Once Young

Synopsis

Rewritten August 2023, Once Young is both a saga and a fairytale of the young life of Tracy Wainwright spanning when she was six years old till 28. It's a story about love. It's also the story of a troubled teenager George and his struggle to come to terms with the loss of his parents and the responsibility of caring for his much-younger sister.

[TO PRODUCERS: please note from the start that Once Young is 190 pages long with a huge cast and many-upon-many settings and locations. Please do not waste your precious time if involvement in the making of an over-three-hour film with huge costs are key factors in your decision-making. Another screenplay, We Were Young Once, available on ISA, is a shortened version of Once Young, but is sufficiently different to be able to stand on its own as a story. Please check out this one if Once Young is prohibitive in length and cost].

George, 17, a top student, is traumatised by the senseless death of his parents at the hands of two criminal youths. He quits school to better look after his much younger sister, Belle, and to devote himself to professional boxing. In caring for Belle, he is assisted by Su-Ann, sister of his corner man, Tan.

At nights George prowls the streets looking for the two criminal youths. Months later, now 18, George is stalking someone he thinks is one of the two killers but instead saves 18-year-old Tracy from being the first victim of a serial killer to-be.

Romance blossoms between the two teenagers. However, trouble follows: 38-year-old celebrity lawyer, Michael, married and father to a teenager, is obsessed with Tracy; Su-Ann, who has quietly loved George, sees Tracy as a threat.

Michael, who has ingratiated himself with Tracy as her lawyer, creates a ruse which has Tracy keeping away from George. However, as Michael has intended, George suffers believing Tracy has dumped him. Distress follows for both teenagers before they re-engage with each other.

George finally catches up to one of the two youths, Wes. On the verge of killing him, George breaks down and sobs. He visits the graves of his parents – and, in an instance of magical reality, the parents appear, his father informing him it is the other youth (Buster) who is the sociopath. George is shocked to learn Wes has killed Buster.

Meanwhile, Michael and Su-Ann join forces to frame George for the theft of Tracy's emotionally valuable items. Overwhelmed by the contrived evidence, Tracy breaks off with George.

On a cliff’s edge, a distraught George contemplates life without Tracy. About to leave, he slips and falls over the cliff. Tracy, believing he committed suicide, suffers unabated guilt. As she is about to jump off the same cliff, she is talked out of it by a friend.

Having been saved by fishermen, George reunites with Tracy.

Tracy attends a party, which is gate-crashed by a ruthless gang of three. The sequence puts Tracy’s principles (and her life) to the test, principles her father taught when she was six.

The gang plays a game of he-or-you when recalcitrant Tan is targeted for execution. All present are given the option to die for him, including sister Su-Ann, who refuses to do so. Tracy, abiding by the principle of “never pass on the bad meant for you”, shakily agrees. This brings the so-far unchallenged universal view of the gang leader into question.

Alternating between reasoned argument and physical cruelty, the leader fails to change Tracy’s attitude. So disgusted is the leader, he wants to shoot her himself but finds he cannot pull the trigger. He asks Tan to save her life by Tan offering his. Tan refuses. The leader gives Tracy a second chance by okaying Tan to take her place, but she refuses.

The leader orders one of his henchmen to sever her spinal cord to make her a paraplegic. The third gang member, who up to now has hardly spoken a word, saves Tracy by shooting the leader and the other henchman.

The story ends with teenagers Tracy and George, contrary to conventional wisdom, marrying each other to recreate the family each has lost.