyU

Unfortunately poor reviews, metascore 49 from 12: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4652650/criticreviews

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