Expiry Date
Tom, an easygoing but emotionally reserved man in his late forties, has spent years avoiding risk, intimacy and conflict. When his beloved uncle dies unexpectedly on Tom’s 49th birthday, he decides to end his life one year later. But with his future seemingly settled, will Tom finally find the freedom to take risks — and start living?
Lockdown Seder — Writer — Independently produced comedy sketch, YouTube, 2020 ; A Phantom LIfe — Writer — Independently produced short pilot, 2013
Project Overview
Expiry Date is a character-driven dramedy about Tom, a kind, quietly likeable man in his late forties. Easygoing and seemingly functional, he has spent years keeping people at a safe distance. He works in a call centre handling English-speaking customers, in a job far beneath his abilities, where his boss regularly takes advantage of his reluctance to say no. His life has become predictable, and Tom seems to have accepted that it probably isn’t going to change.
Raised in Israel by British parents, Tom has always felt caught between two worlds. The person he feels closest to is his Uncle Freddie in England: outspoken, irreverent, warm-hearted and completely unapologetic about who he is.
Tom travels to England on his 49th birthday for a long-awaited visit, only to discover that Freddie died unexpectedly just hours earlier.
The loss leaves him adrift. Back home, Freddie’s absence forces Tom to look at his own life more closely than he has in years. Approaching fifty, he realises how much of his adult life has been shaped by avoiding rejection, conflict, embarrassment and vulnerability.
He makes a decision: on his 50th birthday, exactly one year after Freddie’s death, Tom intends to end his life.
He doesn’t tell anyone. Instead, he begins recording private video diaries to be released after his death. At first he is terrible at it — stopping, restarting, rambling and making jokes when he probably shouldn’t. But the vlogs gradually become a private conversation with himself.
Once Tom believes his future is settled, many of the things he has spent years fearing begin to matter less. He says no where he would once have given in, accepts invitations he would normally avoid, and stays in situations that make him uncomfortable instead of retreating.
Soon he goes further. Tom revisits people and experiences from his past, but also begins saying yes to things the old Tom would never have considered — some frightening, some ridiculous, some unexpectedly intimate. He makes mistakes, takes chances and finds himself in situations he could never have imagined choosing for himself.
There is no bucket list. Tom is not trying to transform himself or consciously searching for “reasons to live.” In his mind, the expiry date remains fixed.
Yet without quite noticing it, he begins living more during this supposedly final year than he has in the previous forty-nine.
The vlogs change with him, becoming an increasingly personal, funny and contradictory record of a man who believes he has decided how his story ends, only to discover the unexpected freedom to finally take part in his own life.
By the time his 50th birthday arrives, will Tom still want it to be his last?
Development funding sought: NIS 5,000 for professional one-to-one script development and further refinement of the pilot and season arc. Full production budget: TBC.