Feature Film · In Development
A Girl to Love
When a schizophrenic poker player runs into an old friend during a poker room raid, he’s drawn into her illicit underground delivery service as they end up on the run with her 11-year-old sister and a million dollars in stolen meds.
The Film
Crime momentum inside a fractured, character-driven reality.
A Girl to Love follows Tommy, a loner and gifted poker player whose life moves between the mundane and the imagined. A chance reunion during a poker-room raid pulls him into Cali’s black-market delivery world, where he forms an unexpected bond with her younger sister, LG.
Synopsis
A botched delivery turns three outsiders into a makeshift family on the run.
Tommy (28) is a loner and genius poker player, lost between fantasy and reality, whose only friend is an imaginary six-foot statue of Michelangelo’s David. During a raid on Tommy’s poker room, he meets Cali (28), an impulsive beauty, and her little sister LG (12), an irreverent preteen. As Tommy follows them into their world of black-market deliveries and dangerous partners, he finds a kindred spirit in LG.
During a major delivery gone bad, they drive off with $1M in stolen meds. Tommy swears to protect them as Cali hatches a plan to sell off the meds and leave the criminal life behind. On the day of the drop, LG waits in the car while Tommy and Cali meet the buyer, but they walk into a setup.
During a classic Mexican standoff, LG decides to stroll in and becomes the target of the bad guys. Tommy freezes and the Statue of David appears, but he can’t help. It’s our hero who must quit fantasizing and step up to save his new family.
Characters
Outsiders pulled together by bad choices, loyalty, and the need to belong.
Visual World
Neon nights, poker rooms, diners, city streets.
Poker rooms, late-night diners, wet streets and saturated color shape a restless urban world where reality and fantasy are never completely separate.
Comps
Character intimacy, crime pressure, and subjective fantasy.
Silver Linings Playbook, Good Time, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty reflect the film’s mix of intimate character drama, escalating crime pressure, and a subjective inner world made visual.
Contact
Script and pitch materials available.
For screenplay, pitch materials, financing or production conversations:
joethayer1211@gmail.com