Two wallflower roommates in their 30s have their lifelong friendship tested by an unexpected romance. 

SYNOPSIS:

Gideon and Tina are two oddball white women in their early thirties. They have been best friends since high school. As roommates in their hometown of Atlanta, they struggle to adapt to the ups but mostly downs of their social and working lives.

Gideon is quite tall, boney and the more uptight and covertly angry of the two women. She has the unconscious habit of irritating others with her fussy behavior, which can include snootily correcting their mispronunciation of words or niggling over the amount of a grocery bill. She also tries to disguise what she perceives to be her lack of looks by applying way, way too much makeup.

Gideon barely puts up with disrespect and ridicule from her colleagues at work where she is a junior commodities trader. Men audaciously flirt with her female coworkers while everyone gives her a hard time about her overbearing mother, often heard arguing with Gideon over the office phone. The younger, more attractive girls are the worst about rubbing it all in. However, Gideon worries that her problems getting along with them may lead to the big boss firing her, so she struggles to keep her negative opinions about them to herself.

On the other hand, her roommate, chubby Tina, comes across as happy-go-lucky to everyone, at least at first. She also seems oblivious to social punishment and wears tight fitting and provocative clothing that only serves to accent her doughboy shape. Despite her overly boisterous friendliness, she has a trashy mouth and can dish it out as well as take it, unlike her friend Gideon who is prissy and quite sensitive to rejection. When several wise-ass guys try to embarrass Gideon at a local bar, Tina steps in and finds a way to crudely turn the tables with some “hands on” behavior which literally has at least one of them running out of the room.

Gideon’s well meaning, more attractive younger sister and her high society mother tend to make things worse for her with their meddling and concerns about Gideon’s less than successful social life. The two plot to introduce Gideon to an unemployed stockbroker at one of her sister’s parties.

Around the same time, Tina is approached by a rather gawky but oddly appealing nerd named Ned where she works as a city librarian. They share an interest in the Atlanta Hawks, the favorite basketball team of both Tina and her boozehound, but loving slob of a father, Milt. Tina offers up the family Hawks scrapbooks to help Ned with an article he is writing about the Hawks for a local paper. Of course, she is hoping he will end up jumping in the sack with her. Gideon attempts to be supportive of her friend’s new relationship, but she finds Ned attractive herself and tries to hide her interest by treating him coldly. However, her bumbling for words and clumsy behavior in his presence almost give her away.

A few days later, Gideon suffers through a disastrous date with Oliver, the narcissistic, loser ex-stockbroker she previously met at her sister’s meet-up party. He publicly humiliates her at a crowded restaurant when she refuses to consider offering him inside commodities information. She then runs to her local bar, gets sloppy drunk and calls Tina, spewing forth a barrage of bitter self-pity. She’s had all she can take of male rejection.

After Tina rushes to pick her up and tries to drive her home, Gideon staggers out of the car after she insists that they stop at the Chattahoochee River Bridge. She mounts the guardrail and makes as if to jump. Tina talks her down with a story about two best friends who were also social outcasts from fifty years earlier. These two women ended up saying the hell with conventional society and eventually travelled the world together. The story ends with Tina telling Gideon that could be “us, too”. A sniveling Gideon relents, and Tina is able to get her safely home. The two later make a toast to being “Atlanta tough”, like the city they live in.

The very next day, a badly hung-over and hurting Gideon is called into the big boss’s office. She quakes with fear at the thought of losing her job, but after he delivers what sounds like a pompous prelude to sacking her, he proceeds to promote her in light of her excellent sales record and gives her authority over her colleagues. He then lets her abusive co-workers (and now underlings) know she has power over them, much to Gideon’s pleasure and their clear dismay. Somebody’s head may soon roll.

In the meantime, Tina’s relationship with the writer Ned seems to be moving forward nicely, although she hasn’t been able to get him anywhere near her bed. He procures three tickets to an upcoming Hawks basketball game and for some reason invites both Gideon and Tina. However, Gideon has previous plans to meet with her family for her father’s birthday, so Tina’s super-Hawk’s fan dad Milt goes in the alternative.

Tina and Milt are thrilled when Ned introduces them to one of the Hawk’s big stars at the end of the game. But after dropping off her dad, Ned makes excuses to close down the evening with Tina, much to her growing frustration with his lack of physical advances. As Ned departs, Tina promises herself that she will come on to him like a tiger the next time they meet.

Meanwhile, Gideon receives unexpected support from her own father at his birthday dinner, especially after her overbearing mother and bimbo sister offer her their usual unwanted advice. He scolds them both and professes his pride in Gideon’s accomplishments. Knowing her dad is on her side, Gideon heads home feeling much better about herself.

A few days later, Ned arrives surprisingly early at the women’s apartment, supposedly to return Tina’s Hawks scrapbooks. After Gideon implores Ned to treat Tina well, he reveals that he likes Tina a lot but actually has romantic feelings for someone else; Gideon herself! Gideon has to this point hidden her attraction to Ned, but when he shamefacedly makes to leave, she comes clean about her feelings. The two of them realize that they both want much more from each other. Tina walks in on them and straight into the bad news.

Tina is devastated. She staggers out of the apartment and drives to her family home where she watches her inebriated father through the living room window as he hollers profanities at the Atlanta Hawks on TV. She then heads to the Chattahoochee River Bridge, pulls the car to a stop and walks to lean far out over the guardrail…

One year later, Ned and Gideon are married and living together. Gideon is five months pregnant. They are obviously still in love but clearly sad about missing Tina. Their remarks to each other suggest she may be dead.

In the final scene, an Australian man, obviously on a long back-packing trip walks down the aisle of a train traveling through the Swiss Alps. He comes to a stop in front of someone reading a travel guide, the same guide he has in his hand. He asks if he can sit and the other passenger lowers her book. It is Tina! She grins broadly, motions him to sit and they begin talking excitedly about their travel plans. As the story closes it is clear that they have taken a real liking to each other.

US, TOO.