Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes story by Chap Taylor, screenplay by Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin.

Dialogue

Cynthia Delano Banek (Amanda Peet): Did you know that my father had a mistress for 20 years?

Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck): No.

Cynthia: Don't lie.

Gavin: I didn't know it was 20 years.

Cynthia: My mother knew about it.

Gavin: Why didn't she leave him?

Cynthia: Because she loved him so much. And she decided it'd be hypocritical to leave a man for cheating at home, when the expensive life she enjoyed so much was paid for by a man whose job was based on finding ways to cheat.

Gavin: Is that your opinion on the law?

Cynthia: What do you think the law is, Gav, at this level of the game, at my father's level of the game, at your level of the game? It is a big, vicious rumble, Gavin. The people who founded this law firm, and the people who sustain it, understand the way the world works. If you wanna continue to live the way we've been living...You have to steal. I could have married an honest man. I could have lived with a professor of Middle English, for example. If he was a moral man, and had tenure at Princeton. But I didn't. I married a Wall Street lawyer. Which means I married someone who lives in a world where when a man comes to the edge of things, he has to commit to staying there and living there. Can you live there, Gavin? Can you live there with me? You're not gonna do anything stupid like leaving me. You've had fantasies, I'm sure. So have I. But we're married. I knew about Michelle. I knew when it was happening. And I knew when it was finished. And I know you love me. You do love me. And I love you, too. I'm your wife, and I want to stand beside you. Just let me help you, Gavin. Let me help you with this.

Gavin: What do you want me to do?

Cynthia: Take the signature page from the living will and attach it to the newly formatted copy of the power of appointment. Bring it to the courthouse, and then meet me for dinner tonight. We're going out with Karen and Carl.

---

Gavin: my father-in-law got me to screw a good man, a decent man, out of his money. And my wife cheers me on.

Uncut version of the confessional.

Gavin: [God's] watching us. He's peering down at us, you know? Sometimes God likes to watch a love story, sometimes God likes to watch a football game, you know? He channel hops. Sometimes God likes a war. Sometimes God likes to put two guys in a paper bag and just let 'em rip.

Priest: God loves you.

Gavin: That is a joke. God is a pathetic joke for losers, and you know it.

---

Gavin [To Stephen]: I was thinking about what you said to me. About the end of the day, about doing more good than harm. That is what you said, isn't it?

Stephen Delano (Sydney Pollack): Don't you fuck with me.

Gavin: I'm not fucking with you, sir. Can you imagine how unpleasant it would be if the judge got a hold of this file?

Stephen: That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen, Gavin.

Mrs. Delano (Tina Sloan): I think I might order the snapper.

Gavin: I'm going to hold onto this file and keep it in a very safe place. But I'm not going to Texas. I'm going to come back into work on Monday. And I'm going to start doing that pro bono work that you recommended that I do. But I'm going to do it from our office. The first thing we're going to do is help a man buy a house.

Cynthia: Gavin, can we please not do this?

Gavin: And I think I would like to be the one to call Mina Dunne. I'm going to tell her that you and Walter are going to give back the $3 million you stole from her grandfather's foundation.... [To Cynthia:] You were right. I can do this. I found the edge. Can you live there, with me? Can you? ... I haven't had a fucking thing to eat all day, I'm starving. So, what are we going to eat?

Taglines

• One wrong turn, deserves another

• An Ambitious Attorney, A Desperate Father, they had no reason to met, Until today