Get-Up

Abstract

Get-Up is a screenplay that offers a candid portrait of Green, a seven-year-old boy from southern Indiana who is surviving poverty with his hustler dad and his sick mom. Set in 1985, Green is disregarded for “odd” behavior, including his detached gaze toward the world beyond his windows, and his inability to physically engage with others, even his mother. As Green’s world expands through new relationships with the men of Fink’s Pool Hall and the Salvio family across the street, he transforms, gaining vibrancy and connection, quietly claiming his identity and security, while easing the hardened adults that surround him. Get-Up is a character-driven drama within the father-son theme. The screenplay employs both catalytic characters and character pairing. The father is simultaneously heroic and disappointing. Similarly, Green is a son who embodies both innocent vulnerability and the strength of a guardian. Through this characterization, intimate action and dialogue, introspection at a macro level becomes spectacle. Get-Up is not purely autobiographical, but the story is woven with strands of personal truth. I was with my dad when he got laid off from his job as a security guard, and I spent my childhood trying to impress him in Fink’s Pool Hall, surrounded by rough men who were always just getting by.