The Giver movie script ch. 21-23
The Giver movie script
Chp. 21
Father: Enjoy it, little guy. This is your last night as visitor.
Jonas: What do you mean?
Father: Well, you know he wasn’t here when you got home this morning because we had him stay overnight at the Nurturing Center. It seemed like a good opportunity, with you gone, to give it a try. He’d been sleeping so soundly.
Mother: Didn’t it go well?
Father: That’s an understatement. It was a disaster. He cried all night, apparently. The night crew couldn’t handle it. They were really frazzled by the time I got to work.
Lilly: Gabe, you naughty thing.
Father: So, we obviously had to make the decision. Even I voted for Gabriel’s release when we had the meeting this afternoon.
Jonas: Release?
Father: We certainly gave it our best try, didn’t we?
Mother: Yes, we did.
Lilly: *Nodded with agreement too*
Jonas: When? When will he be released?
Father: First thing tomorrow morning. We have to start our preparations for the Naming Ceremony, so we thought we’d get this taken care of right away.
Father: *Looking at Gabriel* It’s bye-bye to you, Gabe, in the morning.
Jonas leaves town*
Jonas: Morning meal Gabe!
Jonas: Sorry, Gabe. I know it’s morning, and I know you just woke up. But we have to sleep now.
*He cuddled the small boy close to him, and rubbed the little guys back, then he pressed his hands firmly and transmitted a memory of deep, contented exhaustion. Together the fugitives slept through the first dangerous day.*
*The most terrifying thing, was the planes,. By now days have passed; Jonas no longer knew how many. The journey had become automatic: the sleep by day, hidden in underbrush and trees; the finding of water; the careful division of scraps of food, augmented by what he could find in the fields. And the endless, endless, miles on the bicycle by night.
22
*now the landscape was changing. It was a subtle change, hard to indentify at first. The road was narrower, and bumpy, apparently no longer tended by road crews. One night Jonas fell, when the bike jolted to a sudden stop against a rock. He grabbed instinctively for Gabriel; and the newchild, strapped tightly in his seat, was uninjured, only frightened when the bike fell to it’s side. But Jonas’s ankle was twisted, and his knees were scraped and raw, blood seeping through his torn trousers. Painfully he righted himself and the bike, and reassured Gabe.Tentatively he began to ride in daylight. He had forgotten the fear of the searchers, who seemed to have diminished into the past. But now there were new fears; the unfamiliar landscape held hidden, unknown perils. Trees became numerous, and the forest beside the road were dark and thick with mystery.
Gabe: Plane! Plane! Plane!
*Jonas turned swiftly into the trees, though he had not seen planes in days, and he did not hear an aircraft engine now. When he stopped the bicycle in the shrubbery and turned to grab Gabe, he saw the small chubby arm pointing toward the sky. Terrified, he looked up, but it was not a plane at all. Though he had never seen one before, he identified it from his fading memories, for the Giver had given them to him often. It was a bird. In his 12 years in the community, he had never felt such simple moments of exquisite happiness. Jonas knelt by a stream and tried without success to catch a fish, with his hands. Finally, in desperation, he fashioned a makeshift net, looping the strands of Gabriel’s blanket around a curved stick. After countless tries, the net yielded two flopping silvery fish. Methodically Jonas hacked them with a sharp rock and fed the raw shreds to himself and to Gabriel.*
23
*Jonas felt more and more certain that the destination lay ahead of him, very near now in the night that was approaching. He had little hope that he would reach it though. They start to see little white blurs coming down from the sky.*
Jonas: It’s called snow, Gabe. Snow flakes. They fall down from the sky, and they’re very beautiful.
*Wearily he remounted the bicycle, a steep hill loomed ahead. In the best conditions, the hill would have been a difficult, demanding ride. But now the rapidly deepening snow obscured the narrow road and made it impossible to continue. They get closer to up the hill.*
Jonas: We’re almost there Gabe, I remember this place.
*Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill. Numbly his hands fumbled for the rope, He settled himself on the sled and hugged Gabe close. The hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft and he knew that this time there would be no ice, no fall, no pain. Inside his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. They started down. The runners sliced through the snow and the wind whipped at his face as they sped in a straight line through an incision that seemed to lead to the final destination, the place that he had always felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held their future and their past. He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. Downward, downward, faster and faster. Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him; and that they were waiting too, for the baby. For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But maybe that was just an echo.
