The Road to Glenfinnan

The Road to Glenfinnan Despite all the strategies that human beings conceive to plan their existence, hazard is always an essential element in determining their destiny. Not accidentally, the beauty and spectacularism of a life don’t lie in precise measurements or in highly calculated steps that have built a human’s destiny, but in small and big accidents, whether happy or not, that have completely changed their perception. Likewise, the magnetism that the most well-known characters in universal literature and cinematography exert on us is due precisely to this uncontrollable component of their lives: who would have heard of Anna Karenina if, by accident, she had not fallen in love at first glance with another man?, who would have found out what Sophie’s choice was if her spectacular destiny had not pulled her out of the nightmarish Nazi camp?, who would have learned about the incredible potential of the good Will Hunting if the hazard had not decided to set up the meeting between the math genius and the right teacher?, etc., etc. Not by chance, art has always been a field to explore the limits of individuals, not the perfect balance between personal expectations and the mechanics of destiny, whose charm lies, in fact, in its own unpredictability. The Road to Glenfinnan is a short film script focused precisely on this incredible force of hazard that shapes our interior, surprising a providential encounter of two men whose destines reach to a goal through the magic of confession and writing. Starting on his own in an inspirational journey, Kevin meets Hamish who tells the young adventurer the story of his life. Kevin learns about the joy and sadness of a human existence, synthesizing in his notebooks the destiny of an individual who will give him the courage to overcome the barriers imposed by the world in which he lives, in order to find his own way to true love. Partly the initiatory story of a young man who faces an emotional and creative block, partly a sad tale of a mature man who has known both the beauty of true love and the atrocity of the war, this script excels through a good narrative dose, avoiding cheesy pathos, despite its sentimental consistency. Opting for a kind of fragmentary strategy that illustrates the unpredictable trajectory of the two men’s paths searching for their inner balance, the author subtly surprises the emotional chemistry of the two protagonists who experience the magic ofamor fati, to free themselves from the burden of a life lacking of love, lacking, therefore, of an absolute purpose. This sensible and attractive project. The evocative force by which the author captures the humanity of the characters, exceeds the standards of a conventional narrative focusing mainly on the alertness of the action, insisting on the calm and magical atmosphere of the characters’ pleasure of discovering through the confession or by writing the secrets of their own life story. Not accidentally, the unexpected ending that seems to mark a sort of modern reinterpretation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Travelling Companion, places the whole script in the area of a tender magic realism whereby the author concentrates in Kevin and Hamish’s encounter a parable of the human condition, which will convince readers that the special character of life is nothing more than a consequence of countless smaller or bigger, happier or unhappier events and accidents anyone is confronted with. It has a great narrative and emotional potential that could be explored in a feature film script, The Road to Glenfinnan is a sensible, temperate, intelligent and refreshing project.