Almost Atoned

Genre: Heartwarming Comedy
Logline: A mafia boss gets atoned by helping an unlikely young woman.

An Italian American mafia boss in his 60s often bursts into tears randomly. It’s becoming an issue—crying when he is about to ‘whack’ somebody, cut a deal with other mafia bosses, or having dinner. His wife says he’s having panic attacks, he needs to see a psychiatrist. Instead, he goes to a priest, an old monk in a remote monastery—real men don’t have panic attacks and nobody needs to know they talk to priests either. The old, spiritual Catholic priest tells him that his sin-ridden soul is asking for atonement. This is the only way the crying will stop. To be atoned, he needs to find a stranger, someone as distant from him as possible and give that person “agape”—unconditional, selfless love without the expectation of anything in return. The stranger should not even know who the benefactor is. This is the only way his heavy soul would let up crying.
Enter the stranger, a young African American woman in her early 20s. Single mom, abused by all the males in her life, no real friends, staying in a crummy apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, trying to make ends meet, raising her 3-year-old daughter under rough circumstances. He notices her being verbally assaulted outside the restaurant he is having dinner at; she’s his waitress. He asks a couple of his underlings to check up on her, who she is, her whereabouts. She’s the perfect stranger to offer “agape” to. She couldn’t be more distant to him, culturally, ethnically, socially, economically ... everything. And so the selfless, anonymous atonement begins.
He never meets her personally, other than the one time she served him as a waitress. The rest is handled by the mafia guys in such a way that nobody knows exactly who’s helping her. He asks about her progress and orchestrates everything as if she was his own daughter, as he would’ve treated the other kids he denied over the years, God knows how many. As if she was the orphan of all those people whom he caused to die over the years. All the sins of his soul is cleansed away little by little every time he does something for this far-removed stranger. And every time, he feels lighter. After a while the crying stops, he even starts to feel happier, atoned.
The girl has a delightful, likable, lively personality. She is a genuinely good soul, salt of the earth, but trusting and even gullible, very easy to be taken advantage of. She’s beautiful, so all the men want to take advantage of her in any way possible. She owes money to the neighborhood convenient store, no more credit for baby stuff. A pimp is coercing her to join his protection. Her father’s in jail and thugs are after her for the money her father owes. The restaurant owner steels her tips. Child Protection Services are threatening to take away her daughter. She has had enough.
All of a sudden, the pimp shows up one last time to politely apologize for his past behavior, clearly shaken, never to bother her again. The convenient store owner shows up at her doorstep with baby stuff, as a housewarming gift for the new apartment the slam lord offered her, for no apparent reason, even though she was behind 3 months on rent. The thugs who were after her to recover her father’s debt give her a lump sum of cash, saying that her father paid them back more than he should, and he doesn’t need the money in jail anyhow. The restaurant owner gives her the best shifts and pays back all her lost tips tenfold, soon making her a manager. A mysterious uncle from Africa sends her presents like a car, clothes, money. She used to collect clip-on magazine coupons for nail treatments and haircuts. Now she finds gift cards to the best salons and spas in her mailbox. The dean of a local college goes out of his way to personally inform her that she has been accepted into college, after she gets her GED (General Educational Development), because she never finished high school. Of course, everything paid for, daycare, tutors, the works. All part of a rare minority scholarship endowment, very recently established by an anonymous donor, that she randomly won. Things are looking up, slowly but steadily, and she doesn’t even know who to thank for. She is just grateful for all the unexpected good luck pouring down on her previously miserable existence.
In the movie, all the above scenes are comic. For example, one scene could be the mafia guys holding the pimp or the thug over the proverbial bridge upside down. They’re really trying to scare him off, but one of the mafia guys misunderstands and lets him fall. But throughout the movie, the reaction of the mafia boss himself is heartwarming and emotional, almost spiritual. He may even have flashbacks of people he regrets killing and how that affected their daughters, feeling that now he has done something good to maybe wipe out the old sins. And the more he does, the better he feels.
Years pass by. She is a successful academic with a wonderful family. She never really found out who her benefactor is all these years, but she suspected. Little things, how it started after she served that fateful table of that distinct Italian American, small pieces of evidence over the years, things she heard. Nothing definite. Towards the end of the movie the mafia boss falls sick. He talks to the police and turns in the nasty, heartless mafia bosses with whom he collaborated all these years. He’s in the witness protection program, sick, in his death bed. She puts two and two together. She manages to get to the remote hideout, the monastery the old priest gave him advice years ago.
They talk, they laugh, they cry. He never openly admits it is him who took care of her all these years. That would prevent him from being atoned. She doesn’t know, but she knows. He closes his eyes happy and content, knowing he did his part, he repented, and even may be going to a better place, almost atoned. He’d be fully atoned if she never suspected. But he never admitted to it either.
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This movie idea is registered with Writers Guild of America East.
© 2023, Michael Tsiappoutas, All Rights Reserved.