Just for Fun…

There’s this satire website called The Editing Room where popular Hollywood movies are boiled down to just a few pages worth of script. The creator, Rod Hilton, had been running the site since 1998 (he started with Godzilla) and since then he’s had several of his pieces published in entertainment magazines and Cracked.com. He recently made an announcement that he was accepting submissions from outside contributors, so I gave it a shot.

I chose Lady in the Water. I loved The Sixth Sense and absolutely adored Unbreakable, but Shyamalan’s record since has been a deflating bout of diminishing returns–and Lady in particular struck me as a true bastion of cinematic self-indulgence, an egregious miscalculation by a once-promising writer-director who tried so hard to make an important movie that he completely forgot to make it good.

I e-mailed Rod, he gave me the go ahead. For a challenge, I gave myself one week to write the script. It took me a few sleepless nights, but I made the deadline. I sent him the script, he sent me notes suggesting, among other things, that I cut the word count from 2100 to around 1200. I took his advice, trimmed it down, sent it back a day later, and I NEVER HEARD FROM HIM EVER AGAIN…

Rat basterd.

Oh wells. All’s fair in love, war, and artistic endeavor. I’m sharing it with y’all for a few laughs and to prove that I’m doing a sketch more creatively while I wait for my writing partner to get in gear than staring at a wall and twiddling my thumbs…

ENJOY!

Lady in the Water: The Abridged Script

By Eric

FADE IN:

INT. DRAB ASS APARTMENT COMPLEX FOR ENTIRE DAMN MOVIE

A FAMILY OF HISPANICS scream behind PAUL GIAMATTI while he
shticks a bug to death. This is HILARIOUS because screaming
foreigners are COMIC GOLD.

GEORGE BASS

Thaaank you Meester Giamatti.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

No puh-puh-problem… Hey, do I
really need to stutter the whole
time? It’s fuh-fucking exhausting.
 

DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

It makes your character
sympathetic.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

I’m a squat, balding muh-muh-middle-
aged widdower schlubbing as a super
that probably has to puh-pay for
sex… I got all the sympathy I
need just being buh-buh-born.
 

BOB BALABAN

Hello, I’m a random film critic
that in no way represents anyone
that doesn’t automatically cream
their pants at M. Night’s
indisputable cinematic brilliance.
 

CINDY CHEUNG

Hi there. I tall, sassy, Korean
figment of M. Night’s imagination.
Happy to get job, even if I stuck
with most of bullshit mythical
exposition.
  

FREDDY RODRIGUEZ

Lookit dis. I’m workin’ out only
one side of my body. Check dis out..
(pumps arm)
Amazing, right? Dat a movie from
2006 would call attention to a muscle
arm that looked dis foogazi?
  

STONERS

BIM-BLAM!

THAT NIGHT

PAUL wakes up to the 24 HOUR WAR CHANNEL and hears SPLASHING
coming from the pool.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Hey! Who are you! C-come out!
(no answer)
Okay, I’m going in!

Just like anybody in that situation, he goes into the pool
with all his clothes and ALMOST DROWNS.

He wakes up on his bed and notices a mostly naked BRYCE
DALLAS HOWARD on the couch.

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(timidly)

I am Story, the narf.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Hello, Story, I’m Character
Development…

LATER

PAUL wakes up cradling BRYCE. He carries her outside and they
are ATTACKED BY A DOG-SHAPED BUSH! They run back inside!

PAUL GIAMATTI

Golly! I hope the first person I
talk to can help me with this. Hey
Cindy, do you know w-what a narf
is?
  

CINDY CHEUNG

No, but Mama know.

CINDY and her mother JUNE KYOTO LU argue in Korean.
Uproarious.

CINDY CHEUNG

Mom say narf is sea nymph. Narf
must meet vessel so she can leave
on big eagle, but must watch out
for evil scrunt. Mom say this real
life, not ramblings of overrated
writer-director putting his
daughters to bed.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

That true?
  

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(timidly)

I will inspire the vessel to finish
an important book that will
indirectly influence billions of
people with its high ideals and
bring about an era of universal
peace and brotherhood. You know…
just like the Koran and the Bible.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Hey Bob, that sound like something
you’d write?
  

BOB BALABAN

Yes, Paul. I’m currently working on
a review of Talledega Nights that’s
going to blow your mind.
  

PAUL GIAMATTI

What about you, Earth Muh-Mother
Cat Lady?
 

MARY BETH HURT

Mah stars. Look at all the
butterflies–
(

falls asleep)
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Anything?
 

NOAH GRAY-CABEY

Blah, blah, blah cereal box.
 

JEFFREY WRIGHT

Blah, blah, blah crossword puzzle.

PAUL GIAMATTI 

What are you doing here? Aren’t you
busy duh-directing the m-m–
 

ACTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

Can you change the light in my
study? And whatever you do, don’t
read the manuscript I’m working on
about problems and leaders and stuff.

PAUL’S jaw drops.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Y-you’re the vessel? You wrote and
then cast yourself as the sun-
shitting savior of the entire wu-
world?!
(pause)
Fine. Okay, Bryce. Do your thing.

BRYCE stares.

ACTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

Whoa… I’m undergoing an intensely
profound feeling that I don’t have
enough talent to portray
convincingly, so I’ll just turn my
back to the camera.
  

DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

Perfect! 
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Mission accomplished. Is it safe
for you to leave?
  

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(timidly)

Yes, the scrunt only tries to
eviscerate me on holidays and 3-day
weekends.

The SCRUNT ATTACKS, severely scratching BRYCE’s luscious
legs.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Why can’t we find you pants?!
  

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(timidly)

It’s a shame that even though I
come from a highly evolved society
and can learn any language, I still
can’t outsmart a wild animal.
 

CINDY CHEUNG

Scrunt attack on off night because
Bryce veeeeeeerryy important
narf… Mom tell you rest, but only
if you act like asshole.

PAUL nibbles on a cookie, soaks his mustache in milk, curls
into the fetal position, drools, and finally pisses himself.

JUNE KYOTO LU

Not bad.

PAUL gets the rest of the story and confirms it with an ON-
THE-EDGE-OF-YOUR-SEAT expository sequence.

PAUL GIAMATTI

B-Bob. If you were making a self-
important, convoluted supernatural
thriller about a fuh-fish-lady, who
would you–

BOB BALABAN

You would be the Guardian, Jeffrey
would be the Interpreter, the
stoners would be the Guild, and
Mary Beth would be the Healer.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Guh-good enough for me.

THAT NIGHT

PAUL runs for his life from a marauding scrunt.

PAUL GIAMATTI

I’m not the Guardian! I’M NOT THE
GUARDIAN! BLOODY CHRIST IN A CU-
CAMERA CASE, I’M NOT THE FUCKING
GUARDIAN!

He survives.

THAT NEXT NIGHT

The largest “Let’s-Everyone-Stand-Around-a-Pool-Party” is
under way.

PAUL addresses the Fellowship of the Narf.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Now, even though I almost got
killed last night, I still have
perfect confidence in Jeffrey’s
extremely vague plan. Big Bird
doesn’t like extras, so we’ll
have a band play and
everybody but us will go into
one room, because at a party,
nobody listens to music outside.
In the meantime, Bryce will be
positioned as close to the
scrunt-concealing grass as
possible, and everyone else will
occupy themselves with
trivialities like batteries and
compact mirrors… What could go
wrong?

Surprisingly everything.

Bryce is dragged into the woods by her head, leaving her
creamy legs mortally wounded.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Well, we fucked that up royally.

JEFFREY WRIGHT
(struggling)

I don’t feel like an Interpreter…
Are you sure I’m the Interpreter?

PAUL GIAMATTI

He sounded sure.
  

JEFFREY WRIGHT
(real line)

What kind of person would be so
arrogant to presume to know the
intention of another human being?

ELSEWHERE

A hungry scrunt advances towards hapless BOB.
  

BOB BALABAN

Nice scrunt… Cute little pooch…
Maybe I’ve got a Milk-Bone…

The scrunt EATS BOB.

DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

YEAH! Take THAT critics that hated
The Village!
  

BOB BALABAN
(dying)

You can’t kill… all of us…
(dies)
 

JEFFREY WRIGHT

But if I’m not the Interpreter, who
is?
(pause)
Eureka!

NOAH stares into a kitchen cabinet crammed with boxes of cereal.

NOAH GRAY-CABEY

<p class=”p1″ style=”margin-left: 80px; “>Yeah, I know it’s stupid… But at
least I’m not talkin’ to plants.
(pause)
The Corn Flakes are telling me that
the Healer is… Paul Giamatti.
 

PAUL GIAMATTI

Oh, snap!

MARY BETH HURT

Of course! Those butterflies were
clearly following you even though
they don’t show up in the rest of
the movie!

Everyone enters a group hug around Bryce.

PAUL GIAMATTI

Okay everybody! Clap if you believe
in narfs.
(they do)
Harder… HARDER… SHE’S SAVED!

EVERYONE

YAY!

It’s RAINING and all the extras cleared out because falling
water is terrifying.

PAUL and BRYCE are attacked by the scrunt, and all looks
hopeless when…

PAUL GIAMATTI

Gott im Himmel! Freddy! YOU…
ARE… THE GUARDIAN! Swing away,
Freddy, swing away!

The scrunt is hypnotized by FREDDY’s fake arm just long
enough for THREE BRIDE-OF-FRANKENSTEIN-LOOKIN’ TWIG-MONKEYS
to swoop down and FUCK UP THE SCRUNT’S SHIT!

PAUL GIAMATTI
(CONT’D)

Congratulations, Night. You just
made Splash look like Citizen Kane.

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(beats chest twice)

Represent.

The Great Eatlon carries Bryce away.

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
(CONT’D)

Good-bye everybody! I’m off to
audition for high profile
supporting roles in mediocre
sequels!

FREDDY RODRIGUEZ

So no surprise ending in this one?

PAUL GIAMATTI

Other than a director hamstringing
his career to make the world’s
shittiest love letter to himself?

DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

TA-DA!

END