THE KINGDOM – SYNOPSIS
Time of year: Autumn
BRIAN has magic powers. He hates them. He uses them impulsively to manipulate
situations in his difficult love life and makes bad things happen to good people.
His best friend + teacher, ROSE, lives on top of Maple Mountain in the northernmost
corner of Vermont. Brian goes to see her and ask for help. He is willing to
give up magic if he can make love work. She tries to help him use his powers
to benefit others, to grow up. She gives him a MAGIC HARMONICA inscribed ‘For
The Pure Of Heart’. (He can only play it when his heart is virtuous.) When
he does his listeners return to childhood and recall their past. When he plays
for REBECCA (love at first sight) to investigate her blindness – the results
are disastrous.
Rebecca’s father, JUDGE FLINT has moved THE KINGDOM (his Kingdom)
– a religious cult where kids are punished for having fun and are encouraged
to spy on one another, where rejected marginals of society have found a Jim
Jones-type home - to the foot of Maple Mountain. He has purchased a maple sugaring
refinery and tree farm from MR. TUBBS. Tubbs has made friends with one of the
children (ISAAC) and learns a) that Flint has been having sex with Rebecca and
b) blew up a building utilizing cult members as ‘sacrifices’. Flint’s
plans are uncovered layer by layer as Brian observes Rebecca under the spell
of the harmonica and as Tubbs investigates his nemesis.
Brian, Tubbs, Isaac (and soon Rebecca) work to unseat Flint and release the
constricted members of The Kingdom.
Everything, at first, backfires. Flint takes a jealous dislike to Brian. Brian
+ Rose ‘freeze’ the maple trees and cause them to spill blood instead
of sap. Flint burns Rose’s cabin to the ground nearly kills Isaac and ultimately
intends to incinerate Brian, Tubbs, Isaac and Rebecca in one convulsive explosion.
Rose dies, transferring her magic to Isaac who inherits the harmonica.
Happy ending:
Flint is destroyed, Brian’s powers ‘adjust’, Rebecca regains
her sight and the Kingdom get a second chance at life.