film

Recently I set myself the task of writing a character-based screenplay in which story was driven by visuals and dialogue was minimal.

The result was the first draft of The Stock, a feature-length psychological thriller set in contemporary Ireland, written with funding from The Irish Film Board.

Its setting came out of the experience of seeing the effects of four forces - declining agriculture; growth in technology; immigrant labour; and the consequent cultural and economic disenfranchisement of the rural poor.

Its central theme is the underlying psychological truth in folk rituals and beliefs. The characters are two middle-aged brothers, their mother, and one brother’s twenty-four year-old, pregnant Polish girlfriend.

This is an extract from an appraisal by my script editor, novelist Kate O’Riordan:

“ The Stock is a dark and intense work with a deliberate sense of claustrophobia and well delineated throb of menace throughout, culminating in what is essentially a bloodbath. It’s about the rivalry between two brothers and how the characters see new life as a threat to the secret bonds and unspoken agreements that a mother and her two sons have sealed together…... much of the language…. lies in tiny details, nuances almost. Much is implied. It’s a powerful, deliberately stylized piece of story-telling. ”

The Stock is my second screenplay. The first, The Iroquois Gesture, is a romantic comedy, set in NYC and upstate New York, about genetic engineering, intellectual property rights and corporate bonding in the woods.