The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (The “American” version*)
Director: Tim Burton
* (Because American movie studios don”t trust new and “untested” concepts, they”ve asked Tim Burton to rework this classic British comedy from the late “70″s)
Reginald Perrin – Reggie to his friends – is a highly successful entrepreneur born to wealth and influence, who secretly dreams of being a carnie fun-house operator to re-live the brief moments of pleasure he remembers from his overly coddled and regimented childhood when he was taken to the boardwalk by the family chauffer so the driver could meet secretly with the Amazing Tattooed Lady, against the family”s orders.
Reggie”s life, in spite of outward appearances of success and material happiness is a tangled mess of emotional dependencies and confusion in which he feels trapped and suffocated. A crisis erupts one day and Reggie decides to end it all by walking into the sea near his beloved boardwalk early one foggy morning. The last anyone sees of Reggie are the clothes he left on the beach. A massive manhunt is conducted but fails to turn up Reggie or his body.
In the meantime, a naked, unconscious amnesiac is pulled from the surf by a woman fishing from the boardwalk pier and slowly nursed back to health. The woman is blind and so doesn”t recognize or realize who Reggie is, and of course Reggie can”t remember. The blind woman is the illegitimate daughter of the tattooed lady and Reggie”s chauffer who gives Reggie his new name, “Martin Wellbourne”, the family chauffer”s name, because she heard her mother mention it now and again. A relationship develops as Reggie assumes his new name and replaces the boardwalk”s funhouse operator, fulfilling a subconscious lifetime desire.
Over time, “Martin”s” innate entrepreneurial talents surface and he gradually comes to run the entire boardwalk enterprise to the point that it becomes the target of a takeover by his family”s corporation who wants the real estate to build a huge casino operation.
During the struggle to fend off the take-over machinations of the corporation, Martin starts to regain his memory after meeting with some of his old acquaintances and family from his previous life.
Marty/Reggie has a sudden revelatory flashback to the moment of his amnesia where he remembers actually trying to commit suicide but having a change of heart at the last second as he looses consciousness and starts sinking into the murky depths.
As memories and people start to surface, Marty/Reggie”s life starts to become even more complicated and convoluted than anything he had to deal with before his “re-birth” and he now has two lives worth of relationships and regrets to reconcile.
Feeling trapped and hopeless, Reggie has one last climactic confrontation with his old and new families, and botches it completely, apparently alienating everyone involved.
Despondent, Reggie finds himself at the beach in view of the boardwalk, on a cold and foggy day much like that one several years ago. The urge to throw himself into the surf and sink to oblivion rises almost irresistibly. Will he try once again to end it all? Will he go back and face his demons and try to resolve his past and present no matter the personal cost?
You may fit the image at either the begining or end of the story.
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