Projects I Powder
Story Outline I Powder
Every mile brings her closer to freedom. Every minute takes him closer to death.
A road movie with a ticking clock.
M25, London . A 60-year-old woman and an 18-year-old boy drive to Glasgow. The Woman is delivering The Kid to his execution. His crime? To have poisoned the daughter of Glasgow crime boss, known as The Man. The Kid is chained to the floor of the car. By delivering him to Glasgow the Woman is paying her final debt to the Man. Should be simple. But it’s a long journey. It’s hard to stay silent for 500 miles.
POWDER is the story of their journey. Frightening, intense, and tender, the trip alters everything for both of them.
After a failed attempt to escape at a service station, The Kid persuades The Woman to let him visit his family home in Northampton, one last time. She agrees, attaches an ankle tracker, and accompanies him into the house. But it is not the family home. It’s his girlfriend’s house. He retrieves a secret stash of Ricin from the bathroom and carefully introduces the powder into a sachet of sugar. He intends to use it on The Woman to escape.
But she discovers his lie.
Furious, she forces him deep into a forest to execute him.
Stripped naked, with a gun to his head and pleading for his life, the boy confesses to poisoning Glasgow’s daughter with Ricin-powder, but only because she’d murdered his mum. He had no no idea she was the crime boss’s daughter.
His story jolts the Woman – and disturbs her conscience. It forces her to see The Kid not just as a task or contract, but as the child he is, lost and impressionable - like her son, Danny, who was shot working for Glasgow at the same age as the kid.
They stop for petrol at Blackpool. A quiet connection has grown between them, despite clashes over music, window drafts, boiled sweets and vapes. In the garish neon of Blackpool’s seaside lights, knowing this may be his last night, the Woman wants to grant the Kid his “last wishes”. He senses it. Over deep-fried food and fizzy drinks, he asks about her husband, her son Danny, and the crime boss in Glasgow. Behind the strong façade she too has a story: beholden to The Man for an incident 10 years ago he ordered he to keep a close eye on his wayward daughter. But, grieving the recent death of her boy Danny, and denied seeing his body by The Man, she is distracted and not vigilant enough. Glasgow’s wayward daughter slips between the cracks and quickly falls prey to an addiction to drugs.
They are inextricably linked: the Kid supplied drugs to the daughter, who the Woman was charged to protect; the daughter murdered the Kid’s mum looking for drugs; and the Kid poisoned the daughter with Ricin in revenge for his mum’s death.
Both their fates lie in Glasgow, with The Man.
A bond grows between them. The Woman coaches the Kid how to talk The Man round. She takes him to the vast landscape of the Cumbrian mountains and Hadrian’s Wall where she teaches him how to shoot.
As they return to the car the Kid asks how she knows her son Danny is dead. If she never saw the body he could have escaped, and is hiding somewhere abroad.
It throws the Woman.
Driving into Glasgow, they are silent. Both sick to the stomach. She has warmed to the kid and the thought of losing him, as well as her son, to the vengeance of The Man, unsettles her. Does it have to end this way?
Standing on a tarpaulin, laid out to protect the carpet from blood, the Kid faces The Man behind his desk. Vengeance and fear permeate the air.
Glasgow dangles reprieve for the boy, then snatches it away to replace it with terror and rage and retribution.
The Kid in turn, voice shaking and legs trembling, musters all the charm, and guile, and teaching from the woman, that he can to pitch for his life.
BANG.
The Kid drops.
Shot.
Point blank. To the head. Clinical.
By the Woman.
Unexpected. Bewildering. Shocking.
In the endless silence that follows, overwhelming loss washes through The Woman’s life.
The Man, incandescent with fury, rages at being denied the vengeance he desired.
But she doesn’t hear any of it. She sees the Man for what he is, teasing the kid with freedom whilst all the while knowing he intended to make the Kid suffer longer and slower than his daughter’s slow death from Ricin poisoning. She could never let that happen. Not now. Not after their long journey together. The kindest she could be was to spare the Kid this painful end.
Before she leaves, she takes the Kid’s Ricin-filled sachet of sugar and secretly pours it into the Man’s tea. She makes sure he drinks it before she leaves. Her debt is repaid.
Returning to her car she sees a note left on the seat, her name written on the front. “ANNIE”. The first time we find out her name. The note has a roll of money with it that says:
“FIND DANNY”.
Signed “MATT”. The first time we learn the Kid’s name. He is no longer a package, or delivery, or contract. He is Matt.
Annie throws the car into gear and drives off across the mountains.
Matt has given back Annie her name, and a purpose: to find her son, Danny.
© Marc Jobst
Mood Boards I Powder
Every mile brings her closer to freedom.
Every minute takes him closer to death.
A beautiful, brutal road trip.
Director Statement I Powder
POWDER is a character-led road movie with a ticking clock. Both characters have a deadline to meet, but with reverse outcomes: each mile takes The Woman closer to freedom; every minute leads The Kid closer to death.
From the cold, transactional purpose of the journey the film gradually pries open the heart of the characters and we begin to understand and fall in love with them both. What has The Kid done to warrant this fate? Why is The Woman contracted to deliver him? Does it have to end like this? The skill in the writing is to continually make us ask questions, to take time to answer them, and to find the warmth and humour within the shadows.
POWDER is an actor’s film, with two outstanding lead roles that can deliver a truly memorable relationship. As with movies like Three Billboards, Manchester By The Sea, American Honey, Moonlight or Rider, the characters seep into the audience’s mind and linger for days.
The film needs to feel present tense, unfolding, minute-by-minute, with the characters. Scenes should always feel immediate, with every next moment a discovery. That means shooting with a fluid camera, probing and responding with long takes that don’t rely on traditional coverage.
Half way through their journey they arrive in Blackpool. Their growing bond allows them to let go – liberation from the pressure of their fates before Glasgow.
The garish colours, loud groups, playful release in the fairground becomes the backdrop to their growing closeness, creating a bright, dizzying whirl.
Recognising their closeness to Glasgow, and the finality that brings, the evening becomes the equivalent of the Kid’s last wishes and both he and the Woman enjoy a night of freedom.
The morning after the night before brings pulses of adrenaline and a stark reality. As they drive closer to Glasgow the tone changes: from the bright oblivion of Blackpool, to the bleak landscapes of the Cumbrian hills.
The camera opens up, setting the characters small against a vast backdrop. The space, sky, silence, brings an intensity and claustrophobia to the story, paralleling the dread of their emotions. The palette becomes raw: colour is more natural; sounds become close intensifying their aloneness; uncoated lenses convey fragility.
They speak less; they internalize more. Silence plays its part.
We’ll shoot in story order, progressing up the country with the car, the characters and the story. There are deliberate references to the world outside their car: what life, what story, is held in the person or car passing by?
Chemistry between the actors is key. We move from distance between the characters, to a closeness that echoes the shared mother/son relationship both have lost. In rehearsal we’ll play with character - away from script – the more detailed and precise we can be, the more universal the story becomes.
POWDER is tough, bold, honest, tender. At the beginning it appears to be the Kid’s film, but quickly reveals itself to be The Woman’s. The Woman is finally named: Annie. The boy too: Matt. He ultimately brings her closer to herself and to her lost son and asks us to look behind the instant judgments we attribute to people. POWDER starts with a contract, but ends in a friendship, making Annie’s decision at the end ever more heart breaking and memorable.
© Marc Jobst