Writer of original and adapted drama, thriller, and horror feature films and TV pilots.
"If Thelma and Louise were Canadian teenagers..."
- Reader
logline:
Crystal and Majorca, one abused and one naive, are on the run in 1970s British Columbia.
Both teens desired nothing more than to be loved, now they just want to live.
*The Highway of Tears is a 720-kilometer corridor in British Columbia.
The route has been the location of hundreds of violent crimes against
women and girls from the 1970s to the present.
synopsis:
act one
Suffering a childhood of physical and emotional abuse, eighteen-year-old Crystal takes revenge on her mother’s boyfriend’s as he lays in a drug-induced stupor. She starts a distracting fire, fills her backpack and runs away.
As her adventure begins, a gritty Crystal meets naïve seventeen-year-old cheerleader Majorca who has suffered a tragedy of her own having caught her boyfriend cheating in his beloved, signature car. Given the opportunity she pushes his vehicle into the lake and runs.
Although the girls come from completely different upbringings, Crystal convinces Majorca to run away with her to her grandmother’s house, where Crystal assures Majorca, they will be safe.
act two
As the girls travel along the highway, they meet people both safe and sinister and their learning curve is urgently accelerated. They find themselves committing situational crimes of desperation. One of which finds them with a gun and hiding in the forest.
Zoey Simard is the first women allowed to join the RCMP as a field officer. Because the men on the force don’t know how to work with a female, they create a unit especially for her—the Unit on Crimes Against Women and Children. Zoey is assigned to apprehend the girls but is not given the resources to do so. In addition, the male officers hinder her progress at every opportunity.
The girls leave the problem people of the town only to now face the natural dangers of the forest. When a venomous spider bites Crystal, Majorca must step up and lead them to the safety of grandma’s house while avoiding police capture. Zoey knows time is running out for the girls, so she defies procedure, risks her career, and follows them into the forest alone.
act three
They survive a raging storm and escape an intense fire, but Crystal is too sick and deranged to continue. They are almost at grandma's house—almost safe.
Zoey is closing in on the girls, when she hears gunfire.
Then We’ll Be Safe tells a story about the trauma of childhood pain, abuse, and neglect, and about the lies we tell ourselves in our desperate need to be loved.
