Paper Children

Treatment:

Sarah is born and raised in Beijing. The only thing she knows about her father is his name and some small details about his interests – environmental and business. Her best friend is Xiao Xiao. They share a passion for modern opera music. They start to perform around Beijing and play small gigs together.

The film starts with them playing a gig together and then going back to Xiao Xiao’s apartment. Xiao Xiao asks Sarah whether she is looking forward to her birthday next week. Sarah says no – she doesn’t know where she’s going, so what’s the point of getting older? She opens a magazine and sees an article about the environment in it. Looking at the photo, she feels an immediate bond with one of the men who is being featured in it. He looks very similar to her.

The article includes this information ‘One of the most promising change-makers of his generation, Cui – who turns fifty next week – has been headhunted to take over the Greenovate initiative in Hangzhou. Though he started last month, Cui says there is a lot of work to do if the company is to make the changes they have promised. ‘Greenovate is a great company, but there has been a lack of initiative in the company for some time. To effect change, one must be proactive. I want Greenovate to be a trail-blazer not simply a talking shop’.

Sarah puts two and two together. Throwing the magazine at Xiao Xiao, she shouts ‘He’s my father, he must be my father’.

Xiao Xiao looks at it. She comments that they do look very similar but then asks what exactly Sarah plans to do about it.

Sarah says that she will go to Hangzhou to find him. Xiao Xiao looks at her in disbelief.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to abandon all that we’ve been doing to find a father who doesn’t care about you!’ she says.

Sarah is deeply hurt but reluctantly agrees as Xiao Xiao is the more dominant personality. They continue with their little concerts. On Sarah’s birthday, however, she thinks about her father again. They are performing a song called Listen and Love Me. The lyrics include the line ‘please don’t give up on hoping/that we can be together someday/please don’t give up on hoping/that it won’t be better, I say/Listen and Love me/Listen and Love Me’. Sarah starts to cry during the performance. Half way through the final chorus, she runs off the stage. Xiao Xiao follows her.

The two have an argument outside the venue. They are standing beside the wall. Xiao Xiao is quite aggressive.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Xiao Xiao shouts at Sarah.
‘I have to find my father!’ Sarah says.

This is where the two part ways and Sarah runs away. Packing her things and gets on the train to Hangzhou. There are several shots of her tossing and turning in a bunk bed. She is excited and scared at the prospect of her new life and chances in Hangzhou.

When she arrives in Hangzhou she find a job playing in a hotel, in exchange for which they give her bed and board. She sits down with her acoustic guitar and plays Listen and Love Me. Her voice is jazz/opera style.

She starts playing regularly and draws more and more of a crowd to come and watch her.
One evening, a young man called Josh is in the audience. He works for Greenovate. He is very taken with her singing and face, but the two don’t speak. We have some clear establishing shots of him in the audience.

Sarah visits the Greenovate office and tries to get a job with them. She meets her father in interview and he is cold – rude even.

She bumps into Josh. He is very pleased to see her and asks her why she is there. Sarah mentions her interview and asks coyly about Cui. Josh says that he’s ‘the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet. He was quoted as saying in this article that we ‘weren’t fit for purpose’. He just joined the company and he’s throwing his weight around. Our old boss, Rong, died very suddenly. He was the kindest, gentlest and most hospitable man you’ll ever meet. We all wanted to work hard for him. Nobody wants to work hard for this jerk—off.

Josh starts to tell her about his own band, which he put together as part of the project he is in charge of for Greenovate – Paper Children. The initiative is supposed to promote sustainable living to youngsters around Hangzhou and in other cities. The band is comprised of Josh, who plays the guitar and attempts to sing the lead vocals, Xing (keyboards), Wang (drummer), and Mohammed (bass).??

Josh watches Sarah perform a lot. Eventually, he asks her to join Paper Children if he pays her. She agrees that it’s a good cause, though, and hopes it will provide her with a way of seeing her father. They play their first charity gig.

The gig is for a big environmental charity. The band are well-received. They decide to rehearse more and play together. They start playing more gigs in and around Hangzhou and it’s clear that Sarah is the key player in the band. Seeing that she is a little lonely in Hangzhou, Josh starts to take her out on little dates and she falls for him. He is very handsome, worldly and charismatic to her. Gen, the manager of the hotel, also admires Sarah from afar but doesn’t trust Josh because he’s known around town as something of a ladies man.

Sarah starts working part-time for Greenovate and gets to know the members of staff. The company are not achieving the turn around that Cui wanted and he is incredibly unpopular with staff.

After some more gigs in and around Hangzhou, Paper Children are offered a low-paying deal with a record label to release a song. Scrabbling around for one quickly – so they can capitalise on their small amount of fame asap – Josh plays Sarah’s song ‘Listen and Love Me’ to the agent. However, he changes the lyrics to be about trees.

‘Please don’t give up on hoping/that the world won’t be better someday/
Please don’t give up on hoping/that we can’t make a difference
Listen and love trees
Listen and love trees’.

The Agent, Stuart, loves it. When they record, Sarah is surprised by what Josh has done but lets it go. Sarah moves out of the hotel and into a new apartment. She works closely with Josh and doesn’t see Gen anymore. At work, she gets to know Cui a little more. He is always working late and cuts quite a lonely figure in the office sometimes. He also has a sallow and unhealthy complexion.

There are fewer and fewer projects, and Sarah is asked to leave as she was the last member of staff. Other people are sacked too and the cut backs make Cui even more unpopular with staff.

Paper Children release a song, Listen and Love Trees, after meeting an agent – Stuart.
Off the back of some airplay for Listen and Love Trees, which is released as a charity single, the band appear on several local TV shows. Josh is approached individually and asked if the band would consider performing a national tour. He agrees.

The night before the band are set to go on tour, Josh and the other band members mention that Cui has had to go into hospital for some intensive treatment. Appalled and wondering why she didn’t act sooner, Sarah asks why. Josh replies that he has kidney failure, and it looks like he might die. Sarah is visibly shocked and very upset. The other band members leave the room, not understanding her reaction. Josh asks what the problem is.

SARAH
He’s…My father.

Josh pretends to be supportive. Sarah explains that she should go to the hospital to see him. Josh is very worried that the tour will be a failure without her and tries to coax her out of going. He echoes Xiao Xiao’s words – ‘What has that asshole ever done for you?’

Sarah, although upset, agrees to go on tour.

The tour is a success and they get more airplay. The band have a style change and are hailed as the next big international Chinese band. They get worldwide press recognition. The couple argue a lot. Mohammed doesn’t particularly like the path of fame and excess.

The last date of the tour is in Beijing. Xiao Xiao is in the audience and Sarah allows her to come back stage. Josh is very attracted to her when he sees her and they flirt when Sarah isn’t there. Xiao Xiao talks to Sarah and is very nice to her. Sarah confides in her about her father’s illness. Xiao Xiao sees this as an opportunity to get her foot in the band and become the star she has always wanted to be. She advises Sarah to go.

Sarah waits until the gig is over and then leaves to go back to Hangzhou. Josh is appalled and angry. Xiao Xiao steps in to comfort him. The two kiss.

Meanwhile, Sarah has travelled to see Cui in the hospital. He is surprised to see her. He asks her what she is doing there. She pours out the truth and asks him if he ever had a daughter. He turns over and looks at her square in the face. ‘Sarah?’ he asks.

‘Yes’, she says.

Cui is shocked and confused. He doesn’t know what to say, and asks her to leave. Very upset, she does. After she leaves, he has a seizure and slips into a coma.

Sarah goes to Gen’s hotel. The two talk, and he says that she should go back one more time and try to talk to her father properly. The two embrace. Gen looks as though he might like to kiss her, but she thinks of Josh and pulls away.

Gen accompanies her back to the hospital the following day. They find Cui is in his coma. They talk to the nurses and doctors and find that the only way for him to recover is if they find a family member or a match for him. The doctor is concerned, as Cui has had no visitors apart from her. ‘I don’t think he even has any family’, the Doctor says. ‘He devoted his life to his work and ended up with nobody.’

Sarah tells the Doctor she believes she is Cui’s daughter. They do tests and confirm that she is. With Gen’s support and after a good deal of soul-searching, she decides to undergo transplant surgery.

By now the band are back in Hangzhou and Josh is anxious to make things up with Sarah. He finds Xiao Xiao clingy and she is not particularly talented. Josh goes back to Gen’s bar to find her. Instead, he finds Gen. Gen is very cold with him and tells him that he’s not welcome. Josh pleads with him and eventually Gen tells him that Sarah is in the hospital undergoing surgery. He tells Josh that he can go with him to visit her if he likes.

The band receive ever more press attention.

The two men visit the hospital and wait for Sarah to come round from the operation. Xiao Xiao calls Josh, and Gen overhears him speaking to her. From the way Josh is speaking, it is clear that they have been having an intimate relationship. He calls her ‘baby’ and so forth. Gen keeps this to himself and returns to Sarah’s bedside.

Cui wakes up from the operation fine, but there are some complications with Sarah’s surgery and she loses a lot of blood. There is a chance that this will affect her brain, and the hospital decide that she must stay in an induced coma to allow her body time to recover.

Cui feels very guilty and is overcome by her self-sacrifice, particularly after what she did for him. Gen keeps a vigil by her bedside. When she wakes up, it is Josh who is there and not Gen. He makes out as though he has been there the whole time. Sarah, confused and still heavily sedated, accepts his offer of engagement before the eyes of the world’s media.

Gen hears of their engagement and disappears. Cui appears, thanks Sarah for her help and tries to form a bond with her. This is short-lived, however, when he says that he thinks Josh is trying to manipulate her. Confused, Sarah tells him to leave her and that she never wants to see him again.

Paper Children’s album is released and is very commercially successful. Sarah doesn’t like the music at all and is shocked when she hears Listen and Love Me being used in the cheesy way Josh rewrote it. Gen visits her and Sarah confides in him. Gen says that she must help herself and be true to her own vision of music and art.

She decides to leave the band, but doesn’t know how to tell Josh so she goes on a long vacation to Moganshan. She writes her own kind of songs again, not with the interference of somebody who she can’t relate to and who won’t try to understand where she’s coming from.

One afternoon, on the mountainside, she is playing a new song. ‘Where Did You Go?’ The lyrics are – Where did you go/when the world got in the way/where did you go/when there was so much left to say? A local sees her and recognises her from the television. Excitedly, he talks to her. Carrying on about his day, he goes to a local shop. Gen is there. The local excitedly starts to tell the shopkeeper that he has seen ‘coma girl’ on the mountainside. Gen can’t believe it.

He goes up to the mountainside and finds her. They embrace and realise that they love each other. They are excited, happy and in love.

They return to Hangzhou. Sarah releases some tracks on her own and China is captivated by this new sound. Paper Children are all but forgotten.

Some time passes and there is a montage sequence where we see Sarah’s various successes. Gen and Sarah get married. Cui and Sarah work hard to establish a relationship with one another. Cui apologises for running away when she was a child. Sarah says she still wants to help him make a change. Cui says that the music was really the only thing that could touch as many people as he wanted – ‘Nobody’s interested in the theories of an old man! But you have the ability to touch a lot of people, Sarah. Please do it. It’s not for me. You know who it’s for’. Sarah dismisses this. She feels as though she has done enough. It’s her turn to be selfish.
Paper Children have passed out of the charts without Sarah involved and the members go back to their day jobs. Sarah loses all contact with Josh.

One evening, Sarah goes out for a walk and for the first time in a while notices some of the bad pollution in Hangzhou, in particular the litter that drifts about the streets. After a conversation with Gen, she decides they must act.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since she last saw either Josh or Xiao Xiao although she is still friends with the other band members. After speaking to Wang, they agree that they should put on a charity concert. Sarah will perform her own songs, and then do some with Paper Children.

She calls Josh. When Josh answers the phone to Sarah, he has just been sick on himself after another night of boozing. He is very happy to hear from Sarah. She tells him of her plan and he is remorseful and excited at being forgiven. He sees how low he is, and realises that he loves Sarah – she has a very pure spirit which he didn’t appreciate before. He breaks his relationship with Xiao Xiao who is very upset and returns to Beijing.

When they meet to rehearse the atmosphere is frosty. Josh apologises to Sarah in private after the first few awkward songs. She says that it’s ok, because it made her find her father again, one way or another.

The gig is held in the middle of the botanical gardens in Hangzhou and is a huge success. The song lyrics are mostly based around sustainability and making a difference. This appeals to the Chinese youth, and they are moved to start making small changes in their daily lives.

At the end, Josh pushes Sarah to the front and makes a little speech congratulating her on her talent. Overcome, she performs Listen and Love Me – but changes the lyrics to Listen and Love Trees. When she performs it, however, it doesn’t sound ‘cheesy’. It has soul.

The crowd goes wild.

After the movie has ended there is a short ‘what happened to…’ for each of the characters. Sarah and Gen had a daughter named Summer who is not interested in music at all and live in Moganshan where they spend most of their spare time fishing. Josh started to play pop music in a moderately successful self-named outfit. Mohammed went to medical school. Cui discovered a new type of Magnolia tree and named it after Sarah.

The couple started a restaurant where Gen and Sarah go and hang out when Sarah is performing in Hangzhou.