A Topiary

by Shane Carruth

Screen play.

Genres: Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, Fiction

245 pages, Unknown Binding

Reviews

[Marcus Beard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a mysterious story that's partly sci-fi. If you've seen Carruth's Upstream Colour, this feels very similar, but on a 10x scale. It has three distinct sections, with very different vibes. The first follows one man uncovering strange electro magnetic phenomenon - or is it a coincidence? It's very disorienting. Then, it opens up to focus on a group who appear to making more sense of the phenomenon, but still never finding an answer. The last, which is the longest and contains the most characters, follows a group of children who seem to encounter the phenomenon once again, which both bring them closer together and forces them apart.

Carruth writes very specific notes to explain the slightly-other-worldly mechanisms and objects that exist in the world. It could feel too long, but the world is so intriguing that I'm willing to read half a page of how semi-concave disks fit into stacks, which then fit into other contraptions.

The whole story feels like part of something massive, even when focusing on tiny details. It's immersive, but it's really long, but I loved it.

[Kern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carruth's unproduced would-be magnum opus spans decades and features dozens of characters, but more impressively, it's one of the most conceptually complex and thematically dense works I've ever come across. Utterly disappointing this project will never be fully realized, but I take minor solace knowing its aborted development led to Upstream Color.

[benny b · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish it was made! Fun. First time reading a screenplay, maybe I’ll read more. It’s like reading the Wikipedia plot summary but it takes longer than watching the movie.

[Rondo Kazakian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dag.

First of all, Shane Carruth wrote Primer, that crazy, impenetrable time travel movie. He also wrote "Upstream Color", this atmospheric sci-fi emotional rollercoaster about mind-altering parasitic worms. "A Topiary" is his screenplay for an unmade third film that dramatically ups the ante in terms of scope and imagination. It's a story so huge it literally fills the universe by the time the tale is told, but you've got to work to get this payoff.

Figuring out the plot is one of the main joys of A Topiary, so I won't go into it. In broad strokes, it's about a series of characters - a group of adults, and later a group of children - who start noticing an underlying pattern to the world that has never been observed. It puts human life in perspective in a way that's absolutely chilling.

And of course it's all made up, but that's what's so cool about it. If you've ever laid up at night wondering "what are we?", this bit of sci-fi gives you a taste of what it would feel like to learn and know in a way no human being ever has before. It's magnificent, and only Shane Carruth could have written it.

I wish this dude was more prolific, because I could read stuff like this all day. I guess ideas this enormous take time to gestate, so I'll take what I can get. I'm almost glad this was never put on the screen. It's too mammoth a vision for anything less than an imagination to animate.

[Andrew Sachs · Rating 5 out of 5]

You need faith that there's a design beyond your comprehension that will come together after. Because you get attached to pages and pages of the tiniest of details or dialogue with endless momentum, but then a piece of the puzzle starts to assemble and you have these moments when this thing gives you an impression of unimaginable scale.

But you need to be there for every detail. Carruth is an omniscient writer but not an omniscient narrator, by design he refuses to grant the audience any insight via exposition. You are on the exact same journey as the characters, and that is exactly why you get goosebumps when you do.

The ideas are so ambitious and so imaginative and so meticulously conceived it's like magic made real, it's as close as I get to truly believing in something bigger. It at least makes me believe in everything that stories can be. That's why I give it 5 stars. Nothing is perfect, but I trust Carruth to have tried harder than anyone else and to have given us something precious.

[Monica Westin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an incredibly strange script, and you can see why Carruth calls it the project he wasted his life on; a film based on it would seem almost impossible to make or watch. But read as prose, this is a genre-bending, incredibly beautiful & challenging work of speculative fiction.

[Juniperus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Starburst patterns are a bit difficult to illustrate via text but it’s also hard to buy he’d be able to draw an afterimage from looking at the sun and have it match. There’s very little dialogue which is good storytelling but we don’t get to learn much about the characters themselves because of this. The little dialogue there is in act 2 doesn’t seem believable for kids. The scene structure is disjointed and feels fast paced even though the film is so long, it just seems like rapid fire images one after the other. There are also too many characters which could be consolidated into one. The lore is very deep and I appreciate how little is explained but it’s not marketable to mainstream audiences. The ending really is exciting though, and well worth all the painful buildup.

The structure is interesting but I’m not sure how useful it was. I like how the first half is one set of characters and then it switches gears entirely, it gives a lot of whiplash, but it doesn’t tie together satisfactorily. The story is confusing which I know is Shane Carruth’s trademark, but the reputation of this screenplay is much more than it deserves: people talk about it as if its a modern Ulysses, lots of depth and takes a lot of work to comprehend. The latter is definitely true but that lies in the details: at its simplest, the story is about a man who’s trying to find something, some kids who find it and build stuff out of it, and it destroys the universe like some kind of interplanetary invasive species. Interesting premise but more parallels could have been drawn to connect the parts, and at times it seemed like it was confusing just to be confusing, which was frustrating.

Ultimately it just felt like if Pokemon met Stranger Things met Arrival, but way more complicated than it needed to be.

[Hakim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stands out conceptually as one of the best stories I've ever read, if not the very best. It has that unmistakable signature of the creator of the truly unique movies Primer and Upstream Color, favorites of mine, showcasing the same masterful use of complex and mind-blowing ideas, unconventional narrative structure, and closed-world setting.

I would describe A Topiary as 80s Spielberg meets HP Lovecraft and Stephen King, with a side of Jorge Luis Borges. Yes, it is an outlandish mix of all that, and more. It is the story of two groups of people (adults in the 80s an kids decades later) trying to solve an enigma shaped by a cosmic logic they don't understand, and the consequences of the endeavor. I'll leave it at that.

Although this is a script which mainly focuses on the ideas and action, it still overflows with pathos and deep humanity, especially within the children's story. The dialogue leaves a lot to the imagination, and the emphasis is on the unsaid. It felt like being thrown in a room with a bunch of people and little context about the situation... it might sound counter-productive and annoying, but in this case, I enjoyed it.

The main power of this story is that it ignites your imagination. It is rich in bizarre and wonderful imagery that made stop reading, close my eyes, and try to picture what was on the page. That is a gift.
I am saddened that this movie never saw the light of day. It had the potential to be an exceptional cinematic experience, one which I'm sure would could have been a cultural phenomenon. Oh well.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant extended setup that ranks with his own PRIMER and M. Night's SIXTH SENSE in baffling us as to WTF is going on, but keeping us lassoed tight, desperate to learn the secret (not easy). I'm surprised this script never got made, as it major deficit is easily addressed (it's too long by half - but lucky for Shane, most of the length is repeats and drawn-outs that don't have to be. Easily cut.

Then again, the climactic conflict is wayyy less interesting than the setup. It's be fun to fan-fic this and try to come up with a completely different ACT IV and V, though the final final images (no peeking!) are haunting and I'd keep those.

[Saatwik Katiha · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a cursory Google search, you can find the story for this unmade movie as a screenplay. Owing to the screenplay format, you do experience a semblance of the grandeur that the movie would/could have possessed. Some crazy concepts illustrated through exhilarating scenes and a slightly jarring, yet apt 'twist' ending. With kids playing the central roles, it'd have been an absolutely incredible watch. I hold out hope that one day, some Carruth admirer - with deep enough pockets and time enough to spare - will pick this and run with it.

[Vince Home · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably would have made an interesting movie but reading it was a bit much.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

[Mikey Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

brilliantly unique screenplay that will unfortunately never be adapted to the big screen. a what-could-have-been masterpiece in sci-fi cinema.

[Tine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the biggest crimes in any art form that this movie will never be made.

[Recial Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bullshit

[Niall Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a sci-fi Lord of the Flies

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know that I was not "consuming" this work in the form it was intended. I also know that the final cut of a film rarely contains every scene and every line from the original script. All I can go on are the words on the pages, the very many pages.
I like Carruth, but I'm sort of glad this never got made. It's also very easy to see why this never got made.
It's Transformers meets 2001 via Pokémon, but on a near-metaphysical level. It even has an extended prologue, but in this instance, I found it hard to connect it to the main story.
It's very sterile - the kids' encounters with the adults reminded me a little of E.T. but minus any warmth or empathy for anyone. Also the kids' dialogue (they are aged 7-14 over the course of the story) is just completely unrealistic.
But it is also bold and vivid and utterly unique. The final product would have been so CGI-heavy, and I'm not sure that this is Carruth's forte. It also expands to cover really complex ideas through show-and-not-tell, which someone like Carruth might - but only might - just have pulled off.
Anyone wanting to judge for themselves can access the screenplay here:
https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin...

[James Belcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts with the urgent techie "What is it?" feel of Primer (I was hooked, quickly), with a hint of the movie Midnight Special, before switching into a YA Lord of the Flies mode. The ending/coda/reveal is great, posing more questions than it answers.

It's not as satisfying as Primer, and not as unrepentantly weird as Upstream Color. Overall, it's a good, smart, inventive science fiction story.