A brilliant Australian academic, who has lost his faith in God, and an ordinary Bostonian housewife with an extraordinary ability, scientifically prove there is life after death. This is a true story.

(Historical psychological thriller - feature)  ***SELECTED for The Writers Lab backed by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman/IRIS/NYWIFTV September 2018***

PAGE FINALIST 2017. This script has won and placed in several other contests as well. It's been previously optioned and LOI'd by Fox Searchlight, has professional coverage and really wants to be made. 10-15M. Need to attach very hot or very connected director to be able to attract key cast. Pitch pack and full script available.

(I think it could also be an HBO TV film along lines of Temple Grandin though I have not explored this yet. I do also have a TV series pitch: THE GHOST CLUB - based in the same world and same society: the 1st parapsychologists in London and Boston @ 1890, many of whom were famous intellectuals, celebrities, scientists.)

SYNOPSIS:

‘It is only necessary to find one white crow, in order to prove not all crows are black’ –rule of logic.

1890. Darwin’s theories have left many of the faithful staring across a godless abyss. A frenzy of spiritualism has gripped England and America for 3 decades – spirit rappings, séances, trance mediums and ‘spirit photographers’ abound.

Australian philosopher and scientist, Richard Hodgson – a man who has lost his ability to love along with his faith in God is the leading investigator for the Society For Psychic Research (SPR) – a group formed by some of the best intellects Britain has ever seen. Desperate for hope and meaning, their aim is to try and scientifically prove some form of survival after death. With a brusqueness that borders on the rude, Richard has made enemies, ridiculing other scientists who have ‘turned spiritualist’, whilst becoming renowned as a great debunker of fraudulent mediums.

Sceptical about ever finding the genuine article- the one white crow- Richard nevertheless finds himself in America, at the request of top psychologist William James, to examine a Bostonian medium, Leonore Piper.

Within minutes of meeting the unassuming, uneducated very repressed Leonore and witnessing her horrific descent into trance, Richard knows he is encountering something totally different. It’s going to take a little longer than he thought to find out exactly how she does it.

In trance, Leonore takes on another personality - that of a coarse, vulgar Frenchman, Phinuit, who claims to have been a doctor over a century before. He is the antithesis of Leonore: outrageous, lewd, darkly comical - but the information he is capable of giving is extraordinary.

Leonore herself makes no ‘supernatural’ claims about her powers and seems desperate to understand what is going on in her own mind. She is immediately attracted to the beautiful Australian and excited by the serious attention this ‘learned’ man is giving her.

Richard begins a rigorous and, at times, brutal investigation. Arranging for dozens of sittings, gruesome tests on Leonore’s trance state, a detective to scrutinize her movements, until, for the first time in his life, he has to accept that there is no fraud here. That what she is doing and the information she gets must involve at the very least ‘telepathy’.

When Leonore suddenly becomes Emma, his own lost love, Richard’s objectivity is thrown into chaos.

Is she reading his mind, telling him what he desperately needs to hear, or is she, in fact, communicating with the dead?

To prove something beyond telepathy, beyond reading the minds of sitters or those they know, Richard needs a ‘Case Absolute’ : He needs Leonore to produce information that no one living knows, but which could somehow be verified.

And just as he has becomes dangerously hooked, Leonore refuses to continue their work.

Alta, her daughter, is increasingly frightened by her mother’s abilities and is having nightmares. She wonders if her mother is being attacked by the dead since Leonore has constant headaches and bleeds from the nose as well as her womb after the sittings. Leonore herself is terrified she may be mad, may have other people ‘living in her mind’ and has now discovered a detective has been following her whole family!

She will not answer his letters or see him. Richard obsessively swims and takes mind altering drugs in an attempt to experience the other side for himself. Whilst swimming in the ocean, William has to rescue him – it appears he has a heart condition, he must slow down and he is forbidden to speed swim.

Leonore finally gives Richard 10 minutes. He must dig deep and make their relationship far more personal, in order to regain her trust. He tells her about the investigation (she can remember nothing from her trance) and that what she may be capable of proving, could effectively save souls; give hope to all those whose faith has been lost. Like him. And he sees in her a natural wisdom, an emotional intelligence and a keen mind that he hadn’t recognized before. For both of them a long dead passion has been awakened.

Richard persuades Leonore to go to London so his colleagues at the SPR can study her. As they sail Leonore ‘produces’ Emma once again. Richard, overwhelmed, finds himself kissing her. Leonore comes out of trance, responds to his kiss and then is horrified when she realizes he is kissing Emma.

Richard begs forgiveness and has to open himself entirely now. He tells her of his past, how he lost his faith and the girl he loved because of it and how he is responsible for her death because he was reckless.

Leonore has become the person he is closest to and she knows it.

When Richard presents Leonore with great pride to the SPR a glaring error on his part is exposed. Doctor Phinuit, a supposed Frenchman, can’t speak French.

Embarrassed and angry, Richard viciously grills Phinuit, who insists that he was a real person; that Leonore is unwell and in need of an operation. He names an obscure part of the womb. Phinuit is effectively banished by Richard and told never to return as her control. At the end of the session Leonore collapses in a pool of blood and needs life saving surgery.

Phinuit, despite his shady origins, was exactly right and Richard has his ‘Case Absolute’- but at what cost?

Richard prays for the first time in years as Leonore’s life hangs in the balance. When she recovers he is overjoyed and clearly just as in loe as she.

Convinced he can account for the times Leonore ‘makes mistakes’, Richard astounds his colleagues by going public with his belief in ‘survival’ after death. He, in turn, is stunned when his colleagues are non-commital despite his evidence and his reputation collapses amongst the scientific community.

Taking Leonore to convalesce, her trance suddenly returns but with no Phinuit as gatekeeper she can’t stop the flow of spirits and is bombarded, experiencing their death throes. Soon she is permanently sedated and tied to her bed – neither Richard nor William able to stop it or reinstate a control.

Richard wakes to see Leonore walking into the lake, re-enacting Emma’s drowning. He races to the water and swims; pulls her out of the water and then collapses himself. He becomes her new ‘control’ from the other side, her protector, able to stem the flow of clamouring spirit. They are together still and always will be.