Darkness Gives Way
Feature, Drama
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An emotionally detached young woman is released from her caretaker role by the untimely death of her alcoholic mother. Determined to prove she’s not like her mother, she goes on a dream expedition. But when she gets lost in the arctic wilderness, her mother’s memory may be her only key to survival.
Concept
Inspired by the loss of my own mother to alcoholism, and my experience trying to navigate grieving someone who was simultaneously the most loving and beautiful person I knew, yet also the most tormented and troubled.
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Jane, an aspiring nature photographer who pays the bills by shooting local weddings, is locked in a deeply codependent bond with her alcoholic mother. Jane is in denial about the fact that her mother’s health is rapidly declining. She instead clings to the childish hope that her mother will finally get sober one day.
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Jane stubbornly uses her mother as an excuse for why she hasn’t pursued her own dreams. However, when she comes home one day to find her mother dead on the couch with a lit cigarette still in her hand, Jane no longer has a reason to stay put.
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Jane embarks on a dream adventure to icy Lapland to find the Northern Lights, determined to prove she is not her mother’s daughter.
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But the lights are elusive, and Jane’s trip is coming to an end. Refusing to give up, Jane wanders to a more remote forest, much further North. One she is ill prepared for, and an unexpected snowstorm rolls in.
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This time Jane’s stubbornness leads her into danger, as she soon finds herself lost in the woods with no way out, unsure if she will even make it through this. Symbolic of the grief that she is trying so desperately to avoid.
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Distressing flashbacks of her mother taunt her, driving her deeper into the woods.
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After many tumultuous encounters she is broken, bruised, and bloodied. Decaying animals scatter the forest floor, those who couldn’t survive the winter. Crows follow Jane throughout the woods as she is near death herself, eager to pick at her flesh once she is gone. It seems that Jane is not going to make it...​
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However, she stumbles upon a remote hut with a person inside, thinking she is finally saved. Only to discover a dead hiker inside. Trapped in an abandoned hut with a dead body, Jane has no choice but to face her grief and pain once and for all.
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Nursing her body back to health, Jane forges a plan to find a way out. Jane’s memories of her mother may just hold the key to her survival.
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Finally acknowledging the generational trauma that has plagued them both, Jane chooses to embrace her mother’s memory and allow it to be her guide. Jane leaves the hut and faces the brutal winter woods one last time in a final battle for survival.
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Like a brutal dark winter giving way to spring, this is a story about the seemingly impossible path of grief, and forgiving the imperfections of our loved ones so we can finally be free from the cycles of generational trauma that cage us.
"Darkness Gives Way" Script Copyright © by Rebecca Arroyo
and Registered with The Writers Guild of America
