Our attention was piqued today by these delightful photos of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the G7 summit. Their chemistry is electric. Their body language is charged. Even in group shots, they can’t keep their eyes off each other.
Nancy, please contact us about our screenplay, titled The European Union, at tips@slate.com.
EXT. A terrace outside the Borgo Egnazia hotel near Bari, Italy, dusk. It’s a reception at the end of the first day of the G7 summit.
RISHI SUNAK and GIORGIA MELONI stand in separate circles of conversation, their backs to each other, each looking a little bored. He holds a shaken martini, she a glass of Prosecco.
They each turn at the same time toward a WAITER (JONAH HILL) carrying a tray between them. They each reach for the same salmon canapé. Their hands touch, then their eyes meet.
SUNAK: Please, go ahead.
MELONI: No, I insist.
SUNAK: I’ve always wondered why we have to call it a canapé, anyway. Why the French get to take credit for putting a spot of food on a biscuit.
MELONI: It is … favor we do for them. They have so little else to be proud of. No Dante Alighieri, no Giuseppe Verdi.
SUNAK: No Roberto Benigni.
[MELONI laughs.]
SUNAK (gesturing toward a Cubist painting on a nearby wall): They say the best French painter was a Spaniard, too.
They turn to look at EMMANUEL MACRON. He is laughing too loudly at a joke told by German chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ, food spraying from the corner of his mouth.
MELONI: And what can the English do so well?
SUNAK: Well, I’m told we perfected rock ’n’ roll. And the handsome international playboy.
[They lock eyes again. A beat.]
JONAH HILL: Uh, so, is anyone ever going to have an appetizer?
INT. A hotel room, the next morning. Light floods through a window, the Adriatic visible beyond.
An AIDE (SIMONA TABASCO) is pounding on the room’s door from the outside.
MELONI (scrambling out of bed): Un minuto! I … I misplace the book of briefing!
TABASCO: What’s going on in there? You’re five minutes late for your meeting with President Macron!
The door opens—JONAH HILL has unlocked it with a universal key card. The aide (Tabasco) enters with her head down, a pile of papers in one hand and an iPhone in the other.
TABASCO: He’s already had three plates of— [She looks up. SUNAK is standing behind the bed, wearing nothing but blue boxer shorts, sheets clutched across his torso.] Oh.
MELONI: It’s a foreign incursion!
We see a MONTAGE of British tabloid headlines (“PM’s Passion,” “Miss Right Wing and Mr. Right Now,” etc.) accompanying paparazzi photos of SUNAK and MELONI leaving various European hotels. A photo of a grinning Macron with his arms around an irritated SUNAK and a grimacing MELONI in Paris is captioned “G3’s a crowd.”
INT. A spacious apartment in Rome. It’s three months since the summit. Meloni’s mother (ISABELLA ROSSELLINI) is bringing two cups of espresso from a kitchen to a table where MELONI sits.
ROSSELLINI: And you think he would do that?
MELONI: I think he’s a man of his word.
ROSSELLINI: Trust me, men never are.
MELONI: And what makes you such an expert on men?
ROSSELLINI: Well, I married four of them.
EXT. The grounds of Eton College. Security officers watch from a distance as SUNAK strolls with his old roommate (DOMHNALL GLEESON), now a successful columnist who supports the Labour opposition.
SUNAK: She likes me.
GLEESON: She likes the idea of you, mate. She likes the excitement. It gives her something to do at these things besides listening to Olaf Scholz tell her for the fourth time that he would have helped pull down the Wall if he hadn’t had to take his mum to the otolaryngologist.
SUNAK: She likes the idea of me?
GLEESON: And she likes the idea of 15 pence off the tariff on petrol.
INT. a busy central office in 10 Downing St., noon. The deputy prime minister (RICHARD E. GRANT) and the prime minister’s chief adviser (NAOMIE HARRIS) are having a walk-and-talk.
GRANT: Are you telling me the election is in three days and the prime minister is not in the country?!
HARRIS: He’s in Florence!
GRANT (increasingly hysterical): What’s he doing there??!!
HARRIS: Uh … admiring Europe’s great cultural treasures?
CUT TO: INT. Florence hotel room, day.
SUNAK feeds MELONI grapes in bed.
SUNAK (to Meloni): There’s only one voter whose opinion I’m interested in any more, and it’s a funny thing—she’s not bloody eligible.
MELONI (chewing on grapes): I’ve spent years consolidating power and demonizing migrants. It’s time to think about me.
INT. BBC studios. We see a BBC ANCHOR giving a report. A chyron at the bottom of the screen reads BREAKING: SUNAK TO STAND DOWN, MELONI DROPS FdL
ANCHOR: The PM says he plans to move immediately to Rome to take the position of “Co–Secretary of Peace” in Meloni’s government. And she says her new party will encourage, not demonize, migration to the Mediterranean country.
MELONI (at a press conference in Florence): There’s one immigrant in particular I’m most excited to welcome.
SUNAK (standing between Meloni and Roberto Benigni): And Roberto and I can’t wait to get started on our work.
FADE TO BLACK
FADE IN
EXT. The terrace outside the Borgo Egnazia where we first met SUNAK and MELONI. More time has passed. ROSSELLINI and GLEESON stand on either side of a small stage. Panning over rows of guests, we cut to a side room in which SUNAK is staring into camera, straightening his bow tie. But then he turns, and we see from a new angle that he has walked away from a mirror to join MELONI as she attends to the wedding dress being worn not by her, but by her AIDE (TABASCO).
TABASCO: I just don’t know if was a good idea to have him do it. [On the other side of the room, we see a smiling Macron, who is wearing a wireless microphone, holding a Bible, and eating a sandwich.]
MACRON (mouth full): As a head of state, I am duly authorized to officiate any wedding within the boundaries of the EU.
SUNAK: I still can’t believe you won.
MELONI (to the bride): The French people made the right choice in rejecting my former allies on the far right … and you made the right choice in love.
[MELONI and SUNAK clasp each other’s hands affectionately.]
JONAH HILL (from doorway, wearing a tuxedo) : Uh, so, are we ever going to have my wedding?
A cover of “That’s Amore” by Paul McCartney begins playing.
END CREDITS
FIN