Exchange Plot

Exchange Thomos Jager is a 17 year old exchange student practising English in his German college, he has been given the opportunity to stay with a British family for a week in London. The Family consist of a father (John) and mother (Susanna) and their son who is apparently away on a school field trop for the week he is staying with them, he is also 17 called Theo Whites. Thomos arrives at the seemingly normal family’s house when he notices weird occurrences, the mother is strangely quiet and he feels as if he is being spied on. He settles in while noticing that Theo’s belongings and life seem to be non existent. More and more small things point towards the disappearance of Theo, the family become more absurd and strange around Thomos, he feels as if he is being judged and watched. He start to settle in and the conversations with the family are worded in a way that makes the viewer question where Theo is. Thomos over the days finds more about the life and about Theo. The family force him to go on a winters walk with him, this is very awkward and the parents follow him whilst whispering about him- he knows something is up. John and Susanne start to groom him in their past child, they start to go insane and call him by the name Theo, Thomos is trapped in an alien environment and cant escape. One night he hears the mother crying and screaming he is incredibly unsettled. One day he is taken to the hair dresser where the mother points to a photo of Theo and gets the hair dresser to give him the same cuts, this is very sickening and Thomos is now in emotional pain. Thomos whilst the mother is out, looks around the house and comes across a large envelope entitled ‘our son’ there are endless photos of Theo’s childhood and he comes across photos of horrible abusive photos of Theo, being tied down, hit and scolded. This is an emotional scene as the last photo is Thomos’s passport photo; he breaks down with the photo in his hands. It is Thomos’s last night, where he spies on the parents and over hears them talking about the accidental death of their child and how it was Susanne’s fault. This evening Thomos can’t sleep and everything is driving him crazy. On his last morning he sees John dropping a strange brown liquid into his cereal before it is handed over, he knows he is going to be drugged through the evidence in the photos he has seen. Thomos doesn’t accept it, they force him to have it -shouting at him calling him Theo, he runs whilst the British parents are trying to grasp him. He runs to his room, where he grabs his money, day bag and German passport and is chased from the house, with the parents screaming and crying in desperation. There is a running scene of Thomos following his initial route to the Whites house back to the train station. He goes on a journey back to the airport; he is exhausted, beaten and stressed he waits at the front desk to desperately get a flight back to Germany. He is in a complete state when he gets the front desk, he is asked for his passport and when he pulls it out the name reads ‘Theo Whites’ not Thomos Jager we then hear a cry from the main character. The viewer is left with a shot of Thomos stuck in this airport environment; the audience are left with thoughts of confusion to what was real and what wasn’t. BJH