Brief

A waitress from a small town in New Hampshire, who survived domestic violence and trauma in her own family, reaches the top of a fashion fit model career in New York. While trying to find love and happiness, she battles to raise a family, facing harassment in the workplace, physical and emotional abuse in her relationships, lies, theft and even a brutal attack. Dismissed by the institutions that were supposed to give her support, she learns to find redemption and a renewed life.

What We Liked

This is a story about hope, acceptance, forgiveness, and redemption that usually finds an audience who can identify with it, to bear witness to underdogs and victims who triumph in the face of adversities. In turning darkness into light, Darlene's journey is a touching, relevant story that reaches out to every woman who faces (or knows someone who has faced) sexual vulnerability in the workplace, and struggles with abuse from their partners and its long term effects.

Film: This is a compelling story about hope, acceptance, forgiveness, and redemption that usually finds an audience who can identify with it. This classic drama makes the audience go through so many emotions, sometimes laughing and sometimes crying. Because it covers a lifetime, from her 20s to her 60s, the narrative structure allows to work on flashbacks or fast-forwards.

TV: Darlene's story can be told in two captivating ways at the same time: behind the scenes in the fashion industry and in her private life. While she grows in popularity, gains confidence and independence through her work as a fit model, she is also struggling with domestic violence and abusive relationships, dismissed by the institutions that were supposed to give her support (the police and the church). From a dysfunctional family, she strives to find love, happiness and stability, and got married four times. Over several episodes in a mini-serie, she would naturally be dealing with the many characters she has encountered in her life.

Key points:
1. True story
2. A victim who triumph
3. A woman overcoming incredible hardship and mistakes on her way to success
4. Relevant subjects
5. Low budget

Synopsis

It’s 1969. Darlene Parris Young, a 20-year-old girl from a small town called Tilton, in New Hampshire, works hard to raise two children, Michael and Shelley, and to keep the marriage together with her husband, Dick, a lineman just a few years older than her. She faces an abusive relationship, but she can’t get out of it - she saw her mother struggling with the same situation, and also the Cosmo magazine always shows that she can do better as a spouse. While Dick works in two jobs, she decides to add to their income working as a waitress.

While facing harassment at her workplaces from abusive and powerful clients, she meets George Resnick, a kind and gentle fashion photographer who encourages her to become a model. He introduces her to Gloria Nash, the owner of Gloria Nash Agency in Boston. Darlene starts being successful in her new job. Meanwhile, her marriage crumbles, her violent husband cheats on her, and she decides to divorce him.

Darlene meets Angelo, an adorable italian that works as a news cameraman. She moves with him and her two kids to New Jersey and lives happily for a few years. In the end, he decides to have a child, but she can't agree to it or she may lose her model job, which she loves. Therefore, she chooses to go through a second divorce.

Darlene meets Zorba, a greek pattern maker that works with her. Attracted by his charm, she finds herself in a new abusive relationship raising her two children, along with two step children. Blossoming from a shy country girl who does not have a high school diploma and rarely smiles to New York's “Coat Hanger with the Mouth”, Darlene has now a successful career. Yet, at the end of the day, when she goes home, she faces her husband taking away the confidence she was gaining in her work.

In order to escape from that situation, she meets Tom, a fashion buyer who wants to show her an apartment to sell to her. It turns out to be a trap, and he rapes her. After facing the brutal attack, she is dismissed by the institution supposed to provide support -the police. The situation gets worse with Zorba and she goes to her third divorce.

After years of abusive relationships and seeing your children grow up, she decides to take time for herself. She buys a cottage by the sea, starts working less and enjoying life more. Then she meets Edward, an investment businessman with whom she marries in her 60s. Still carrying life’s bruises all the while, she turns dead ends into hope and, finally, she realizes that forgiving her father's attitude towards her mother, after a life traumatized by war, would change her own perception of life and relationships.

About The Author

Darlene Parris Young had a 50-year successful career in the modeling industry, lending her figure to world renowned designers such as Coco Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and others. After being the victim of an abusive father and husbands, Darlene became an advocate for women. A mother of two grown children, she retired and lives with her husband in South Carolina. ‘Unzipped’ is her first book.