Plot Outline

In my previous post I alluded to my next post fleshing out the plot, so here it is, my plot summary of the entire film!

            Dinah is struggling to cope with her best friend’s recent and sudden death from a tragic accident. The film opens with Dinah revisiting their favorite place to spend time together, the beach. Her voiceover begins and she explains the importance of the place she is in. Dinah is numb at this point, her pain still raw and unforgiving. She leaves the beach and gets into her car and subsequently arrives at the house of the deceased friend, Alice. While going through Alice’s belongings she gets nostalgic and flashes back to fond memories of when she and Alice were together and having fun. 

            While she is at the house she has a harrowing encounter with Alice’s mother, who has become an alcoholic in the wake of her daughter’s death. Alice’s mother, Dorothy, is enraged when she finds Dinah going through Alice’s things. Dorothy berates Dinah for being a bad friend and accuses Dinah of causing Alice’s death. Her husband comes and pacifies her and politely asks Dinah to leave. Distraught and upset, Dinah leaves the room and walks to the front room. She discovers Alice’s notebook under the shoe rack after her keys slid under the rack while she was on her way out to the door. She tucks the book into her bag and leaves.

            At home, Dinah begins to read the journal. Alice’s voice over begins as she describes her new found friendship with Dinah. Further reading reveals that Alice was not always honest with Dinah and that in the beginning she became Dinah’s friend as a joke. In the last few entries, Alice describes her genuine love for Dinah and how much she valued their relationship. Dinah begins to cry and angrily rips out the first half of the book and burns it. 

            The next day, Dinah announces her intention to have a memorial for Alice, held at the beach. Her parents help her plan it with materials and money. The memorial is decided to be taking place the following friday at the beach. Unexpectedly, Alice’s old friend group offers to help set up the memorial. Due to this kind gesture, Dinah tells her parents they do not have to take off work to help her since she has a group of people to help her. The group of girls volunteer to hand out the invitations but they don’t hand them out. Instead, they inform Alice’s mother of what Dinah is planning. 

            The day of the memorial arrives and Dinah is waiting for her new friends to show up, but they never do. Alice’s mom arrives and apologizes for her previous actions. Together they set up the beach memorial and are the only people in attendance. Dinah confesses her true feelings about Alice’s friends and Dorothy confides in Dinah that she thinks one of Alice’s friends is responsible for her falling into a ravine. Dorothy reveals she conducted her own investigation of Alice’s death and discovered Alice had evidence of her old friend, Tiffany, using and selling drugs. Desperate Tiffany chased Alice through the woods hoping to steal her phone, but pushed her into a ravine instead. 

            Dorothy brings Dinah to the trunk of her car and reveals she has kidnapped Tiffany. Together they fill Tiffany’s pockets with stones and begin to drag her to the ocean. The film ends with Alice’s voice over saying “The tides wash away your sins, the tides roll in and out, the tides have brought me peace”.

            A super huge portion of the opening is reliant on flash back so we need voice over narration to accompany this. Similar to "The Help" we want “Tides” to be emotional and to tell a story. Our idea was to keep the opening shots relatively simple and become more complex with the composition as the movie progresses. Overall we want to utilize mise en scene and editing to the best of our abilities. We believe that these methods will yield a successful project.