TITLE: THE DREAMING CHILD:

FORM: SP   PAGES: 104

AUTHOR: Harold Pinter

Stage Direction & Character descriptions

by Julia Ormond

TIME: 1861-1868   SUBMITTED TO: I. Moussa

LOCATION: Bristol, England   SUBMITTED BY:

GENRE: Period Drama   RECEIVED:

ELEMENTS: Indican Productions involved. Director is Julia Ormond. Producers are Milton Justice & Julia Ormond.

ANALYST: Karen Heckler COVERED: 9-2-98

Logline: EMILY & TOM CARTER, a childless couple adopt JACK, who is strangely thoughtful & oddly familiar.

READER RECOMMENDATION: MAYBE

Synopsis:

We intercut back & forth in time between the "past" 1861 & 1862 & the present which is 1868. In 1861 we meet a young EMILY RUDD as she is courted by two men, CHARLEY & TOM. Tom is respectable, the son of a shipping magnate. Charley is impetuous, romantic, spirited & passionately in love with Emily. They ride horses together & take endlessly romantic moonlit walks in the gardens. Tom, a military man, courts Emily is a more conventional fashion. It is Charley that forever steals her heart. They have a stolen night of sexual passion before he sets out to sea. She will relive their romance in daydreams & fantasies throughout her married life to Tom.

At the same time a child is born in the Slums. His mother dies in childbirth. MRS. JONES, present at the birth with the mid-wife, assumes responsibility for him. When the mid-wife asks whom the girl was, Mrs. Jones declares she didn’t know.

Tom brings Emily news that Charley has died of a fever off the coast of China. Emily is shattered, but in time marries Tom. Shortly after their wedding, Charley’s body arrives home & the town attends the funeral.

In 1868 we see the seven year old JACK, who resides with Mrs. Jones & collects & delivers the laundry she takes in. Jack is always thinking. He is a dreamer & does not see the condition of his life. When he is teased by the rich children of the homes he retrieves laundry from, he declares that he will live like them. It is a matter of time before his mother finds him & takes him home. Jack’s squalid life is juxtaposed with the empty life of luxury that Emily lives. She resides in her mansion with a cadre of servants. Her chief role is listening to the cook & the butler work out the meal plans. She also so orders the house that specific flowers only go in specific rooms of the mansion. She is given to dinner parties & parlor games. However she is a detached wife & shows little emotion. Their love making is also fairly empty. The only time we see passion in Emily is when she is fantasizing about Charley. She & Tom have been married for 6 years & are childless. This is of great concern to Tom. He wants an heir, someone to whom he can teach the family business. He asks Emily to consider adoption.

One day, Jack collides with Tom’s coach in the street. Tom takes a liking to the boy & is entranced by Jack’s dreamy demeanor & insistence that he once lived elsewhere. Tom takes Jack to Mrs. Jones’. Inquires about his parentage. Mrs. Jones explains that his mother died in this very room. Tom stays & watches the boy do the laundry with Mrs. Jones.

Tom tells Emily that he wants to adopt Jack. Emily tells Tom that she is not enthusiastic about it, but she will support his decision. While the legal proceedings take place, Emily prepares the child’s room, filling it with toys. She goes to pick Jack up. Immediately Jack takes to her. He tells her that he knew she would find him. He is glad to be going home. Emily permits his affection.

Upon entering the Carter Mansion, Jack seems right at home. He appears to know the dogs & the parrot & the horses in the stable. He plays with the servants & endears himself to the entire household. Eventually Tom arranges for Jack to be tutored & to have religious training. Tom’s father, MR. CARTER, immediately takes to the boy, showing him around the shipyard & the sailboats. He tells Jack that this is his future. Conversely, Emily’s father refuses to even meet the boy.

The boy reminds Emily of Charley. Jack loves the moonlight. He is a dreamer & a thinker that poses interesting questions to everyone. He is a good rider & agile like Charley was. He loves to play practical jokes. Like Emily, Jack has nightmares & is given to wandering the mansion at night. He eventually charms Emily as well. This makes Tom happy.

The couple throws a huge children’s party for Jack, so he’ll get to know wealthy children his own age. At the party, Jack meets a young girl who nastily tells him that Emily & Tom are not his parents at all. She rudely tells him that he was a slum boy who is only being tried out as their son. This disturbs Jack so much that he falls sick with a fever. Despite the ministering of doctors, the couple’s constant attention, the staff’s doting & even the appearance of both of his grandfathers, Jack just fades away & dies.

Emily mourns Jack terribly. She completely withdraws into her dream world. She seeks out Mrs. Jones. Asks her about the things that Jack told her about his childhood. Emily awakes from a dream. She sees a different version of Jack’s birth. In this version the mother does not die but leaves money with Mrs. Jones for Jack’s care. Upon waking, she goes to Tom, who has been in conversation with one of their friends. He has confided that he can not understand what has happened to Emily. He can’t understand how she became so attached in so short a time. He blames himself.

Emily invites Tom to go for a walk in the woods. She tells Tom that Jack was her son by Charley. She confesses her love of Charley to Tom. She tells him about their passion. She also tells Tom that if she had to do it all over again, she would still have had the affair. She asks Tom if he understands. He tells her that he does. We fade out on the couple sitting together in the wood.

COMMENTS:

This is an odd, quirky little story set in the mid-nineteenth century. This setting, & its thought provoking tale, will immediately send it to the art house market. This will probably be a project that is loved by critics & headed for the video market after a short run in the theaters like "Washington Square," "Wings Of The Dove," & "Dangerous Beauty." Although this project is not as compelling as the latter two films I mentioned. I actually think this would make a better PBS series than a feature film.

At the opening of the film it is a bit hard to follow as we time-travel. It is not just the jumping back in forth in time that is disconnected but the incidents themselves are presented out of sequence. There is initially no thread of a narrative structure.

This is also, by nature, a small project & story. It is about 2 dreamers who find each other, the spoiled rich woman & an under-privileged child. Their immediate connection & rapport is interesting. That is what makes his sudden loss of will particularly odd. How life could be so blissfully perfect & then be shattered irreplaceable by the words of one bratty child is unanswerable & quirky.

It is doubtful that Emily is really Jack’s natural mother. It seems that in her dream life, it is safer for her to believe this. How this conviction changes her into openness with her husband, is also unexplained. The feeling we are left with is that the couple will stay together.

I find it strange to critique the odd, haunting, little story by the brilliant writer, Harold Pinter. However, what works on a stage or as a written work of fiction, doesn’t necessarily translate to the screen.

I can’t imagine that Julia Ormond will be able to open this picture beyond the art-house market. Ultimately it comes down to a direction for Stone Canyon that I am not privy. If the company is moving in the direction of smaller, intelligent films, then maybe this is a partnership to pursue. As previously stated, I give this project a MAYBE.

STONE CANYON INVESTMENTS

Screenplay Analysis

Title: THE DREAMING CHILD

Genre: Period Drama

THE PROPERTY’S POTENTIAL: FAIR

WRITER’S POTENTIAL: VERY GOOD

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