WORLDS APART ... creator notes

This WORLDS APART limited-series concept has emerged from Mai Le's Memoir by the same name. She and I came together two years ago (via a Princeton Alumni online community) because she felt eager, indeed almost compelled to dig in and honestly tell her unique life tale – she and her family fled war-torn Vietnam to America in 1975 (when she was very young) and progressed through difficult refugee experiences. Then as our series starts, Dao gets into a god college, spends a year at the Sorbonne, then dives into Princeton University as a grad student committed to helping developing countries and cultures.

In later episodes Dao takes a big leap and starts her career at the World Bank in Washington DC, with numerous adventurous assignments in the Near East and Africa – then she unexpectedly moves into marriage (with her college boyfriend), motherhood and a reuniting with family and local Boston life – and several unusual business startups. Her career/business drama runs parallel with fairly wild romantic tales, plus deep inner struggles to recover from childhood traumas – there is loads of intense material in her life story that makes exciting and insightful drama.

The memoir took six months to complete, with weekly recorded/transcribed phone calls and considerable editing. Then when we were finished and the book ready for publishing, we realized we weren’t done yet – because the story seemed so meaningful and timely, we decided to write the film version of her odyssey. So off we went again, exploring how her factual account could be turned inside-out into a thrilling and heart-warming movie or cable series.

A primary screenplay decision was not to tell yet another generic refugee story – but to cut very early in the first episode to when Mai starts college – and go from there. We give just enough of their escape from Vietnam and harsh early scenes in American slums (to shed light on those early trauma times) – then dig into how someone from that foreign background tackles the challenge of higher education (at a mostly-white college) and overcomes many hurdles to move up and onward into a very new life.

FROM LIFE STORY TO MYTHIC JOURNEY

Now that we’ve succeeded in shaping a plotline that covers the high and low points of Mai’s personal adventure, it’s rather startling to look back at the creative process that turned intense real life into gripping drama. Mai didn’t realize when we started, but she naturally possesses many of the qualities required to be a successful screenwriter. Luckily she has both a sharp knack for shifting memory traces into plot twists, and also for writing tight multi-cultural dialog that intertwines deep emotion with non-stop action. Furthermore she has a broad perspective on her personal story, bringing to light the universal themes embedded in her unique experiences.

This WORLDS APART limited series is definitely not autobiographical – we've taken Mai's true life stories and expanded them into fiction where needed. Mai proved to be a champion at revealing painful childhood, romantic and career encounters as we advanced the blunt autobiographical facts found in her Memoir into the compelling fiction stuff that great cinema demands. And throughout, we lived up to our intent of making this an uplifting rather than a depressing story. There's plenty of intense drama, but our main characters know how to laugh, and break into momentary frivolous exchanges that transcend depression and worry, elevating the viewer experience so that hope and compassion ultimately win out over life struggles.

Mai's story will resonate deeply not only with recent immigrants to America but also with all of us. In our own ways we all experience bouts of loneliness, injustice, confusion, depression, isolation and so forth – and so we can all benefit from a deep uplifting drama following a young adult growing and healing and transcending childhood traumas. And of course, we can relish the triumphs, and value the realizations that emerge.

We initially aimed to write a feature screenplay – but soon realized that to truly tell Mai's story we would need at least six to eight hour-long episodes. We've now written the first three episodes, and also an in-depth series bible – and we're deeply pleased with the whirlwind flow of the project to this point. We now look forward to finding the director, funders, production team and actors who can manifest this hopeful vision for all to enjoy and benefit from.

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