Lex (short for Alexis), our main protagonist, lives in a small town outside of Manchester. Her mother, Jane works away alot, leaving the girl with a lot of time to herself. Her father was never a present force in her life. At 15, Lex looks old for her years, and certainly tries to act it.
Her on-off boyfriend Keiran, is 18 and leads her into an unfriendly world of drugs and partying.
After a particularly heavy night out, Lex and Keiran are together in a park, floating around aimlessly and generally doing things one might consider appropriate when in an intoxicated state. Here, Kerian enters into an argument with another, unknown man, which ends in the other man being stabbed.
Lex runs home. (None of this is actually seen/found out until later on in the film)
The following morning, she wakes up with her memory of what happened vague, though a definite sense of fear at what has happened. She looks out the window and sees Keiran standing outside her window, waiting for her. Slamming the curtains closed again, she quickly grabs a few things and runs out of the house.
From here, Lex goes to Manchester to live with other 'friends,' which only fuels her growing addiction to drugs and alcohol. She is a mess, regularly going to clubs and parties and socializing with the wrong kind of people. The place where she is staying is run down and generally unkept. It is rarely cleaned and dark, dank, etc - not a very welcoming atmosphere.
The girls mother pleases herself with the idea that Lex is staying with friends because of a school-exchange trip within the district. She calls her regularly (at first) and is always reassured that things are fine.
A few months after moving, Lex literally runs into a boy called Chris.
Over time, they fall in love. Chris provides the idea of a new life for the young girl. He is clean cut and a good influence on Lex - basically a typical 'nice guy - prince charming' figure.
One night, Keiran, who has constantly been trying to track down Lex since she left, comes to the student accommodation when Lex is staying with Chris. Alone at the time, Lex opens the door to him and is shocked! Kieran barges in and starts threatening her/ telling her how much he loves her and reprimanding her for leaving in the first place. Hysterically, Lex tries to get the boy to leave, to no avail. There is a struggle.
Chris arrives home and throws the obviously 'high' Kieran out of the flat.
He then calls Lex on her mobile, which she, intending to give him a piece of her mind, answers. Kieran tells her that he is on the roof of their building and will jump unless she talks to him.
Hesitantly, Lex and Chris climb to the top of the building to see if these threats hold any truth.
Ultimately, Kieran jumps but lands, injured on a balcony two floors below. He is taken to hospital, and then to a rehabilitation type place to deal with his problems. Lex moves back home to her mother, who upon finding out about the past few months was distraught. However, after finishing college, Chris follows her down there. The ending scene would be one of him meeting Lex from her school, for all the world looking like an ordinary couple.
Synopsis of our sequence.
We open with the sound of a male voice, walking. This is on a blank screen, he is angry/insulting, not a nice person. (It's Kieran). No we cut to an extreme close up of Lex's eyes, open and staring upwards with a glazed look. Slowly, we zoom out from here and see her in full, lying on her bed, partially dressed. The room around her is a mess. Clothes and the like are strewn haphazardly across the floor, along with discarded alcohol bottles and cigarette packets etc. (We cut to close ups of a few of these things). We here a diagetic un-naturally loud beeping sound which turns out to be the girls mobile phone. A message is visible on the screen 'Kieran - What happened last night? I need to see you now.' Music kicks in at this point, starting off quietly and growing louder. Sighing, the girl stands up and casts the phone aside. Her appearance is messy - makeup smudged and hair all over the place. She walks, expressionless to the window and pulls open the curtains. At this point, we see a high angle, point of view shot of her looking out of the window. Kieran is in the garden, leaning on the fence and casually smoking. Hoping the boy didn't notice her, she quickly closes the curtain and turns around. She looks panicked.
Without another thought she roughly begins stuffing a few items into an old, worn rucksack - obviously at this point scared as her phone starts to ring. She snatches up the offending item, rejects the call and throws this too, into the bag. She throws on a jacket, lights a cigarette, pocketing the others and leaves the room. Cautiously, she descends the staircase (shown in a high angle to suggest her vulnerability). We track her through the hallway and out of the front door, which she shuts almost silently behind her, then down the street. Throughout this sequence the titles appear and disappear from the screen almost unnoticeably, until finally the title flickers up at the very end. 'Break'
Flashbacks
We have three flashbacks, throughout the part of the scene where Lex is packing up her things. All are reasonably short.
- Lex is talking to another guy. This is an innocent conversation - clearly a friend. Filmed from a long shot.
- There is a shot of Kieran, medium shot. He looks angry. Tracking shot of him walking towards Lex and James. Lex motions for James to go away.
- Finally, Kieran imposing in her personal space. He pushed her against the wall. Long shot to medium shot.
Character Synopsis.
Lex
- 15 years old.
- Attractive. Looks older than she is, though fundamentally still acts her age.
- Lives just outside of manchester.
- Only child, never knew her dad.
- Naive
- Experiments with drugs/alcohol etc
- Trusting of people
- Impressionable
- Likes to have a male presence in her life for protection etc.
- Likes 60-80s type music
- Wants a normal life, but doesn't know how to attain this.
Kieran
- 18 years old
- We don't know anything about his family - he grew up in foster care.
- He lives alone.
- He has a tendency to cling on to powerful influences in his life. (eg Lex & drugs.)
- Strong dependency on drugs. Doesn't think he can live without them.
- Good person at heart, just gets caught up in his environment
- Doesn't think he's worthy.
Chris
- 17 years old
- Lives in Manchester.
- Has a loving family of mum, dad and twin sisters!
- Goes to college
- Very intellectual and academically focused.
- Is attracted to Lex because he can see that she is a good person. Sees her for who she is
- A bit of a geek.
- Very loyal
- General level of awesome.
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