TITLE: THE SNOW GOOSE

FORM: SP   PAGES: 126

AUTHOR: Brian Cowden & James V. Hart

TIME: prologue: ancient times, the 1930’s, mid-1960’s

SUBMITTED TO: I. Moussa

LOCATION: England    SUBMITTED BY: Elie Samaha

GENRE: Fantasy    RECEIVED:

ELEMENTS: Involvement w/ Twentieth Century Fox

ANALYST: Karen Heckler COVERED: 8-6-98

Logline: FRITHA LOCKHART MCKENNA buys the seaside property of her childhood. We travel back in time as she re-lives her youth with the Snow Goose who led her to the deformed, mysterious artist, RHAYADER.

READER RECOMMENDATION: CONSIDER

Synopsis:

We zoom in on marsh & grasslands, as though we were flying. We see Essex, on the coast of England, as it was when the Romans ruled. We time leap to the mid-1960’s as FRITHA returns to this very same land, just seen in another time. She has bought the property of her childhood. Fritha is glad to be home. She literally breathes & drinks in the earth & the sea. We travel back in time with her to see the land as it was, with a lighthouse & other buildings that do not exist in the 1960s. We re-meet Fritha as a fifteen year-old. She is strong & fearless even as a teen. The air is filled with the sounds of birds, hunters shooting at game & the pre-war planes patrolling the skies.

Fritha has been orphaned & resides with her grandmother, GINNY, her uncle ARCHIE & her cousin WILL. Archie is a fisherman as all his ancestors before him. Will is learning the way of the sea as well. Fritha is compelled to work the summer with these two despite the harshness of the labor.

Her horrible routine existence is broken when she stumbles upon a wounded Snow Goose. She braves the fear of the villagers stories & superstitions & enters the compound of the hunch-backed, gnarled artist & bird "savior" PHILLIP RHAYADER. She has heard that he is a bird "healer" & offers her Snow Goose to him. Fritha is attracted to his love for the birds, his seeming ability to talk with & understand them. His aviary is a sanctuary to them. Fritha is also enthralled with his awesome artistic talent. He paints, sketches & photographs his feathered charges, in flight. He paints the earth as though he has seen it through the birds’ eyes. Fritha becomes Rhayader’s companion, as often as she can. He is teaching her to draw & we mark time as her artistic abilities develop & the Snow Goose heals.

Rhayader is opening up to her, allowing himself to trust something other than a bird. He allows himself to touch & be touched. They have fantastical times together. He has built a winged contraption that he steps into so that he can crudely fly. They have a coronation for the Snow Goose. They set off firecrackers as the geese & other birds depart at the end of the summer. They swim in the plankton together, illuminated by their phosphorescent glow. Finally, Rhayader grants Fritha her wish, that she can do his portrait.

Meanwhile, Fritha’s grandmother has discovered Fritha’s sketches & some of Rhayader’s. Her grandmother is horrified about the association. She packs Fritha away to London to go to boarding school. This, of course, occurs the same afternoon that she was to begin her portrait of Rhayader. Rhayader is primping, trimming his beard & cutting his hair, in anticipation of Fritha’s arrival. This process reveals a handsome man, despite his misshapen body. The Snow Goose flies away at the same time as Fritha rides the train to London alone. Fritha did write a good-bye note to Rhayader, which is destroyed by Ginny. Rhayader is shattered by Fritha’s sudden absence.

The whole world moves towards the inevitable war. How its threats infringe upon every one’s lives is seen as Fritha matures, studying art in London. Rhayader’s lighthouse becomes a look-out for the Navy. And Fritha can’t return home because of the trains being used for troops. Unbeknownst to her, Ginny is dying & the Snow Goose has returned to Rhayader’s sanctuary.

Archie is now more down & out than ever. Archie can barely eke out a living. He drowns his sorrows in drink becoming increasingly meaner. In a sotted state he goes out hunting. But Rhayader takes his kill & orders Archie off his land. When Archie threatens to shoot him, Rhayader stuffs mud in Archie’s barrel, forcibly kicking him off the property. His pride bruised, angry, & in a drunken stupor, Archie convinces other sots to join him in a manhunt for "the humpy."

Meanwhile, Rhayader has come to Archie’s house to confront Ginny. He implores Ginny to forward a letter to Fritha. His candor & demeanor touch Ginny & she promises to do so. However, Archie comes home for his gun & his dog picks up Rhayader’s scent. The chase is on. Rhayader narrowly escapes wounded to sea.

Will & Ian enter the Rhayader’s compound & go on a killing spree. The Snow Goose narrowly escapes & flies to Rhayader’s boat out at sea. He returns to his compound to discover the blood-bath. Rhayader picks up the bloody club left behind by Will & Ian & heads into town to avenge the death of his "family." He encounters Archie in the pub, & blames him for the massacre. As he has Archie on the ground, ready to strike, Fritha runs into the pub & breaks up the scene. She returns her uncle to his home. Fritha is not prepared for her grandmother’s frailty & the mess of the house. She also soon discovers who was responsible for the massacre at Rhayader’s. Ginny gives Fritha the letter from Rhayader & dies moments later.

The burial of Granny Ginny is juxtaposed with Rhayader’s burial of his bird family. Fritha goes to him, as he is finishing the somber task. He rebuffs her. Fritha remains long enough to joy at the sight of the Snow Goose. She then gives Rhayader a parcel & departs. When he opens it, he discovers a story book written by Fritha & illustrated with the sketches he had given her. His work is published. But his joy is interrupted by the shelling at the sea outside his world. Rhayader goes out in his boat to look for Royal Navy survivors. Fritha embraces him, in tears, begging him not to go. Fritha declares her love to him. As he sails away, the Snow Goose flies to join him at sea.

We see scenes of war & Rhayader’s unflagging bravery to rescue the wounded & return them to their battleship’s safety. This bravery wins him the overdue respect of the villagers, including Fritha’s kin. This is juxtaposed with vigil in the lighthouse, until a bomber destroys it. She escapes with his paintings, their book & her life. She is met by her Archie who tells her that Rhayader died a hero.

We return to the 1960’s where we see Fritha caring for the birds as she rebuilds Rhayader’s sanctuary.

COMMENTS: This is a difficult property to analyze. I enjoyed the read, it’s like a fairy tale from my youth. And although you know you’re being manipulated, you’re swept away. It is very romantic, setting the fairy tale of Beauty & the Beast against the back-drop of war. It also reminded me of the Mel Gibson movie, "Man Without A Face." In that movie a young boy is tutored & learns to overlook a town’s curiosity & taboos. In this screenplay, it is a young woman who learns from the tortured soul. She overlooks outward appearance & loves the man for his art, his birds & the freedom he brings to her soul. Although he dies, he lives in Fritha’s heart & through the future generations of birds.

It could be a "three-hanky picture," if it is shot as beautifully as the screenplay paints the countryside & its creatures. The screenplay hits all the emotional marks & should elicit all the right "knee-jerk" responses. There are no real surprises & the plot is predictable. What does work is how the authors have chosen to "color" the screenplay. They have a way of making the predictable enchanting. Even though we know what comes next, the plot beats have an originality to them. It is never really clear, however, why the townspeople hate "the humpie" so.

We have seen this all many times before. But that’s because this formula does work. Whether it will work in this incarnation, will largely depend on the actors involved & the richness of the visual package. If Antonio Banderas indeed limns the role of Phillip Rhayador the prospect of "box-office" is higher. However, the strength of Banderas alone, does not necessarily open a picture. He has made his fair share of duds that appeared on video within a few months of first-run. So I would not "green-light" the project based solely on his participation. This is not going to attract a male audience, nor is it really a "date" movie. This is strictly for Females & possibly older children. It will also not attract the audience that sees a picture multiple times.

STONE CANYON INVESTMENTS

Screenplay Analysis

Title: THE SNOW GOOSE

Genre: Fantasy

THE PROPERTY’S POTENTIAL:Consider

WRITERS’POTENTIAL: Consider

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