Logline

In the narrow circumstance of Edwardian society, a young man returns from an unpopular war, and is torn between an expected engagement to his childhood sweetheart; damaged by unseen impedements and his misunderstood war trauma, and the love of his nurse.

Praise for “Diamond Hill”

Here we have the dramatic love triangle between a soldier suffering from PTSD, his nurse, and the woman who everyone believes to be his best match socially and financially. Freddie is our leading man who struggles to reclaim normalcy after fighting in the war and facing rejection from his former lover as he stopped receiving letters from her. Upon his return home, he sparks a romance with his nurse, Arabella, and must gratify his father by accepting the responsibility of his family's mill.

Overall, the script has vivid imagery and strong characterizations. The plot flows logically. The characters are well-defined through their actions and dialogue. William is particularly entertaining and it was nice to see his breakdown after Henrietta rejects him. Samantha, as the central antagonist, creates conflict for all the characters throughout the story.
She is sort of pathetic but in the best way; she is despicable for wanting to turn against her family. The fact that Carson rejects her schemes says a lot. I was not expecting her to be the cause of the missing letters but it makes sense after the fact.

The introduction does a good job of setting up Freddie's internal and external conflicts. I liked seeing the contrast between his and William's relationships to their love interests. Their romances are sad for different yet understandable reasons. The resolution is bittersweet. It feels much more realistic that Freddie and Arabella did not end up together.
- Bluecat Screenplay Competition

Synopsis

The year is 1902, and a Captain in the Mounted Infantry, Frederick Anthony Ainsworth, has recently returned from action in the second Boer War to his home town of Clitheroe, Lancashire.

Having survived the battle of Diamond Hill, "Freddie", as his familiars call him, is not quite adjusted to life back in the world of his youth, and now suffers from a malaise that we contemporarily term "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder".

Stemming from substantial means, his arrival has been eagerly expected by members of his family, its servants, and his well-to-do fiancée - Felicity Emiline Bold, with the expectation that he and she would resume their courtship upon his return, and wed soon after.

However, all communication between the two has ceased.

Nonetheless, the parents of both, prod them to overlook these apparent changes in attitudes in the name of honoring the arrangement the families have orchestrated.

Enter Arabella Valentine - a charmingly vivacious young woman, who serves as a nurse in a local clinic. They are immediately drawn to one another. Arabella seems to understand, and is sympathetic to, Freddie's condition, and quickly brings him out of his shell, albeit with some misfires.

In the meantime, Freddie is expected to get back to work managing his family's mill under the strong hand of his rather dictatorial father, retired Colonel, Edmund Francis Ainsworth. Part-and-parcel of his business dealings, Felicity's other erstwhile suitor, Carson Bainbridge, too seeks to undermine their reunion, in tandem to an unknown agent within the Bold family itself, who plots to derail the romance, along with the business interests of both families.

With class, obligation and the social restraints of the period weighing on his head, Freddie's relationship with Arabella marches toward implosion, much to the longing chagrin of his weeping soul.

In the end, the pair encounter one another years later, re-visiting the pain of their un-requited relationship once more. A true Edwardian tragic ending.