Treatment
Allie
reaches her hand up over the top of the rock. She pulls herself over smiling as
she turns around to see the city below her. The camera starts out on her hand
and then her body coming over the rock, then when she turns around it cuts to
the front of her. Then we see Daniel and Ellison Ray almost to the top of the
rock. Danny pulls up first followed by Elli. They all stand looking off into
the distance, no one speaking. It cuts to them in sitting in a circle talking,
the time is definitely later because they’ve been up there for a while they are
laughing and pushing each other around just joking. There is dialogue of them reminiscing
from when they went to school together. Quick bit of dialogue in the background
of music.
The
light starts to fade and they decide to leave, and we see them start their
decent down the cliff that they had free handed up to. Danny is driving an old pickup
truck with no back seat just three seats in the front. Elli is in the middle
with her head on Danny shoulder. The camera is looking at them but they become
unfocused and the camera focuses on the sunset though the back window of the
truck.
They
eat at a restaurant and head home. The next day they start their first day at a
university. They have a lot of fun often going back to the rock they climbed
that one Sunday when they first moved to this new place. They are always together,
they study together, they eat together and they even make common friends, but
none as good of a friend as they are to each other. We see them playing games
and watching movies. They are truly happy and loving life. Every Sunday they go
to church together and every night we see them individually doing Bible studies
before going to bed. Danny and Elli are beginning to fall for each other, but
the other one doesn’t know. Allie is really excited that her two friends who
have both been confiding in her might end up dating.
It’s the end of October when
Danny asks if the two girls want to have a movie marathon on Saturday. Allie
politely declines trying to get Elli and Danny alone together. Saturday morning
Elli leaves begging Allie one more time to come. After she says no for the
final time Elli leaves. Allie sings and
dances and begins doing homework while watching TV alone. She gets bored and
decides to go climbing on her own. We see her leave a note next to the clock in
the kitchen, by the window. We see the clock move forward and the room start to
get dark. We hear laughter and shuffling as Danny and Elli come back. Danny
yells asking Allie if she wants to go get pizza. The camera is still focused on
the note. It gets picked up and then dropped as we hear a door slam shut and a
truck start. It’s dark when we see Danny
leaned over a lump we can’t identify. We can’t hear anything but we see Danny
yell at Elli who pulls out her phone and starts pacing. Through this we hear laughter and the screen
is starts showing children playing. Allie died.
When
Allie dies, it is really hard on Elli, they were best friends and now she is
gone. She feels really guilty because she is the one that taught Allie how to
climb. At the funeral Elli sits next to Allies parents. After the funeral her
parents give Elli a hug and tell her it’s not her fault what happened, it was
no one’s fault, Allie knew better, she simply made a mistake. Allie felt a
little better but not really. That night Danny and Elli drove home that night
mostly because being home without Allie just didn’t feel right. Danny came over
and they laid on the couch together Elli crying and Danny trying to comfort
her. He held her until she fell asleep and then carried her to bed and went
back to the couch and started crying. Holding a blanket he’d grabbed from Allie’s
room. He laid back down covered in her blanket and fell asleep not wanting to
go back to his dorm room with a roommate he hardly talked to. The next morning he
woke up and realized it was Sunday. He went into Elli’s room to wake her so she
could get ready for Sunday school. She rolled over and said she’d go next Sunday.
He sat down on her bed and gave her a hug and said he’s be over as soon as the
service ended. He went home and showered and put on his suit. He went to
church. Everyone was telling him how sorry were they were and asking about Elli
and how she was holding up.
Climbing
had always been an escape for Ellie but right now she knew she could never
climb again. Every time she would reach for a place to put her hand she would remember
that Allie had not found one. Elli only knew how to deal with things by climbing,
that’s how she solved everything. And now that climbing was the probably she
felt so much pain inside. She slowly stopped hanging out with Danny and she
never made it to church the next Sunday. She went to a party Friday night with
someone she barely knew from her history class. She didn’t drink this time but
she wanted to. The party helped draw her thoughts away from the battle within
her. The next time she went to a party though she drank, she drank a lot. The
people at the party didn’t know where she lived so they called Danny to come
get her. He stayed with her all night and asked her to stop partying and to
come to church on Sunday. She said no and asked him to leave so she could catch
up on homework. Over the next month or so, we see dust gather on her Bible
until she finally moves it off her desk and puts it in her closet. Christmas
comes and she heads back home and Danny goes back to Ohio with his family. We
can see that she is really unhappy at home just sitting around. On Christmas Eve
while her family is at church she sits in her room staring at a picture of her
and Elli. After a few minutes she grabs the picture and throws it on the ground
shattering it. The screen goes to black
and the next thing we see is people coming back to their apartments and dorm
rooms because Christmas break has ended and a new semester is about to start.
It’s
late Sunday night when Elli gets home. Danny has been back all day. He keeps
driving past her apartment seeing if she is home yet. When he finally see’s
that she is home. He doesn’t even knock, he just walks in the front door. “Ellison
Ray” he yells walking straight to her room.
“Danny”
she is in shock because they haven’t spoken in months. He doesn’t say anything,
he just walks up to her and kisses her. The camera circles them and ends on Danny.
“Ellison
Ray, I love you. I’ve been in love with you since fourth grade and I cannot
live without you. We’ve been living without Allie and that’s not fun, I can’t
lose you too. Please stop going to parties, stop hanging out with people who
are not going to help you. Come with me tomorrow climbing.” She starts crying
as she walks to her closet and pulls the Bible out. She wipes the dust off and
asks if they can read it together. They sit down and do a study and pray
together. She tells him how sorry she is and that she loves him too.
The
final scene is Danny and Elli’s wedding. It is on top of a cliff. Sitting next
to Allie’s family is a picture frame containing Allie’s picture. The camera
stays on the picture for some time as the pastor is conducting the wedding. As
they say I do the camera cuts to them kissing. The next shot is the camera
looking down on them as the wedding ends. The camera fly’s over them and down the
large cliff. The cliff starts to fade away and the screen is replaced with a
group of kids playing on a playground. Young Danny says he’ll never get
married. Young Allie says of course you will. You and Elli will get married.
Young Elli and Young Danny look at each other and they kids start
laughing. There is a replay of the group
as they reunited and as they say goodbye, the funeral and a basic replay of
their lives. Amazing Grace starts to play and turns into credits.