Once Upon a Time in Manchester Scene 1

Yes, there is more to it than this scene. This is a compression of four years of life into ten minutes. I need to make that clearer.

TOM CHARNOCK, twenty-two, our protagonist, files his degree certificate in a folder with care.

V/O- TOM
After all the graft and all the stress, after all the anticipation of finishing the course and finally making some money, how was I rewarded?

Then he files a Jobseeker’s form- again, in his name.

TOM (V/O, CONT.)
What is wrong with this country?

MUSIC:
Summer in G Minor- Four Seasons- Vivaldi

TITLE:
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MANCHESTER

TOM V/O
The moment I enrolled I was stoned.

INT. UNIVERSITY HALL- DAY
Tom, sat in front of an enrolment desk, is flashed with a webcam. He’s dazed, sweating.

TOM
I only lived about seven miles out of the city centre, but I thought, why do uni like you’re still at college? Besides, I’d never have had the world’s weirdest flatmate, a pyromaniac with a Tolkien fixation…

INT. STUDENT ROOM-NIGHT
Tom’s hanging some shirts when he sees a piece of paper being slid under the door. He throws the shirts down and snatches the piece of paper away, blowing out the newly ignited end of the paper. He opens the door and the said flatmate is laughing.

TOBY (flatmate)
No! Frodo!

CUT TO:
Tom is asleep in bed. A hose enters frame. Squirts Tom in the face, who wakes up and chases squirter (Yep, Toby) out of the room.

CUT TO:
INT. TOBY’S ROOM-NIGHT
Tom and Toby, listening to The Streets with joints in their hands. Toby is wearing a see-through plastic poncho over boxers, plus black shoes with shaving foam on the ends. Laughing ‘til it hurts. There are clothes all over the floor. Toby’s bent double with laughter. Then he yanks a jumper from beneath Tom’s feet and he flies backwards. Toby laughs harder until he literally pisses himself.

TOM V/O
Get into an altercation with an A-list footballer…

INT. POSH BAR- NIGHT
Man trips over Tom’s foot, completely accidentally. He lunges at Tom and they both hit the ground.

EXT. BAR
The doors are opened and they are both thrown out.

TOM
Or visit some famous Manchester venues…

MONTAGE- NIGHT
Tom urinating on the BBC Building, the Granada Building, Queen Victoria’s statue, the CIS building, Old Trafford, and his own cupboard.

INT. STUDENT FLAT- NIGHT
Tom, in this room, watching Apocalypse Now. Brando is telling Sheen- “my God. The genius of that… the will to do that… these men were not monsters, they were trained comrades, these men were filled with love, but they had the strength to do that…without judgement- it is judgement that defeats us.”

LATER
Tom is doing weights, topless, in the early hours of the morning. As girls come out of the local club watching Apocalypse Now. Brando is saying, “If I had ten divisions of these men… with the STRENGTH…” Tom winks at the girls. They wave back, flirting.

LATER
Tom in his room, slaving over the computer. He stops, exhausted and almost subdued. Looks out over the city. Cuts slow down here. Music: Contempt: Theme D’allure plays as he types.

TOM (V/O)
Contrary to popular belief, we actually did work at Uni: very long hours and for no pay whatsoever. It’s times like this that I felt like I was the only person awake in the world.

INT. A DARK ROOM-NIGHT
Tom pours some sugar and milk into a cup of tea. Stirs. Takes a sip. Drum ’n’ Bass music fades up. Camera pulls out: he is in a cordoned-off area of a club where a stall has been set up for people to drink tea. Behind him, everybody is high off the music. Some people are high off something else.

TOM (V/O)
Saw legendary DJ’s Mr. Scruff and Armand Van Helden share a set in Manchester, to name but two astounding DJ’s. There’s no shortage of celebrities in this city. Shame I‘m not one of them…

EXT. CAMPUS-DAY
Heavy snowfall. Whitewash.

Students are lobbing hundreds of snowballs at local scallies, who are determined to make it inside the campus gates.

TOM
Had the world’s biggest snowball fight against some local scallies…

The accommodation hall’s driveway entrance looks like an amateur war zone- the scallies are throwing hundreds of snowballs into the campus, over the gate. The students return fire. Scallies are retreating when the SECURITY GUARDS come out of their booth.

GUARD 1 (to students, heavy African accent)
Okay guys; get back into your flats-

Guard 1 is immediately battered with (mostly student) snowballs. He retreats to his booth, where the windows are instantly plastered with snow.

More students arrive and the scallies retreat, hit in the back with more snowballs as they run off into the ‘hood.

Police riot vans arrive, and are given the same treatment.

INT. CENTRAL CORRIDOR- STUDENT FLATS- NIGHT
Camera crabs across a collection of bottles- whiskey, beer, Lambrini, wine, cider- as if they are skyscrapers on the horizon. A pair of oven gloves lies among the bottles and ashtrays. In the middle of the corridor lies a wiji board.

Camera tilts up. Tom, Toby, Stu and five other boys and girls kneel on the carpet, glasses filled in front of them. On each person’s head, a label is sellotaped with a name:

STEVIE WONDER
JOHNNIE KNOXVILLE
TONY BLAIR
ERIC CARTMAN
LOUISE WOODWARD
KATE WINSLET
SARA COX
MARTIN BASHIR

It looks as though they have given up on the game they were playing. As a security guard walks past, the bottle is passed around. They all take a swig. With the security guard out of sight, a mirror and a bag of cocaine are produced.

Tom, Labelled “DICK”, forms a short line and hoovers it with a rolled fiver.

An ice cube is passed, mouth-to-mouth, around the group.

The girl labelled “TONY BLAIR” necks some Lambrini, finishing the bottle, and plucks out the oven gloves. She walks off.

The girl labelled “MARTIN BASHIR” spins the empty bottle of Lambrini. It lands on the girl labelled “LOUISE WOODWARD”. They kiss, full on, in front of everyone.

“TONY BLAIR” returns with a plate full of large cookies- each embossed with distinct green flecks of cannabis.

Tom, or “DICK”, eats the space cake but doesn’t enjoy it.

INT. KITCHEN-

MONTAGE

A toaster pops up two slices.

A frozen pizza is put in the oven.

The cooked pizza is later taken out.

The Microwave door is opened. The chicken korma microwave meal inside was cooked a little too long and the korma has splattered all over the interior of the machine.

Plates pile up in the sink, in stop-motion fast forward.

INT. CORRIDOR

“STEVIE WONDER” pulls out a ball bearing gun from the front pocket of his hoody. He shows it to Tom, who disappears into the kitchen.

He reappears carrying a watermelon and a stool. He’s already laughing.

Tom places the fruit on the stool at the end of the hall, and goes to stand behind STEVIE WONDER.

STEVIE WONDER fires. The sound is deafening. Everyone covers their ears except STEVIE WONDER. The corridor light above the gun has been shut off by the bang, but the red watermelon flesh has visibly gone everywhere- floor, walls, ceiling, people- it looks like a massacre. Everybody is laughing.

INT. TOM’S ROOM- NIGHT.

The opening credits of the film “Speed” is on TV.

Tom rips the headline section off the front page of “Student News”, which reads: “Graduate Salaries Rise”.

He then sprinkles out a line of a fine, white powder out of a foil packet. Rolls the torn-off paper and hoovers the line.

In the film Speed, an engine revs heavily as it accelerates in time with Tom doing the line. Tom’s V/O accelerates to a manic pace.

TOM (V/O)
The last twenty-four hours of available coursework time crept up on me unexpectedly. It was about time I started my dissertation.

Tom’s hands tremble as he hammers out words, switching between Internet pages, word processor with dull yellow background, course notes, books, fast-forwarding films, listening to Dictaphone recordings…

As his dissertation prints, Tom and Stu play the film game…their room doors are open and the camera crabs quickly between the two as they speak. They look like neither has slept in days.

STU (Austrian accent)
You are like f*****g choirboy compared to me!

TOM
F*****g…. Arnie in Eraser. No. End of Days. S**t film.

STU
Keep it going, keep it going!

TOM
Uh… You know, Burke, I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them f*****g each other over for a goddamn percentage.

STU
Aliens. Ripley.

TOM
Correct.

INT. UNI BUILDING- DAY
Tom races up the stairs, tired, hung over and hay fever allergies in full effect. He barges into the hand-in office- the “place of rest” for all finished assignments- shoving other students aside like they don’t exist. He scrawls on a cover sheet and hands it to the clerk, who nervously takes it off him. She tears a receipt off for Tom, who takes it…

Then Tom violently vomits on the counter.

EXT. STREET- NIGHT
Tom’s been clubbing and has pulled a girl. He’s charming her as they walk down the street.

TOM (V/O)
I tried to walk the straight and narrow, but I just couldn’t stop myself from getting into f*****g ridiculous situations. There were cameras all over the place but I never got pulled over for this.

Tom opens a taxi door as another man cuts in front of him. An argument starts. The girl cuts in to calm things down.

BAM! The man punches the girl in the face, hard. Her head flies back.

Tom SNAPS. He punches the man three times and throws a knee in that drops him. Then Tom kicks him twice in the stomach and once in the face.

FLASH

On Tom’s graduation photo he smiles, proud. Image fades to black slowly.

TOM (V.O)
When Uni lets you out, their job is over. You get no support. You can go to the uni careers advice office, but they’ll just dump a load of leaflets on you and tell you to check the net. As far as your department’s concerned, you’re Alumni. You’re a figure for the pass rates. They don’t want to know you.

INT. RECRUITMENT FAIR-DAY

ACCELERATED FOOTAGE-
HIGH ANGLE
Tom at a recruitment fair, walking from stall to stall, picking up goody bags, dishing out CVs,

INT. TOM’S RENTED HOUSE- DAY
The building is nineteen-sixties-built and probably hasn’t been decorated since.

TOM’S CURRICULUM VITAE

On computer being typed, rearranged, adjusted, new experience being typed on.

THE GUARDIAN MEDIA GUIDE

Being opened, closed, read, written on, the spine becoming creased.

NEWSPAPERS
Being opened, ads being cut out, crossed out, thrown away.

JOB SEARCHING WEBSITES
Being used, Yell.com being searched.

EXT. STREET-DAY
Tom reappears in this montage walking into a job agency.

INT. AGENCY-DAY
Tom signs forms and is tested at the agency.

EXT. STREET - DAY
Three shots of Tom walking through the doors of three other different agencies.

INT. OFFICE OF A COMPUTER SHOP-DAY
Tom, on the phone, with a box of computer software in his hand

TOM
We didn’t mate. We only received nine copies. Please don’t ask me to check again- Oh f**k you, you f*****g prick.

Slams the phone down. Customers look over nervously.

INT. TOM’S HOUSE- MORNING
FAST CUTS

Tom opening a P45 saying “Thomas Charnock” at his kitchen table.
Then another.
And another.

Tom picks up the post. He opens a letter addressed to Thomas Charnock BSc Hons.

The letter reads “EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEED!”

Over this:

TOM (VO)
When you’re a dickhead like me, you dread opening the mail. You never know what it’s going to be. I job-hopped for a f*****g year. I honestly did not have a clue what to do. Every company under the sun had either knocked me back or fired me within a month. I was gonna just f**k it all off and join the Army at some point, but even they might not even take me due to a few scrapes with the law. I thought: one last recruitment fair. One more go. It’s better than being on the dole.