Genre: True Story
Premise: To get the performance he demands for “The Shining”, despotic director Stanley Kubrick emotionally tortures relative newbie Shelley Duvall. When she refuses to play the victim any longer, Shelley uncovers dark secrets that may completely destroy the film — and her sanity.
About: This was one of our entries in the Halloween Logline Showdown. David Kessler has been a longtime Scriptshadow reader and powered his script, Minimata, forward over the years, getting Johnny Depp attached. The movie, about the devastating effects of mercury poisoning, has a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Writer: Asher Farkas and David K. Kessler
Details: 113 pages
I’m still experiencing some PTSD from the key duplication fiasco which is why this review is appearing on November 1st instead of October 31st. I had convinced myself that Halloween was on Wednesday. Maybe it’s a good idea for me to not drive today. Clearly, I don’t know which way is up and which way is down.
Ironically, this is the best state of mind to be in while reading today’s script, seeing as our protagonist is being mind-f**ed by the greatest director in cinema history. Well, according to Stanley Kubrick, that is. The Kubster always had a little ego on him. Are you ready for this post-Halloween ride? Grab your set of backup keys and let’s find out.
It’s the 70s and Actress Shelley Duvall (awkwardly tall, crooked teeth) has been steadily moving up the actor food chain. Her rise is a true underdog story. She had no desire to be an actress and was randomly discovered by Robert Altman. As a result, she doesn’t train. She acts by instinct. That’s exactly why Stanley Kubrick wants her for his Stephen King adaptation of The Shining.
Shelley will have to leave boyfriend, singer Paul Simon, to go shoot in England for 4 months. Of course, that’s an optimistic estimation of the shoot’s length. With Kubrick, you have no idea how long a shoot is going to last.
When Shelley arrives on set, the intimidating Mr. Kubrick tells her that he likes to use a lot of takes and if she isn’t cool with that, she can be replaced. He also tells her that he chose her because he needed someone who could easily be broken. Confused by that comment, Shelley heads to her room.
It isn’t long before Jack Nicholson shows up. Jack looks like an old pro. Whereas everyone else is walking on eggshells around Kubrick, Nicholson rolls with it, seemingly unaffected by anything he says. Even Kubrick seems a little put off by this – that someone wouldn’t cower at his feet every time he walked in a room.
Immediately, strange things start happening to Shelley. After taking a shower, she finds a new script on her bed, despite her room having been locked. She says hi to Margaret, Kubrick’s secretary, who she met back in New York. But Margaret insists that she’s never met Shelley in her life. She starts getting phone calls in her room with no one on the other end. She tries to watch TV but, somehow, there are only horror movies playing. None of the other channels work.
On set, Kubrick puts her through the wringer. When she hasn’t memorized her lines (which he just sent changes to earlier in the day) he announces to the entire crew that they’re done for the day because Shelley couldn’t memorize her lines, embarrassing her. Kubrick brings the boy actor, Danny, in with his fake make-up bruises and throws them in Shelley’s face to get her to be more emotive during crucial scenes.
But the worst thing they do is they get Shelley a dog to cheer her up, only to then facilitate the dog “escaping” and then being brutally killed. Shelley witnesses the aftermath of the death and becomes inconsolable. She requests time off but Kubrick insists she keep working and thrusts her right back into a scene just hours later.
Then, of course, you’ve got the takes. We’re not talking 30 takes. We’re not talking 60. Or 90. We’re talking some time enduring over 100 takes! It is insanity. And Kubrick seems to revel in it. But will it break Shelley to the point where she’ll no longer be able to work? Or is there a light at the end of this tunnel? Great art must be suffered for, argues Kubrick. That saying will be put to the test.
Yesterday we talked about coming up with a movie idea and then deciding which direction to take it in. Do you take a movie about a group of people coming into a bunch of money in a goofy fun direction? Or a dark comedic direction?
Well, with today’s script, we actually get to see what it looks like when a concept is taken in two different directions. That’s because this idea was also explored by Colin Bannon in his Black List script, “Let’s Go Again.”
Bannon’s interpretation was different in a couple of ways. It threw us into the fire immediately. And it kept pounding us with the craziness relentlessly. It was the kind of execution that never gave you time to breathe. Kessler and Farkas’s version is more of a slow-build. It exists just as much in the spaces between the scenario as it does the scenario itself.
There are plenty of slow moments here. For example, when Shelley goes back to her room to prepare for the next day, Kessler and Farkas will stay there with her. Sit in her frustration.
I always feel like the scariest moments happen in the build up which is why I was appreciating this version of the idea so much. Especially when you’re talking about someone going crazy. The entertainment comes from her and us wondering if she’s really going crazy. When Shelley comes out of her shower to find the latest draft of the script on her bed and her hotel door still locked from the inside, we’re freaking out because it’s all happening in real time.
I just remember with Bannon’s script the insanity was being beaten over our head twenty times a scene. There was never a time in that script where we could breathe.
Another advantage of slow build-ups is they create an evolution in the story. We start slow, then get medium, and eventually ramp up to fast. So each section of the screenplay feels different. Whereas if you start off fast then stay fast the whole time, the entire movie feels the same. Most scripts need variation. People don’t like when you stay in one gear for an entire 2 hours, no matter what gear it is.
So then the answer is: “always take your time,” right? Not necessarily. Movies do favor urgency. Plots tend to work best when they move fast. So starting your movie in media res is a perfectly reasonable creative choice. Also, studios and audiences tend to like faster-moving stories. It’s less work for them.
Here’s something that might help you decide which is best for you. The better the writer you are, the more you can take your time. Good writers understand how to keep things entertaining when the story is moving slowly. Average writers fall apart when they try and do this. So, if you’re someone who doesn’t think of yourself as a master of suspense or a wordsmith, it may be best if you keep things moving quickly, as it’s easier to camouflage your writing deficiencies.
Maybe that’s why I enjoyed this script less when it hit its fast-paced second half. There’s something about descending into insanity that doesn’t jibe with the way I like my entertainment. I like my screenplays with structure. I like to feel that the writer has a plan and that we’re moving somewhere with purpose. Descending into insanity doesn’t work well with that approach. And I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying I personally don’t like it. At a certain point you’re just going nuts over and over and nothing’s really changing.
Another quibble I had was that Farkas and Kessler are cheating. They’re sneakily straddling both sides of the fence. They want the intellectual property advantages of referencing the real people and real event that make up this story, while also making things up when they wanted to. I’m guessing that massacring a dog to get a better performance out of Shelley Duvall didn’t happen.
It’s not a huge deal but one of the cool parts of watching a movie like this is you can say, “Wow, I can’t believe that really happened. That’s nuts!” You can’t do that here. You have to concede that that heart-stopping scene may have happened… or may have been totally made up. To me, that’s a bit of a cheat. I think they either should’ve stuck to the truth or did what Bannon did (invented fake characters then used the Kubrick-Duvall situation as inspiration).
Of course, the movie goes full-on super-psycho in its last 20 pages, letting us know this is complete fiction. And I probably would’ve enjoyed it more if I was right there with all the Shining references. I can tell David and his writing partner have seen the movie 50+ times. I’ve only seen it twice so and both viewings were a long time ago. So I didn’t get the references that I’m sure Shining super-fans will love. For this and the reasons I stated above, Scaring Shelley didn’t quite make it to “worth the read” territory for me. But I’ll tell you what. If you’re a Shining fan, you’ll probably love this.
Script link: Scaring Shelley
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Keep us in the loop. In a movie like this where it’s taking place over a series of months (that’s how long the shoot is), it’s a good idea to tell us WHERE WE ARE IN THE SHOOT. For example, every once in a while, include a title card that says, “Day 45,” which is what Kessler does here. Because, if you don’t do that, you have no idea where the reader thinks they are. You might be on day 90 of the shoot but the reader thinks you’re on day 10. So you guys are experiencing two different films. I just read a consult script where this exact issue occurred. It was a time loop script and I thought we’d looped 50 times. After talking to the writer, it turns out we’d looped 2000 times. So I said to him, “You have to tell us that (or at least strongly hint at it). You can’t just assume we’ll know.”
