Written by Natalie Cooper
Genre: Sci-fi Comedy (Feature)
Logline: An airheaded alien with big dreams travels across the galaxy to become a fashion designer on Earth, juggling challenges like human dating, nosy neighbors, and her overbearing alien overlords.
ANNIE OATS is a retail slave and wannabe fashion designer. She lives on Laméze, a planet known for tacky, boring fashion; but ever since she discovered an Earth time capsule filled with 1960s memorabilia, she’s dreamed of being human. Nothing is going well for her on her home planet: she wants very badly to experience love since she’s never known anything like it. She never gets a chance to sell her designs because her bosses shoot them down for being too out of the box. One day, she gets a job opportunity to sell fabric on Earth and jumps at the chance to follow her dreams.
Instead of making it to Paris, France, Annie’s spaceship crashes in Silverfield, a roadside tourist town near Area 51. Disguised as a human (or more like a Tim Burton sketch of one), Annie moves into a trailer park and plans to befriend everyone in town and sell fabric with love. It doesn’t work out. Earth in 2022 is very different from the 60s dreamland of her magazines; she struggles to fit in with the neighbors, especially BEATRICE, the tyrant queen of the trailer park. However, when Annie finds out Beatrice is hosting a local fashion competition, Annie makes a new plan. She’s going to sell her fabric and her designs in the same turn!
She teams up with her crush LEE, a directionless ice cream shop manager/alien skeptic, and a queer found family she meets at the fabric store. With the help of her friends and a lot of hard work, Annie makes it into the show.
On the night of the show, her alien bosses show up. Horrified by her lack of progress and use of their beloved fabric, they try to force her to return to Laméze. Annie fears she’ll never fit in anywhere and almost gives in, but at the last minute decides to escape with Lee. After a thrilling spaceship chase, Annie returns to the fashion competition as a last-ditch effort to prove herself. She comes out as an alien to the whole town. To her amazement, everyone rallies around her, and Annie’s bosses finally see the value in her work. They allow her to stay on Earth as a foreign sales ambassador and leave her in peace. Elated by all her dreams coming true, Annie finally gets the courage to confront her feelings for Lee, who’s been pining after her the whole time. Her story ends with her opening her own boutique in Paris where she’ll continue to create along with the friends she made in Silverfield.
Please contact the writer to read the full script – nacooper@chapman.edu