The Handover

DIRECTOR’S NOTES -David Stubbs

“From the start I set myself the task of developing a project about a world I know and people I know. What excited me most about the screenplay was its raw and original emotional power. It’s affecting because the characters and scenario are so real…it could be your friends, your family, your neighbours. It could be you. It’s an enthralling, intensely personal drama, almost a thriller in the end, and its climax is loaded and agonising. As a divorced dad sharing the custody of his daughter with her mother and her new partner, Paul routinely goes through the process of a ‘handover’ with his ex-partner. Every second Sunday afternoon he drops his little girl off at her mother’s house where she lives with another family; people who are complete strangers to him. Driving away and abandoning Katy like that makes no sense, it’s fucked up, and it goes against Paul’s most basic instincts as a parent and a human. It’s incredibly sad and it is a constant reminder of a failed relationship and the loss of a family. These feelings are the truths surrounding families and blended families. This is the experience of many people every day – in every town and city. But as our research showed, and any police officer will tell you, the real tragedies come when one half of the relationship can’t move on.

The Handover is a drama about Paul, a man who can’t let go or move on after a failed relationship. He wants his family back. We watch him over the course of a single day, a Sunday leading up to handing over his daughter to her mother and new partner. And we witness the circumstances and opportunities that lead to him risking everything for a chance to get back the family and the life that he’s lost. The climax explores a kind of visceral truth, a moral issue that is relevant to you and me – could we ever come to a point where we do something that crosses a line and risks everything? The answer is yes, because we all understand the complexities of life and emotions, and of course, love can make fools of us all.”