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Maybe he thinks he lives with his mother and we're into Norman Bates territory.

A little variation to Scott's proposal: His mother and our protagonist are super intelligent recluses that like to solve crimes (remember "Solving Cold Cases at the Detectives’ Lunch Club.") police send them the case files, and if they like the case they send the answer back. A reporter discovered who they are and a lot of people are angry and put a price on their heads. So they have to move to the real world.

What if we change this guy's relationship to his mother? Maybe she's overbearing, abusive like in Danny DeVitto's "Throw Momma from the Train". Or The Big Bang Theory's Howard Wolowitz. Maybe that kind of relationship could be more dramatic than if they get along. And maybe not a guy, but a daughter living with her mother. What if they are recluses because they have some ability similar to "Lie to me" - they are extremely good detecting lies - even the tiniest one. And they can't stand society because well, we all lie. A lot. And people hate that they can spot their lies.

Alejandro, this is precisely the type of brainstorming I'm hoping people will do. Genre bend. Gender bend. What if. I'm reminded of that great Woody Guthrie anecdote. Noting that the famed folk singer had written over 4,000 songs, a reporter asked him once how he came up with his melodies. Guthrie replied, "Well, I take one I like, then I give it lil' twist here, and a lil' twist there, and make it my own." That's pretty much it, right there. Similar but different... and make it our own.

Horror. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" meets "Monster". So, these two ladies - mother and daughter - live as recluses. Mother hates men because her husband was an abuser. She had a daughter and taught her to hate men, never trust them. And mother is a blood thirsty serial killer that uses her daughter as bait. But the daughter is older, she isn't as attractive as she used to be so she doesn't lure as many men as she used to. And every time the daughter was pregnant she had a boy instead of the girl they wanted, so they killed them. Their quest: to find out a worthy successor to their team, killing everyone that gets in their way.

It kind of reminds me of "Onibaba" (an AWESOME horror movie) and that Wildling family in Game Of Thrones, the one that feeds the male babies to the White Walkers... so yeah, I like that. Oh man, I can so picture... well, Charlize Theron already played a murderer so I don't know if she'd be game to do it again, but I can see perhaps Chloe Moretz and Nicole Kidman, and as time goes on you get more messed up prosthetics going on. Although Chloe Moretz has played a lot of monsters too... You know, I realized when you said "mother uses her daughter as bait" that I'm actually doing something like that but didn't actually think about it while reading today's prompt (although I'm not sure if I'm going to keep that familial connection).

Yes! Sort of a serious take on Emerson Cod's backstory in "Pushing Daisies" ... what happens when they grow up?

I love "Throw Momma From The Train" and Wolowitz, AND Seymour Skinner with his mother AND Norman Bates and his mother and so on and so on... the problematic relationship is the first instinct, so why not go for the opposite... and not like, infantalized, but you never see a healthy relationship between a grown man and his mother in movies... it's always strained or messed-up or played for a joke, ESPECIALLY if he lives with her (and it doesn't even have to be a thing of "he's taking care of her in her old age," a lot of the people on the list were getting started out and needed a safety cushion, god knows I know where they're coming from-- and it's becoming more and more common in this garbage "economy"). My take is "if you take out what everyone else is doing, you'll find some interesting new places to bring conflict in. Now get yer mother a soda.

It could also be a greek tragedy. Oedipus with a twist. So, 400BC, the queen of Thebes, Greece gives birth to a beautiful daughter while the king is in a battle. The battle is lost and everyone thinks the king has died. A clairvoyant tells the queen that the king is OK, but he will die the day he meets his daughter. So, the queen keeps the girl locked in the palace. She loves the king so much that she even thinks about killing her daughter so the king will be safe and he will return. But she doesn't. She decides she will be the only one who can see her daughter, who is kept locked in her bedroom. Twenty years later everybody tells the queen that the clairvoyant must have made a mistake. The king must be dead and her daughter should be set free. But her gut feeling tells her that the king is alive and he will return to her side. One day a beggar arrives, he wants to speak with the queen but she's disgusted - his face is badly burnt, his hands deformed and his tongue was cut. They throw him out of the city. The daughter's bedroom is in the third floor of the palace, where the royal couple's bedroom used to be. The windows have been bricked up. Secretly the daughter has carved the mortar between the bricks so she can at least breathe some fresh air. The king sneaks into the town, goes to the castle and climbs the wall to his bedroom. He grabs the stone that was loosed up, sees his daughter and falls to his death. Of course being a greek tragedy the queen commits suicide and the daughter goes mad. And yes, probably Hollywood wouldn't be interested in that kind of story.

Of course. Onibaba is great. That could work in a different, more modern setting. And in a more remote way a mother - killer daughter movie is Stoker, which I liked a lot. Such great style and ambience. Interesting to know you're writing a similar concept. :-) Good luck with it!

Oops... once again our viewing tastes are different. I never watched Pushing Daisies. But it seems to be the concept according to what I've read on Wikipedia.

Maybe a healthy relationship is too perfect for a movie, It would be difficult to keep the drama. Another twist could be making the mother love the son too much. Remember Barbara Streisand in Meet the Fockers? That was too much love. IMHO, I think a completely healthy relationship would be unhealthy for a movie - no drama. At least one of them has to suffer because of lack or excess of love. Even in buddy pictures they have issues among them. Think of American Beauty - the only couple with no problems or drama was used as very secondary, not protagonist.

The healthy relationship could pertain only to their life INSIDE the apartment. Once they are on the run, their old ways of being are destroyed. Now fissures emerge between them and they have to forge a new alliance in order to survive. Lots of conflict that way. [Obviously this goes back to my original take on the story.]

And yet... thinking a little about it, Little Women shows a very healthy relationship.

Yeah, the set-up works because of the conditions inside their comfort zone. It could just be a thing where they work at different times, so they only see each other for an hour or two a day (breakfast and dinner)... but suddenly that's gone and they're on the run together. Or the parent/child relationship could be the backbone, the one stable element like the Captain America/Black Widow relationship in "Winter Soldier," just solid comradeship, a mentor/protege relationship or something like that. Or you could just go out and do a whole "I Love You Man" style story, about a guy realizing he doesn't have a relationship with his parents at all and tries to rectify that. You know, a couple of those people in the article were actors, and I remember Elijah Wood, after shooting Lord Of The Rings, moved back in with his mother b/c he didn't have a place in the States... actors tend to go all around the world for months at a time, sometimes when you're young it's not worth getting your own place just to have it be empty most of the year. Maybe you could invert that, you could have a wild child actress character like Lindsey Lohan or Amanda Bynes get out of rehab and start a new movie that's supposed to revitalize their career, and their damn mother's hanging out on set b/c of a court order. And extra awkward if there's sex scenes or anything like that in the movie-within-the-movie. But that might be a little too inside baseball...

Still haven't seen Stoker yet (I'm so backed up, yet I watch movies and TV constantly). The daughter could be a protege like Mathilda in Leon. Or you could invert it and make the mother learn from the daughter, "this new hobby will be our common interest."

I always liked The Grifters' complex mother/son relationship. Anyhoo: A former Weatherman type eco-terrorist abandons her husband and young child to save them from prosecution and a life on the run. Twenty years later, our child grows up to be a successful technology professional, and one day, while attending a conference, Laura spots her long-long mother in a Seattle street, but fails to catch up with her. Laura hires an investigator who soon discovers her mother has a new life and family. Now, Laura is torn between between trying to face her mother or leaving her alone, but it turns out that the sighting was not accidental, and her mother has not abandoned her radical ways but is in fact targeting the company Laura works for. Moreover, the investigation triggered the attention of the ruthless FBI agent originally tasked with hunting down the mother and now out for closure and revenge.

Nice idea. I remember the Simpsons played a similar relationship between Homer and his mother. An eco-terrorist that has to go on the run. That was a great way to bring her in. And a more serious play would be nice.

OK, so the healthy relationship is put to the test. That sounds great.

Didn't occur to me, but I remember that. Back when the Simpsons was still genuinely funny.