a bit of masculine/feminine discomfort between them, she runs and owns the farm and he mostly works for her and does some of the hard labour. he didn’t like as much where he was in standing with me but unwilling to do anything about it. Something he just didn’t want to go up against or have the opinion of. better to let is rest.

maybe that attracted him to me or the opposite: the placidity. he sometimes caught my eye when he knew he was doing something above or helpful to me, something even kind that I may not notice, and then i started to worry. we had dipped into something a little less casual and a little more dependent, it seemed to be both of our styles. needing something to lean on, sharing problems and causing more between us. i went to visit Allegra at the feed store. she was prying me for info on him, she went on how this was rare for me. but i didn;t want to talk about it, it was a stupid choice. i brushed her off, ‘ he sleeps in the barn'
she returned ‘hmm, seems like he’s becoming the dog you let sleep in the bed sometimes'
i bought some bags of feed and left.

I don’t remember my I was being so paranoid.

rex and brie

glued to the tv
if he went down he went down fighting
he woulda wanted a show

dad is a loser, son is a star

Ainsley (32) Grew up here. Passing out drinking every so often, sometimes with Pete. Drunk driving incident.

Molly (37) Feed store owner. Married to Patrick, moved here to be with him. Older couple friends to Ainsley.

Dylan (18) (Jacob Elordi) Son of Jackson. Everything his dad wanted to be. He has on/off gf maybe?

Jackson (36) Had Dylan very young. Grew up here. Staying single.

Pete (45) Working at Ainsleys farm. A bit of Wayne. Bit of a bar hound, has buddies but also a bit of a loner at the farm. What brought him here?

Patrick (38) Mollys husband. Co-owns the feed store and owns a local bar. Grew up here. First Nations?

Location

Find a town with farm history. What they are known for. Town a bit like peterborough, big enough downtown. Bar is on a highway.

Locations
Western/country themed bar
feed store
Ainsleys house and farm
Jacksons house/Dylan's room

History

This is in the early 90s.
Jackson 4 years older than Ainsley, had a brief fling when she was in grade 9 (too young) maybe he stalked her a bit then left her alone and created the narrative to Dylan that she is his mom. He is mistaken thinking she is who abandoned him and his dad. They are all close in age. They have a kind of rapport, but Dylan will never admit to needing or wanting her attention. She just thinks he's a kind of weird/dangerous kid like his dad.

How Dylan came to be Jacksons. How he felt about being a dad, proud which he wasn't expecting.

Ainsley working with her animals and another young horse rearer like the rider. A moment of kindness,
Why a farm why animals? history there
Family
maybe she has a grandmother still alive in town

- embodying the characters
- need more about patrick/molly
- dylan relationships (friends/girlfriends)
- introducing the history, when to reveal
- could just get going and see when to fill in the blanks
- Who is alive in their families and who isnt
- flashback to high school dynamics and
- her driving around

Wants?
Ainsley -
Molly -
Dylan - for Ainsley to acknowledge him but also to know how mad he is.
Jackson - for Ainsley to pay or for her to love him, kinda both
Patrick -
Pete -

What sets off a confrontation

Son gets back from training camp

At the bar, Jackson busts in with his son and a couple friends. Patrick looks up.

Beer for me, sodas for these boys.

Yknow theres an age limit in these places.

My boy just got back from training camp all summer! His coaches want him back maybe to prep him for draft. We're here to celebrate, but dont worry I won't be trying to get these boys drinking. They need to focus.

Jackson already seems drunk.

Pete and Ainsley acknowledge his speech from down the bar. Jackson gives her a proud smile. Dylan also looks over at her in a brief moment while silently his friends laugh and talk.





Other scenes


Spooky music 'newgirl'
Future Events

Dylan friends egg him on to drive up to her place, she has a reputation around town. So maybe he doesnt die but she just injures him??
sympathy and get better cards from town for him.

Scenes with Dylan and his friends, messing with girls elaborately standing them up or humiliating them, burning a big wild fire by the train tracks. shooting rabbits. smoking weed. a conversation about his mom, giving her a scare. then she should injure him. the friends run, still in the car, thinking maybe he should turn back. he hides his identity, and she shoots at him. shocked with what she did
inextricably linked, starts to feel like he may be her son somehow. cosmically.
who is the real mom

Alan Schmegelsky quotes.

Absurdist music, making light or remaining playful of the tone. try and find that tone.
what does she do that humans do.
what is her humanity
sending Pete to the barn afterwards

what makes this a creepy place
what would scare you enough to leave and never come back

The important one is in a yellow box

earlier in the night, pete and ainsley sleep together and she sends him to the barn loft. I can't sleep with you here.

the last house, my dad says about him. laughing

down the road further

what to make them seem drunk and not having thought this through. maybe theyre on a tear spraypainting cars or general mayhem. they knock out her mailbox on the way in.

yeah my dad was telling me in high school she was a real whore.

Is this it? Ryan asked, pulling up to the driveway.

Dylan in the passenger seat. Yeah this is it

They got out of the car, full lights on and radio blasting out of the windows. Ryan shut off the car

Ainsley awake in bed, Pete was in the barn. Further from the main road and deeper on the property. Wearing a big t shirt

Her ears perked up and went to the window.

Ainsley went to a box under her bed, and pulled out a gun. She starts walking down her stairs and pulls on a jacket hanging on the bannister and slips into some rain boots.

She hears them messing with the door to her garage.

She goes out the back door and walks around to the front, a warning shot gone wrong?

she hears sounds coming from the garage but Dylan slipped around to her front door. she fires two times into the air, and clicks a third time but it doesnt go off. Once she has it positioned waiting for some action it goes off again and it catches Dylan. It blew through his hand and into his chest.

Ainsley heard his cry and her face drops, through the dark she can see a faint outline of where he fell. the movement. she runs over, and kneels down to his face.

Dylan?

I always wanted to call you mom,
(so needy its almost ugly)
why?
youre my mom arent you?
what?
a pause,
I'm going to call 911

Ryan and Jake book it to the car from the garage door dropping the paint. They dont see or hear whats happened to Dylan.


Injures his career. Dad is furious and she stays afraid of them. Why would he come to her house?
why did she approach it aggressively and not just call the police?

january 17 2020

nightmares
how she changes as a character throughout, grown up nightmares
her childhood farm, the manoeuvring and walking around of that, how to move through that space in dreams.
how those affected her
how it did/didn't. she lives alone on a big property with means to defend herself. so she can deal with it well enough on her own.
the nightmares involve someone elusive, but also some involve someone much bigger than herself
a giant shadow cast down. outdoor barn lights.

why did i like this obsessive attention? a father and a son
i'm nobodies mother
i get to be one without the painful growing up, my son is grown

taking steps towards your own justice, the law system cannot help. gotta take those matters into your own hands.
what does that mean in this context
losing her dog? maybe a dog figures into this somehow. Somehow into the attack as well.

how men can be parents but will never connect to being a mom
who the real mom is, maybe she wants to come back into his life
how do things lead up to/continue after this event. maybe it needs to draw into something else and not just 'continue'
would she be scared for her life, no because his son has this emotional connection to her
all my life i thought you were my mom but you just didnt want me
'course she's not going to admit it'
i think this story takes some liberties witht he whole mom thing so need to keep grounding it

need to find the love story there too (who is this fool Pete) happy to sleep in the barn and work
what is his inner world like, the darkness, the hammer hitting him on the chest at night
starting to picture whats his name? Patrick. Molly and Patrick. Able to see them a bit better, their marriage better. Clint and Margot, who else. Chris and Brittany? what direction what dynamic
mommy issues

i cant say no
you need me tonight
eat my alive alive
take all of me you can have my life

all these people live on the fringes still, not glamorous lives

Something will happen and it will remind me how often I’ve felt cursed ( car appears driving down a highway
title credits open)


like a warning is needed, this job, your life will now be marked
and there's no going back

whatever i have will infect you too you wont make it out unscathed

like choosing to live with a black cat or on burial lands of an entire tribe of slaughtered indians

like people shouldn't get too close if they don't know what they are signing up for

I'm used to it now, things not working out despite my best efforts but its something more its my fate (find better less cliche word fro fate) that everything will be thwarted no matter how hard I fight

why do anything at all then, thats what I learned

when the world quiets i begin to hear myself think
11pm at the earliest
weekends earlier sometime because i know no one else is working
or not really thinking
its like i can feel when i cross peoples mind
during the daytime hours
and it weighs on me
what i imagine

so i lie in bed thinking, finally able to hear
and so I hear a lot more
no daytime rush
things that should not be
or things that i learned are normal to only hear at night

raw nerve today
afraid mostly

raw resource extracting
requires some force

taboo
how he looks so much like jackson when he was younger and her boyfriend
how being in the same place means the memories never go away
you cant run from them
you just settle in with them being there present
and how they morph over time
a sequence driving by the school as a teen once they broke up, layered memories
seeing him fondly while they were together and then noticing all the things that were wrong
whats the truth
driving by and seeing yourself as a teen leaving school
a time when she saw him picking up his kid there

what was that show, the plains or the desrt.... yellowstone show
friday night lights would still be good

what is going on with the side characters
its hard for me when i cant picture them

risky situations? or just

its interesting that gone girl amy isnt someone that actually exists, its just the manifestation of what men like think is their worst nightmare not a real person at all

raymond chandler classics

measured distance between doors, steps, texture, view, bad dreams the elements that give you an impression things are turning bad
that something that is off
then the switch flips
maybe she goes from her dream, loud loud noises to the real thing
sleepwalking? yesss!!!! i found it

keep me restrained

how he’s blinded to all other possibilities, its just his and hers

a good realization that i haven't totally lost it
that it isnt bad, that its something i can work with

some laughs maybe
like ema how she is the centre of everything and how the plot propels on her own agency

is there a rich part of town? maybe maybe is anyone close to it
bringing all my influences into one
early 2000s kind of security of interior desing but maybe that is the opposite to people, traumatic

father son never talked about it

temp