The Victims

Treatment Title: The Victims by Eleni Mitrousi Logline: Five diverse characters play a crucial role in each others lives, being victimized by their own and the others choices, in the early 1900s in the outskirts of London. Treatment: Emma is a 15-year old young woman living with her father Jack in a village on the outskirts of 1900 London. Jack and Emma work as shoeshines and are destitute. One night, as she is returning home from a long day working the town square, Emma is attacked and raped by a shadowy stranger. Emma tells no one. She is ashamed and terrified of what people in the village will think of her if they learn what happened. After two months, Emma realizes that she is pregnant. Desperate, she overhears two prostitutes discussing their own abortions and approaches them for help with her predicament. Linda, one of the prostitutes, tells Emma how to find the midwife who helps them deal with unwanted pregnancies. Emma travels to a nearby village to meet Olivia, the midwife. Linda convinces Emma that she should go through with the pregnancy and leave the baby outside of the home a wealthy family. Meanwhile, Linda has made some secret arrangement with Olivia. Unknown to Emma, Olivia discovers that her father, Jack, is her former fiancé. When they were together, a pregnant Olivia had become gravely ill and lost her child with Jack. The midwives that attended to the ill Olivia informed Jack that she would not be able bear another child. Overcome with grief, Jack decided to leave Olivia and went off to start a new life in another town. Crestfallen, Olivia is slowly nursed back to health by the midwives, who take her under their wing and teach her their trade. To make extra money, Olivia secretly provides abortion services to prostitutes in the area. While providing these services, a conversation with Linda reveals that Jack built a new life in a nearby village. From that moment forward Olivia provides free services to Linda and her companion Anna in exchange for periodic updates about her former fiancé’s new life. Meanwhile, Jack grows ill with a mysterious respiratory disease. Emma and Jack have no money for doctors or medicine. Emma determines to leave her father to find work and hide her condition from Jack and the judgmental gaze of her neighbors. Emma finds work in a wealthy family’s mansion in London, the Davis House. The lady of the house, Mrs. Davis, is an eccentric shut in. Though Mrs. Davis can be cold and confrontational, she shows herself to be a strong and good woman. Mrs. Davis agrees to take on Emma in current condition, though it is later revealed that she disapproves of Olivia. When the time comes for Emma to give birth, she is directed to Olivia’s practice. During labor, Olivia administers a narcotic that knocks Emma unconscious. When Emma wakes the following day, Olivia informs her that the baby was stillborn and that the corpse had to be disposed of. Emma never sees the baby she carried. A fragile Emma returns to the Davis House, gathers her things, and moves back home to her sick father. It is later revealed that the baby was healthy, but that Olivia decided to steal the baby for herself. She is motivated in no small part by the knowledge that the child is the granddaughter of the man that abandoned her, Jack. To keep her secret, Olivia moves to Paddington and opens a new practice under the assumed name of Sharon Whitfield. Olivia, or “Sharon”, raises the new child under cover of her new identity. When the child is five years old, by a chance encounter Linda discovers Olivia’s ruse. Meanwhile, Richard, the son of Emma and Jack’s neighbor, develops a lover’s obsession with Emma. He proposes to her, dangling the chance to get Jack the medical help he needs in exchange for Emma’s commitment. Repulsed by what she sees as a Devil’s Bargain, Emma declares that she wants nothing to do with someone who would be so manipulative and demands that Richard leave her alone for good. Emma’s inner view of her past is revealed when she refers to herself as not being “clean.” After the confrontation with Emma, Richard drinks himself into a stupor and passes out in the street outside his home. While plying their trade, Linda and Anna happen upon Richard, stopping to check whether he was still alive. Realizing he is just drunk, Linda and Anna recount their experience with Emma from five years earlier. The conversation covers Olivia, with Linda recounting to Anna what she had discovered about Olivia’s secret life with Emma’s stolen baby. At some point Richard awakens and hears the entire story. He jumps to the conclusion that Emma was also secretly a prostitute and that she had been having a laugh at his expense. He is furious. Richard determines that he will locate “Sharon” and uncover the plot to make a fool of him. Olivia is living a lie. She tries to forget her past and build a happy life for her and her daughter, Loren. However, when Richard finds her Olivia realizes that she cannot escape her past. Indeed, she wants to make Jack suffer. She lies to Richard, making him believe that Emma was, in fact, a prostitute. This feeds Richard’s mania, leading him to join Olivia in her plotting revenge on Emma and Jack. In telling her story, Olivia shares a photograph of her and Jack together as a happy couple. Without thinking, Richard slips the photograph into his coat. As part of the plot, Richard approaches Emma with an offer to have his “aunt” who works in a hospital attend to Jack. Overcome with emotion, Emma hugs Richard and the photograph falls to the living room floor unnoticed. After discovering the photograph on the floor, Emma wakes Jack. They talk, Jack telling Emma of his time with Olivia before falling unconscious and dying. Emma realizes Richard and Olivia have plotted against her and Jack and prepares to confront them when they arrive. Meanwhile in London, Mrs. Davis receives a letter from an old friend. Mrs. Williams left the note to be delivered to Mrs. Davis upon her death. Once close friends, the two women had not communicated in many years. While reading the letter, Mrs. Davis recalls the closeness of the friendship and the event that led to the rift between them. One night many years ago, the two ladies were enjoying tea together at the Davis House. At some point, they enter the bedroom of Mrs. Davis’ daughter who had been playing with Mrs. Williams daughter of the same age. They are horrified by what they discovered: the two teen girls – Mrs. Davis’ daughter Linda and Mrs. Williams daughter Anna – were kissing. The two moths react in the common way of the times and shun their daughters, forcing the two women to leave their homes for life on the streets as the two prostitutes we met earlier. Mrs. Davis is moved by her old friend’s words of deathbed regret and resolves to make amends with the girls before it is too late. Mrs. Davis prepares to find Linda and Anna to bring them home. Meanwhile back in the village, Emma is preparing to receive Olivia and Richard. She nails all of the windows in the house shut, except for one small window in the kitchen. She douses the living room with cooking oil. And then she waits for the two jilted lovers. Richard and Olivia arrive with Emma’s five-year old daughter, Loren. It is dark and cold in the shack such that the adults do not notice what Emma has done. Emma locks the door behind them. While Olivia and Richard are preoccupied with Jack’s condition, Emma takes Loren into the kitchen locking the door behind her. Emma then lights the fire. While Olivia and Richard struggle to free themselves, Emma pushes Loren out the tiny kitchen window telling her to run and get help. Emma stays in the house to make certain that no one can ever harm her baby again. Not even Emma herself. The villagers rush to extinguish the now raging fire. Linda and Anna are among the first villagers to arrive to help. Linda gathers Loren, immediately figuring out what has happened. Just at that moment, Mrs. Davis arrives. She sees Linda and Anna and begs for their forgiveness. Mrs. Davis, Linda, Anna, and Loren all depart together as the villagers continue to swarm around the smoldering shack. THE END.