Splendid Isolation
A girl lost in the Alaskan wilderness meets her banished pet tiger — now fully grown. Together they survive many challenges — except, perhaps, one another.
The father takes Belle away from Australia and eventually arrives in an un-mapped Alaskan town called Forbesberry. The people there welcome them and assist the father in caring for his daughter.
One day Belle is given a tiger cub as a pet by her father who found it apparently motherless. She calls it “Stripy”.
However, a problem arises when the growing cub clashes with sled-dogs, killing one. The father is forced by the town council to take Stripy to a faraway wilderness and there release it to fend for itself.
A year-and-half on, on Belle's 10th birthday, a meteorite strikes, its shock-wave knocking Belle off a short cliff. She regains consciousness but suffers amnesia. Inadvertently, she wonders into the wilds where on separate occasions a grizzly bear and a pack of wolves threaten her life, but on both occasions she is saved by a fully-grown tiger.
However, Belle fears the tiger and believes it is holding her captive as future-food. There is tension and several attempts by her to escape.
Eventually Belle recovers from amnesia and recognises the tiger is Stripy. There is rejoicing. But she also remembers she has a father, who may have been injured – or worse – by the meteor impact.
Stripy doesn't wish to go back with Belle. Instead, it urges her to go in the opposite direction where they can live together in pristine wilderness, with plenty of prey for Stripy. They part company as both are determined to go their own way.
A problem arises when a smaller but savage tiger appears. Stripy no longer has a choice but to follow Belle to protect her. Eventually Belle kills the semi-wild tiger, only to realise it's Stripy's mother.
Belle attempts to find prey for her tiger, but fails. She realises the situation is dire when Stripy, starving, attacks her, but backs off.
Stripy defends Belle from another grizzly-bear attack but this time, weakened by malnutrition, suffers a mortal wound.
The final moment for Stripy comes atop a plateau. Try as she may, Belle cannot save the tiger.
The pack of wolves catches up to an emotionally riddled Belle, who has made a death pact with her tiger. Just in time, the father arrives and scares off the wolves.
Belle's trauma at the loss of Stripy doesn't lessen with time and the father is at a loss as to what to do. When he proposes to take her back to Sydney to meet with her now-reformed mother, Belle refuses, fearing her father's arrest for kidnapping.
Instead, Belle agrees to go to Texas, where her father works as a farm labourer. There seems joy in the air, but for both there is something amiss.
They return to Forbesberry where a fantastical happy ending awaits: a semi-transparent Stripy and a joyous Belle come together.
Actor aged c.35
Trained or animated tiger
Call of the Wild (novel)
White Fang (novel)
LATEST NEWS. Today (3 January 2025) I have completed a revision of Splendid Isolation. Some two dozen errors have been corrected and about three dozen poorly worded expressions have been polished.
Splendid Isolation is the most powerfully emotional of all my scripts. However, commercially, it is probably my weakest candidate for box-office success. But, then, surprises happen: how many films that were thought to have little box-office appeal have become hits?
During the holiday season, I'm looking to revise all my 12 screenplays and the one TV/streaming pilot.
ScriptLinks
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Adapted scene from The Seven Rays
This was the Seven rays Script-a-Scene contest, for the book THE SEVEN RAYS, by Jessica Bendinger.
