The Player, The Rapture, The New Age: Three Screenplays

by Michael Tolkin

Three film scripts, including an Academy Award nominee, from the man described as an “Antonioni with a sense of humor” ( The New Yorker ).

From his earliest works to the Emmy-nominated Showtime limited series Escape at Dannemora , Michael Tolkin is known as one of the industry’s biggest talents—and sharpest satirists. This volume contains three of his acclaimed screenplays.

The Player , about the twisted world of Hollywood, was directed by Robert Altman and starred Tim Robbins and Greta Scacchi. It won an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay and has been hailed as “one of the smartest, funniest, most penetrating movies about moviemaking ever made” ( Vanity Fair ).

The Rapture explores the emotionally intense, surreal world of Christian fundamentalism. The Los Angeles Times called it “a nervy, unsettling, edgy piece of work, that most audacious of cinematic ventures, a film of theological ideas, intent on looking into what we believe and why we believe it, determined, even eager, to explore the issues of heaven, hell, and the hereafter.”

And The New Age tells the story of a young couple’s fall from financial grace and their quest for spirituality in a world defined by materialism.

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 20, 1995

About the author

Michael Tolkin is an American filmmaker and novelist. He has written numerous screenplays, including The Player (1992), which he adapted from his 1988 book by the same name, and for which he received the 1993 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. A follow-up book, Return of the Player, was published in 2006.

Tolkin was born in New York City, New York, the son of Edith, a studio executive, and the late comedy writer Mel Tolkin. Tolkin lives in Los Angeles with his wife Wendy Mogel (parenting expert and author of bestseller The Blessing of a Skinned Knee).

Reviews

[Enma Martínez-Cornó · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! The Player is one of those rare instances in cinema where the original screenplay is better than the actual film. What a ride! I couldn't put it down.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book of three screenplays by Michael Tolkin. I recently read his novel of The Player and I read a lot of reviews saying the movie is much better than the book, so I wanted to read the screenplay to compare. As this is three separate screenplays I will review them separately.

The Player: Personally, based solely on the screenplay, I liked the book better. Now, I've only seen the opening sequence of the movie, and it's a very famous opening sequence and is, of course, amazing. So it's quite possible that the movie improves upon the screenplay. But as far as the screenplay goes, Tolkin has taken the story of the book and toned everything down. He tries to make Griffin Mills a better person, instead of having him murder the writer on purpose, he does it accidentally. The overwhelming sense of paranoia is also lost, Griffin barely seems phased by the detectives shadowing him. Now again, I'm sure Tim Robbins and Robert Altman bring a lot to the film, but the screenplay lacked the originality of the novel.

The Rapture: All I can say is: What the F**k? This was actually made into a movie? This starts out as the story of two swingers, who get off on sexual deviance, but then all of a sudden the woman finds God. Now she loves Jesus and believes the rapture is imminent. Years pass and she marries and has a child, and every day she assumes the rapture is just around the corner. Then her husband is killed and she flips her shit. She takes her daughter into the desert to await the coming of God. But God doesn't come and they slowly starve to death. The little girl wants to go to Heaven NOW, so... the woman kills her. Murders her daughter. Then she heads back into town, meets some cop, marries him and has a new life. Then the rapture finally comes, but now she's not so sure she truly loves God anymore. She feels like he forced her to murder her daughter. Thus she is doomed to walk in purgatory forever. Are you F-ing kidding me? Based on The Player I would have never guessed Tolkin has some serious issues with religion. This was the strangest screenplay I have ever read. If someone had submitted that to one of my writing classes they would have been thoroughly mocked. I repeat, what the f**k?

The New Age: This one was not quite as bad as The Rapture, but still pretty lame. A rich Hollywood couple is falling out of love while their lives are falling apart around them. The husband quits his job and the wife is having trouble getting business. They want to separate, but can't afford it, so instead they continue to live in the same house while dating other people and, and here's the kicker, OPENING A CLOTHING STORE TOGETHER CALLED HIPOCRACY. What?? Meanwhile they get into spirituality and yoga and Zen shit and get advice from a skeezy seeming guru. Finally it ends when the wife pretends she wants to kill herself and together they take a bunch of sleeping pills... but then it turns out she was only kidding and she's fine and the husband is just really sleepy. WHAT?? So they get a divorce and the husband becomes a telemarketer. Seriously. So yeah, that happened.

[Frank Palardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read one of these around the time of the movie.